About Nancy Henderson
Nancy Henderson is an award-winning journalist who has published hundreds of articles in Smithsonian, The New York Times, Parade, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. The author of Sewing Hope and Able! How One Company’s Extraordinary Workforce Changed the Way We Look at Disability Today, she enjoys breaking stereotypes and often writes about people who are making a difference through their work. Over the years, she’s enjoyed listening to family stories about her grandfather, who prosecuted cases as a solicitor general in North Carolina long before she was born.
Articles written by Nancy Henderson
Matter of Life & Death
How Mark Henricksen got into the murder business “kind of by accident”Oklahoma City trial attorney Mark Henricksen was making a phone call from his bedroom on a Thursday night in 2004 when he heard gunshots. Before he could investigate, the door to his room swung open and he was shot three times: once in his stomach and in each of his legs. For the next 13 hours, the invaders held him hostage, along with a friend at his home, whom they had also shot and then hog-tied. At one point, Henricksen handed over the few hundred dollars in his wallet and two of the …
Legal Options to Fight Wage Theft
Protecting your paycheck in New YorkWage theft—the unfair practice of withholding pay from employees, often by not paying minimum wage or overtime—affects millions of workers to the tune of billions of dollars in the U.S. each year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In New York, it’s so widespread that in 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a crackdown that includes a hotline for victims to report violations. In 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. launched a new department to pursue criminal charges …
Can I Sue My Landlord?
New York lawyers discuss how, why, and potential alternativesMitchell Zingman recalls the distraught client who, after cultivating an enclosed garden for 30 years at her Manhattan apartment—with full permission from the owners—found the entire thing bulldozed to the ground one day by the daughter who’d inherited the place and had her own plans for the land. “I sued the landlord, arguing that after all those years, that garden was part of her lease,” says Zingman, a real estate litigator and founder of Zingman & Associates. “Particularly …
Wide Open Spaces
Four attorneys on why they love their rural practicesWhen Brian Elkins visits his hometown of Priest Lake, Idaho, he prefers to forgo the winding, 10-hour drive north from his practice in Ketchum and instead fly a small plane over the rugged mountains and deep canyons of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area, so named for the days when boats were unable to navigate the fast-moving current upstream. Each summer, the criminal defense attorney can be found paddling the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, and in winter, he often skis Bald …
The Climate Change Challenge
How businesses can save the environment as well as their bottom linesWhile designing a 400-unit residential development on the booming Boston waterfront, the architects and civil engineer came up with a unique way to protect it from rising water levels caused by increasingly severe coastal storms. “A portion of the building, the part that sits lowest to the ground and closest to the water, is designed to be floodable without affecting the occupancy of the units in the rest of the building,” says Matthew Kiefer, a land use attorney at Goulston & Storrs …
The Next Generations
Jay and Leah Edelstein carry on the tradition of Nathan and EdwardTo young Leah Edelstein, her grandfather Edward was simply a “goofy, lovable guy” who collected Mickey Mouse curios and was delighted when she wore her Minnie Mouse dress during visits. “It was not until his funeral, when I was about 15 years old, that I turned around and saw that there was a line of people literally wrapped around the block to pay tribute to him,” Leah says. “It was in that moment that it hit me: ‘Wow, this is a really big deal.’” The Edelsteins still are. Now …
Veteran Lawyer
The many stories of former JAG officer Joel Collins would fill a book—and they doLike many young men during the Vietnam War era, Joel Collins needed a plan. “What I wanted to do was go into the JAG Corps, because if I went to Vietnam, that would probably have been the end of me,” says Collins, 79, founding partner of Collins & Lacy in Columbia. “That would’ve put me in the front lines of combat.” He grew up in Chester, enrolled in ROTC in high school, skipped his senior year thanks to stellar SAT scores, then earned a U.S. Army infantry commission upon …
Justice for the Most Despised Among Us
Greg Kuykendall fights for his death row clients—and winsGreg Kuykendall still remembers the screaming and the blood. While studying abroad at the Universidad de Cádiz in Spain, Kuykendall went to a bullfight. Afterward, he found himself in the room where the dead animal was being quartered and weighed according to local custom. “There was blood all over the floor, and there were all these reporters shouting out at the people cutting up the bull,” he recalls. “I just thought, ‘Jesus Christ, everything’s in technicolor all of a …
Manning of the People
Fearlessness fuels the fast-talking Matt ManningIn his second year at the University of Toledo College of Law, Matt Manning participated in what he calls a March Madness-style moot court tournament in which he represented a fictional mayor dubbed Captain Hook against an opponent defending the parents of Peter Pan—whose band of juvenile delinquent buddies had violated the city’s curfew. “No, I did not win,” says the 36-year-old personal injury, criminal defense and civil rights attorney in Corpus Christi. “Depending on who you ask, …
Legal Insights for Natural Disasters: Navigating Insurance Challenges
Advice from insurance coverage attorneys for when disaster strikesThe last thing Floridians had on their minds in late September 2022, with Hurricane Ian bearing down on their state, was exactly how much their insurers would pay if their homes sustained damage from wind as opposed to water. But attorneys who focus on insurance claims say those are exactly the kinds of nuanced details you should nail down before disaster strikes, not in post-disaster mayhem. Disaster Preparedness in the New Reality of Extreme Weather Events From tornadoes and hailstorms to …
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