Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

Law firm fires lawyer over Kirk comments and law school announces new scholarships. ----- Perkins Coie cut ties with an attorney over Charlie Kirk comments on social media. The remarks were measured and reasonable, but the firm is still fighting the Trump administration in court and -- seemingly -- does not want any distractions or mere appearance of bias. But is that a worthy excuse? A Pillsbury...

Compare and contrast as ACB and Sotomayor ride (media) circuit. ----- Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor are both hitting the talk shows and it's highlighting how awkward the nation's relationship with the Supreme Court really is. Barrett went on Fox and accurately stated that the Constitution prohibits Trump running for a third term. Then the host offered a "wink wink" prompt and she started b...

Law school is more expensive than it used to be... but barely more expensive! ----- Federal judges have had to deal with more and more threats from conservatives whipped into up by the Trump administration rhetoric blasting judges blocking illegal executive orders, only to be unceremoniously overruled by the Supreme Court. Last week, multiple judges called out the Republican justices for issuing u...

The Department of Justice is having a rough time getting those trumped up charges (pun intended) from the fed's takeover of D.C. to stick. Plus lawyer getting slammed for trying to use opposing counsel's premature baby as leverage. And infamous law professor Amy Wax has her legal case against University of Pennsylvania thrown out of court, but it's unlikely to be the end of her antics.

We know where some of those pro bono payola hours are going. ----- Be prepared to be on the clock a lot longer at King & Spalding, where the firm has introduced a 2400 hour “productive” time target. In other words, attorneys will have to figure out how to describe 2400 hours worth of work to the firm’s billing software every year. This seems to follow the overarching retreat from the work from hom...

Law firms get some worrying numbers from last quarter. ----- The new D.C. folk hero who threw a sandwich at Trump's surge publicity stunt turned out to be a DOJ attorney. He's been fired because this administration will not stand for disrespecting law enforcement... unless they're trying to kill Capitol police officers on January 6. Meanwhile, the legal industry enjoyed a muted quarter. Are they p...

Milbank delighted with special summer bonuses, ranging from $6-25 thousand, for associates. And that's great for them! But where are all the matches? We have a theory on when associates at other firms will be able to cash in. There was some fishiness (now resolved) with the constitution on congress's website. Which, honestly, should be more shocking than it is. Biglaw partner lateral moves are all...

And Coldplay and pierogis. ----- A woman went into cardiac arrest during the New York bar exam. Thankfully, the administrators responded swiftly. JUST KIDDING! They yelled at other examinees to be quiet and keep working on the test while they deliberated about calling for emergency assistance, according to multiple witnesses. The woman survived, but the bar exam's unwillingness to admit its mistak...

Get it together, people! ----- It was a very bad week for lawyers and hallucinations. A federal judge had to withdraw an opinion with fake cites. One Biglaw firm fired a partner over an invented case, while another firm got tossed off a case over AI shenanigans. And the scribe of Ashurbanipal got mercilessly trolled by a judge pointing out that his fake AI cite apology included... another fake cit...

Lots to chew on this week. ----- Biglaw summer associate let go after biting upwards of 15 people at the firm. Now that sounds crazy, but that's because it is. We also discuss a lawyer's biting response to a demand letter. A lot of the professional decorum advocates objected to the tone, but at a certain point how does the profession pushback against aggressive and unfounded demands without public...

Law firm mergers and John Roberts brags for the crowd. ----- Has the era of the mid-sized firm come to an end? Probably not, but with increasing nationalization and the financial pressures that go along with it, mid-sized firms are consolidating and a valuable segment (and price point!) may be lost. Lawyers have faced a steady stream of sanctions for citing fake cases generated by AI, but now a ju...

The Term ended with a whole lot of nonsense. ----- Taking a sledgehammer where a chisel -- or better yet nothing -- would do, the Supreme Court nixed injunctions it didn't like by striking down the power to issue universal injunctions totally and addressed schools teaching that gay people exist by expanding strict scrutiny to parents lodging religious complaints. But at least they whined and took...

And the Supreme Court has a wild one. ----- Except those judges aren't going to like it when you catch them. Like the poor lawyer here who called a judge "honey" during oral argument and entered a spiral of no return. We also had a dramatic week at the Supreme Court, with Justice Gorsuch trying to start something with Justice Jackson and Justice Jackson shutting it right down, and Sam Alito using...

Also, the role of bar associations in 2025. ----- According to a new survey, lawyers think their law firms are really tolerant of jerks. Are they right about that, or just overly sensitive? The DC Bar election ended in a blowout, but why? For all the complaining about some wild theories on social media, the simpler reason is that leading a bar association in 2025 means standing up to the administr...

Caving law firms experience exodus. ----- Paul Weiss fancied itself clever when it offered Trump pro bono payola in exchange for dropping an illegal executive order. Instead it keeps hemorrhaging senior lawyers with more departing to join the recent rainmaker spinoff and associates reportedly high on the new firm's wish list. While litigators are largely driving defections from surrender firms, at...

Quite the combination of words. ----- Lawsuit against former Texas SG alleges bizarre cosmic sex fetish. The administration made two significant changes to the judicial nomination process, firing the ABA from its neutral evaluator role and kicking the Federalist Society to the curb. The latter move came with an epic rant declaring Leonard Leo a sleazebag. Broken clocks and all. And Kash Patel lays...

From the administrative state to voting rights, they're just sort of winging it trying to reverse engineer results. ----- As Supreme Court season hits fever pitch, we're joined by Professor Leah Litman, author of Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes, to discuss the nightmare we're facing. Elena Kagan took the opportunity to humiliate her col...

Seashellgate meets Surrendergate. ----- Since we're cursed to act as keepers of the flame to remind the legal community that several large law firms really did willingly sell out to the Trump administration, this week we discuss our columnist Vivia Chen's exploration of the unique impact of these moves on young lawyers learning early that Biglaw is more than happy to throw them under the bus. We a...

What if we just act like nothing happened? ----- Biglaw firms who gave in to Trump suffered a scathing 60 Minutes piece and key talent defections, so they've decided upon a new tactic: pretending they never made a deal at all! It does not appear to be working. Meanwhile, Justice David Souter died reminding everyone of an era when the federal judiciary cared more about the right answer than appeasi...

It was a bad week to compromise your values. ----- Perkins Coie secured a permanent injunction against the Trump administration's retaliatory executive order. Meanwhile, firms that balked at putting up a fight against the illegal attacks have seen the White House drag them into police brutality cases and law schools start openly talking about students taking their talents elsewhere. And then the h...

The arrest of Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan is straight outta dystopian fiction. But at least retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer still has faith in the system, which makes one of us. Speaking of the High Court, Justice Sam Alito's dissent would be laughable if he weren't so powerful.

And the world continues to melt. ----- We've got key financial data from the top law firms and the takeaway is that it's good to be a big firm. The Am Law 100 this year revealed that more and more firms have joined the super rich and things look bright for Biglaw. Unless someone triggers a global depression or something. We also discuss what it means to be "bipartisan" in an environment where the...

US News and World Report released its most recent law school rankings with a side of chaos, but the big takeaway is the scrambling and erosion of the "T14" as an organizing concept. Is it time to dismiss the rankings as arbitrary? At least until law schools agree to cooperate again. Also, Surrendergate continues and the "we'll do some pro bono for veterans" deal has turned dramatically, with the W...

And now we have a tracker for that! ----- After a few weeks of watching some law firms stand up to facially illegal demands from the Trump administration... and more law firms rapidly cave to those same demands, we put together a helpful tracker to keep clients, potential laterals, and law students fully aware of where firms currently stand. But we depend on you out there to keep us up-to-date! Me...

A great divide is developing. ----- Following the Paul Weiss surrender we discussed last week, Skadden preemptively followed suit agreeing to commit $100M in pro bono payola to the MAGA cause. Bringing to light some embarrassing email policies in the process. But other Biglaw firms showed a little more life, with Jenner & Block and WilmerHale suing the administration over its retaliatory executive...