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
When and How To Do an Internal Investigation
Conflict between employers and employees is common. For businesses and organizations, a proactive approach to handling any employment law dispute can make an enormous difference. Employers should never underestimate the importance of properly conducted internal investigations. The following provides insights for businesses considering an internal investigation after current or former employee complaints, government inquiries, or allegations of misconduct. For more information about conducting a …
My Land, Your Land
Five attorneys tell their stories of immigrating to the U.S.After visiting the U.S. as a tourist at a young age, Jazmin Alagha distinctly recalls jumping up and down on the bed with her sisters in Guanajuato, Mexico, pretending they could speak English. “We would just say gibberish [that meant], ‘One day, we’re going to live in the U.S.,’” she says. “My parents had their own business and their own home, so at the time it seemed completely far-fetched that one day we would leave it all behind.” The siblings’ talk wasn’t so unlikely …
Heart of a Lawyer
Jon Spiers brings surgical precision to healthcare lawThe first time he removed a patient’s damaged heart in a transplant operation, Jon Spiers felt both a rush of adrenaline and the gravity of the situation. “It will put you in your place if you’re not humble,” says the Houston healthcare attorney and former cardiac surgeon. “The cavity is not that big in itself, but you’re looking at a hole six feet deep if you don’t fill it.” As an avid bookworm who grew up in a small farm town in Georgia, Spiers read about a revolutionary heart …
Shouldering the Load
For Anitha Kumpati, pro bono immigration work is spiritual satisfactionJust a few months after she passed the Texas Bar in 2017, Anitha Kumpati took on a pro bono case: A Rwandan teacher, determined to educate his students about the country’s human rights atrocities, was arrested. Luckily, friends in the U.S. helped him get a visitor visa, and he fled. Shortly after meeting him through American Gateways—a Central Texas nonprofit that pairs willing attorneys with immigrants and refugees who have survived political persecution, torture and human …
Family First
Between Suzie’s estate planning practice, Jay’s DUI defense shop, and three kids, keeping up with the Tiftickjians is no easy taskOne morning last fall, Suzie Tiftickjian had no sooner hunkered down in her home office after the weeklong quarantine of her 11-year-old son Mark than the phone rang. Five-year-old Audrey was sick and needed to be picked up from school. “I recognized that it’s going to be a day that I don’t get a lot done, and the next day I’ll power through,” says the estate planning attorney, 49, a marathon runner with a knack for organization and time management. “There will be days where …
Legal Tips If You're Considering Joining a Union
In 2021, a small group of nurses who for years had been left out of the larger bargaining unit at Stanford Hospital, did what more and more disgruntled healthcare workers across the nation are doing, or at least considering: Exercising their employee rights, they held a formal election and joined a union to fight for protections against unjust termination and for better scheduling and pay. “I think those nurses did it right,” says B.J. Chisholm, managing partner at Altshuler Berzon in …
Providence Over Coincidence
Paul Sinclair’s life and practice are guided by his LDS church principlesAlmost three decades ago, while preparing for his first major case as a labor and employment lawyer, Paul Sinclair stared at the boxes and boxes of evidence, interrogatories and other documents and wondered, Is this what litigation is? Later, as he listened to testimony in the discrimination suit against his corporate client, it became obvious that both sides were too emotionally charged to budge. “I realized that when I’m sitting down in a deposition with the plaintiffs, there could be two …
Direct Connection
How Jerry Glas develops his rapport with juriesBy the time John Jerry Glas got the call last spring, the pipeline owner was desperate to find an attorney willing to take a breach-of-contract case against one of the largest oil companies in the world. “My old law firm of 20 years dropped us like a hot potato because the money ran out,” says Dale Behan, who with wife Linda co-owns Lindale Pipeline, a self-described mom-and-pop operation in Texas. Other lawyers had turned them down as well. A few phone conversations later, Glas, chair of …
The Adrenaline of Breaking News
Why Amy Rao Mohan traded journalistic objectivity for legal advocacyFor one of her first assignments as a TV reporter in Lansing, Michigan, Amy Rao Mohan got permission to spend 24 hours in the county jail to interview the women there. “That was an eye-opening experience for me,” says Mohan, 41, now a business litigator at Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison in Nashville. “I really connected with them and had a lot in common with them, which I wouldn’t have suspected beforehand. I was able to tell their stories.” Mohan’s interest in journalism took …
When Does Taxation Need Legal Representation?
You’ve launched your business and hired a CPA, so you don’t need a tax attorney unless the IRS comes calling, right? Not necessarily. Waiting for a problem to arise might mean you’re waiting too long. “The time to bring in a tax attorney is early on in the discussion,” says Andrew Hochberg, who manages tax, probate and estate planning at Tamkin & Hochberg in Newton. “If you’re setting up an executive compensation program, you want your tax attorney to analyze and to …
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