Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

Why do professors think everyone has to personally experience the facts to understand the law? ----- Hardcore porn shows up in a law school lecture. You know, the rest of us managed to learn the relevant standards for obscenity laws within the context of the First Amendment without visual aides. Also, Diddy's lawyers forgot how track changes works with embarrassing results. And Judge Aileen Cannon...

Is bigger better? ----- Law firms are merging like crazy with announcement after announcement after announcement. What's driving this big push and is this just going to be the way of the future? Also a judge invites us to meet the new racist, same as the old racist and we discuss the next must have for anyone taking depositions.

This week's episode of Thinking Like A Lawyer is all about the wild decisions made by federal judges. First up is a Trump judge doing Trump judge things -- but don't tell him that. There's a Ninth Circuit judge that keeps using his dissents to make political stump speeches, much to the chagrin of his colleagues. And the Second Circuit comes out against libraries, because we live in the dumbest tim...

It's not so easy to bring everyone back. ----- Latham announced a new 4-day office work week, bucking the 3-day consensus, but attorneys are wondering where they plan to put everybody. Meanwhile Milbank is so eager to get to work that they're inviting first-years to start early. Another firm joins the non-equity partner ranks, and the DOJ files an antitrust case with some of the hottest docs ever.

Just because you can make an argument, doesn't mean you should. ----- Disney's lawyers made headlines last week, but not the good kind like you want. After lawyers argued that a free trial to Disney+ required a wrongful death suit to move to forced arbitration, we wondered how everyone from outside to inside counsel dropped the ball here. Immediately after recording, Disney backtracked. Also, is S...

Milbank is leading the associate compensation charge -- again -- with summer bonuses. The associate there must be thrilled... Unlike DLA Piper's associates. That firm changed course on office attendance and it's going over like a lead balloon. Elon Musk also changed course, because when he told advertisers to go F themselves he really meant, "if you don't do what I want you to do I'll sue you."

Talking Supreme Court term limits (they're good!), bar exams (they're bad!), and a law professor's conception of free speech (it's ugly!). ----- The bar exam is officially past, now we wait to learn passed. This year's examination included dehydrating applicants and examinees missing out on their family's Olympic success. While bar exam changes are coming -- and law students can get paid to help -...

Should we pay associates more and partners less? That's what this client thinks. Nikki Haley is threatening legal action against her supporters. Top notch politicking! Panel thinks that, maybe, a NY judge who threatened to shoot teenagers shouldn't stay on the job.

J.D. Vance brought Yale Law back into the spotlight. ----- As soon as J.D. Vance found himself on the GOP ticket, everyone who remembered him from his Yale Law days shared their thoughts and brought out their receipts. “JD’s rise is a triumph for angry jerks everywhere,” isn't a ringing endorsement. The campaign also tried to pull a fast one with some tricky phrasing about his time on the Yale Law...

They're not sending their best. ----- The Department of Justice has appointed special counsel to investigate politically charged cases for over a century. But Judge Aileen Cannon decided she has found a nugget of wisdom that every judge since the late 1800s overlooked and jettisoned Trump's classified documents case claiming that Jack Smith's was unconstitutionally appointed. Another of Trump's ap...

Where are those summer bonuses? Don't give up hope yet. ----- Law firms are rolling in dough as partners are charging more and billing more. But comparing Biglaw to the NBA? Come on, New York Times. Despite all the money, it's not trickling down to associates in the form of mass summer bonuses yet, though there may still be some green on the horizon. And why are certain people so angry about testi...

Textualism and Originalism evaporate in face of partisan objectives. ----- The Supreme Court closed out its season sidestepping text, precedent, and history -- the trifecta! -- to invent a new form of immunity to bail out Donald Trump. Weird, because so many of them were asked about this precise issue under oath and offered very different analysis. We also got January 6 legalized -- over the fiery...

Also, the Supreme Court's really sticking it to the Fifth Circuit. ----- We've got a few firms dipping into the summer bonus pool. But so far the pack hasn't followed them into the water. The Supreme Court continues to shoot down the Fifth Circuit, recognizing that politicians can't use false arrests to squelch free speech and using the Circuit to exorcise -- just a little -- their Second Amendmen...

We talk about finding the right law school for you, and wonder how deep the SCOTUS drama goes. ----- The Above the Law Top 50 Law Schools ranking is here and this year it's putting power in the hands of the users. Meanwhile at the Supreme Court, ACB tells her colleagues that not every legal problem is a job for bad history. Sam and Martha-Ann Alito release Unplugged album, and it only took a matte...

Except ATM machines have limits. ----- When ProPublica first reported that Clarence Thomas had taken half a million in gifts, it turns out they had only scratched the surface. New financial disclosures and some number-crunching from Fix the Court show that Thomas has taken over $5 million in gifts and likely gifts. Meanwhile, Ketanji Brown Jackson got roughly Beyonce tickets with a roughly $4000 f...

The Trump conviction excuse tour is not going well for his attorneys. ----- Donald Trump is now a convicted felon and everyone wants to know why his attorneys phoned in the defense. They... don't have good answers. At all. Continuing the Trump beat, Judge Aileen Cannon continued to display a delicate mix of cynical obstinance and outright incompetence, slow-playing a motion to keep Trump from publ...

An appeal to common sense is denied. ----- You might have thought flying a flag upside after January 6 would be the only "Sam Alito w/10 flag" story of the week, but you'd be wrong. The justice followed it up with another flag tied to the riots and got appropriately roasted over it all by Elena Kagan. Biglaw always paid well, but with partners crossing the $20 million compensation barrier, the str...

Now, this is a story all about how Sam Alito's wife got flipped-turned upside down. ----- Sam Alito flew his flag upside down in the aftermath of the insurrection. He doesn't deny that, but he blames his wife for it. Dames, amirite? Aside from the obvious ethical issues implicated by having a Supreme Court justice visibly light in the "defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and do...

Trump's attorneys seems as asleep at the switch as their client. ----- Having called Stormy Daniels a liar repeatedly in its opening, the Trump defense team was then shocked and appalled that the prosecution elicited testimony to rehabilitate her credibility. The hits didn't stop there as they attempted to get out of the mess they'd landed in by sex shaming someone whose sexuality is their whole b...

Donald Trump, Drake, And James Ho... punchlines write themselves. ----- Donald Trump's trial shenanigans continue. Is he going to violate the gag order again? It seems inevitable but... our prediction might shock you! But even if his unfiltered "Truthing" is behind him, there are so many other ways to show contempt of court. And a busy week in Morningside Heights as Columbia Law School students as...

The New York courtroom where Donald Trump is on trial is apparently unpleasant. Is that the former president's doing? The world may never know. Also, the fact that the racists are coming for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson isn't surprising -- but who gave them the green light? And, a judge learns a valuable lesson about hot mics and why you should always assume someone is listening.

Let's see if it pays off as well as a billionaire covering up an affair. ----- Donald Trump's hush money trial kicks off after a week of Trump alienating everyone involved in the process by refusing to respect basic decorum and attempting to skirt the gag order by arguing that RTs aren't endorsements. The Am Law 100 is also out and we talk through some of the key takeaways and Judge Ho tried to de...

We continue breaking down the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings and the chaos that its new methodology introduced. And we know exactly who to blame for breaking these rankings. Elon Musk recently went in for a deposition defended by Quinn Emanuel's Alex Spiro and earned a motion for sanctions. And a Berkeley Law protest goes viral, but all the "free speech" talk misses the mark.

Haphazard ranking serves as a reminder that service hasn't quite found the right formula after law schools started withdrawing their data.  _______________ The full U.S. News & World Report law school rankings are out and they are... something. Duke is tied with Harvard? NYU nearly drops out of the top 10? Are we just hurling darts at a dartboard here? In a sense, yes. At least ever since law scho...

Breaking down the action-packed final week of March. ___________ Special guest Liz Dye joins us to talk about the week that was. First, we delve into the abortion pill oral argument where even most of the conservatives scoffed at the right-wing effort to let an Amarillo courthouse second-guess the FDA on science. Almost as though the Chief Justice just tried to crack down on that practice. But alo...