Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

Courts, law firms, and bar exams, oh my!

Obviously Trump's biggest mistake with ACB involved causing a White House superspreader event, but we didn't know that when we recorded this week's show. So we spend some time talking about his other mistake -- nominating ACB before the election and giving "never Trumpers" everything they want and leaving them with zero incentive to reelect him. We also discuss the wave of Fall bonuses among Bigla...

A conversation with Neal Katyal about the late justice.

What was a nice trickle has turned into a tsunami. Law firms are falling over themselves to hand out big time bonuses to associates to show the world how they've weathered COVID. And yet some firms are being forced to admit that they aren't able to keep up with the Biglaw Joneses. Speaking of Joneses, we also check in on a Jones Day associate likely bound for the federal bench despite all normal r...

Professor Rick Hasen of UCI Law and the Election Law Blog joins us to talk all things election. Following up on his new book Election Meltdown we cover dangerous media expectations, vote-by-mail rules, how ballots are processed, the "Blue Shift" and the impact COVID is having on an already strained election system.

One of America's most venerable legal institutions has fallen into rank buffoonery and it's genuinely tragic to watch. From Bill Barr declaring racism over -- except on college campuses -- to a stumbling effort to get Michael Flynn out of his own sworn testimony, Joe is joined by ATL and Wonkette columnist Liz Dye to discuss what's gone wrong over there. And we check in on Kyle Rittenhouse's legal...

If you watched the Republican National Convention, you heard a lot of coverage about the Hatch Act and the constant stream of violations occurring on live television. But does anyone really care about this? Maybe more to the point, is the law so over broad that it's blunted its own impact? We also check in on Yale Law School where a prominent professor is suspended for two years after an internal...

Examinees across the pond give us a preview of the October exam process by urinating in bottles as proctors refuse to allow bathroom breaks. In case you were wondering if the bar exam fiasco could get any worse, there's your answer. Meanwhile Kirkland & Ellis faces a new discrimination suit, and we chat about the Supreme Court and the election a little bit.

As law schools return, one student gets a stern warning about a COVID kegger, law firms get a new ranking, and an unqualified judge issues the sort of baseless decision that landed him on the bench in the first place. A rundown of the week that was in legal news.

America's bar examination authorities have turned to threatening Character & Fitness repercussions for their critics marking a new, darker phase of the bar exam drama. How in the world did it come to this? Also, we talk about Kanye's double agent attorney and PACER gets a slap from the federal courts.

It may be too early to declare the legal profession back to normal, but we've now seen some major law firms reverse course on cost cutting and even announce some bonuses. Meanwhile, it took all of a couple hours for the in-person bar exam experiment to net its first positive COVID test.

Multiple states are going forward with the test this week. Good luck to everyone.

This week, Joe chats with Dr. Pilar Escontrias, Donna Saadati-Soto, Efrain Hudnell, and Emily Croucher, co-founders of United for Diploma Privilege. Follow them @DiplomaPriv4All.

The Supreme Court year is finally over.

It was an eventful week in legal news, but the biggest story was definitely the St. Louis personal injury attorneys who pulled guns on protesters and why lawyers have special obligations to maintain professionalism at all times. All that and more of the major stories of the week.

A new account compiles the acts of racism that compound at Harvard Law School, but they could emanate from almost any law school. We take a look at this account and the response of law schools around the country to recent events, including one law school that's taking an aggressive anti-racism stance. Also, we discuss Neomi Rao's Michael Flynn opinion which left a lot to be desired as a work of pr...

A decidedly conservative Supreme Court made discrimination against the LGBTQ community illegal and then turned around and wiped out the Trump Administration's effort to cancel DACA. What was in the water last week? Joe and Kathryn break down why the opinions weren't nearly as revolutionary as the results they brought might make them seem.

With an independent report by a federal judge branding the Department of Justice "corrupt" this seems like a good time to revisit exactly how we got here. Your elderly aunt on Facebook has a lot to say about Michael Flynn and most of it is wrong. Joe and Kathryn unpack the case and also discuss the case of a lawyer who egged a judge's car.

As law firms struggle to demonstrate to clients and their own attorneys that they take societal ills seriously, Kathryn's starting to notice some patterns in the statements getting released. Meanwhile, Joe is covering the state bar exams, where many are continuing to insist on shoving hundreds of people into small rooms in July and making applicants sign away their rights for the privilege of expo...

Lawyers are pulling guns over facemasks? That... seems excessive. But here we are staring into the COVID abyss again. Austerity measures continue throughout the industry, lawyers are getting edgy, and a new assault on "the law that built the internet" issues from the White House.

Joe speaks with David Ackert, host of The Market Leaders Podcast about the role of business development in the legal profession. Lawyers may not love the hustle, but it's the basis of a service industry and lawyers at every level have a role to play in building their future opportunities. And it's not just a challenge for attorneys -- firms need to build a culture that maximizes respect for attorn...

Things are still closed down, which means we've not had an opportunity to haunt the halls of an event center with the usual legal community suspects for a while, so let's see what's going on out there. It's time to catch up with Keith Lee, founder of LawyerSmack, about the private community of lawyers he's built up over the years and the trends he's observed participating in these conversations wi...

Joe chats with Johnnie Nguyen, the National Chair of the ABA Law Student Division about the wide-ranging issues facing law students in the midst of the pandemic and how the ABA is addressing those concerns.

The legal industry can still get together to learn and socialize.

Trellis is turning the state court system into something lawyers can really use.