Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

Joe and Elie chat with Above the Law Founder David Lat about Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announced retirement. What is Kennedy’s legacy? Where will the Court go from here? And handicapping Kennedy’s potential successors.

Elie and Joe sit down to discuss one of the truly stupid law school final exams in history. Did it cover material that could reasonably come up in future practice? No. Did it require reasoning through currently controlling precedent? No. Was it wildly offensive? Oh, you better believe it was.

Joe and Elie discuss Above the Law's annual ranking of the top law schools in America with ATL Research Director Brian Dalton. There were some major shifts at the top of this year's ranking, and Elie isn't happy about any of them.

Joe and Elie talk to Ellen Trachman, an attorney specializing in all things baby, about artificial insemination, custody conundrums, and how twins can be citizens of different countries.

Milbank surprised everyone this week by boosting associate salaries over their 2016 levels. While we wait to see if others will follow suit, Joe and Elie break down what's happened and what this might mean for the industry at large.

Elie and Joe talk to author and analyst Lisa Green about Trump family nuptials, and some common pitfalls in the asset protection game.

Last time, Elie and Joe tackled a number of audience emails asking for counsel on where they should attend law school. That episode triggered a deluge of follow-up emails from listeners with their own questions, so the guys put their "Decision" hats back on and talked through even more law school scenarios. Can you get to Biglaw from a second-tier school? Have you spread your applications too thin...

Join Elie and Joe as they give tips to prospective law students about where they're thinking about going to law school and offer their advice on it. Offers from Penn and Berkeley? They got thoughts about it.

Elie and Joe chat with Joshua Lenon, Clio Lawyer-in-Residence, about global cybersecurity threats and what lawyers can do about them -- for both themselves and their clients. We also discuss potty training philosophies, so if you're looking for guidance on that, Elie has you covered.

Next week, Above the Law will unveil its comprehensive law firm brand rankings based on an extensive survey of in-house counsel. Joe and Elie sat down with Above the Law Research Director Brian Dalton to talk a little about the ranking and what clients are looking for in a law firm.

Elie and Joe talk to Slate's Jordan Weissman about Trump's plans to change the nature of student debt, how Elie finally paid off his educational debt, and concussions in the NFL. Don't worry, it all fits together.

Bitcoin and its ilk enjoyed a surge in value toward the end of 2017, but the pendulum is always poised to swing back dramatically in this largely unregulated market. Joe and Elie chat with Thornton McEnery of Dealbreaker about the cryptocurrency market, the role of big banks (read: our clients) in the crypto landscape and what's on the horizon in the U.S. and abroad to regulate the market.law lawy...

Roll out the red carpet for the second edition of the Thinking Like A Lawyer annual awards. On this star-studded evening, Joe and Elie honored the best — and by that they mean the worst — of the year in law. We laughed, we cried, it was better than Legally Blonde.

Jonathan Shapiro's career took him from the DOJ, to politics, to writing and producing hit shows from The Practice to The Blacklist to Amazon's Goliath. Along the way he even took a detour back into Biglaw. Joe and Kathryn sit down for a wide-ranging discussion about how a lawyer breaks into Hollywood and how penning lines for James Spader differs from practicing law.

Joe and guest host Kathryn Rubino talk to Jeff Ton of Bluelock about what's on the horizon for 2018. Ransomware attacks, data disasters, robot lawyers... it actually isn't all as bad as that sounds. Lawyers are notoriously behind the times with technology, so take this podcast as your wake up call. These are the obstacles your practice will face and the tools you'll be working with to solve them.

Elie and Joe talk with Above the Law's Kathryn Rubino about the challenges faced by women who go into Biglaw. From the struggle for equitable leave policies to hazing to sexual harassment, the legal industry is fraught with obstacles. Kathryn's new project, The Jabot aims to bring together a community to discuss these and other issues facing women and minorities.

Joe and Elie talk to Cristian Farias about producing a legal podcast non-lawyers listen to, and explaining the Supreme Court to a law audience. 

Joe and Elie talk with Ray English, Career Services Director at Arizona State Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law, about when to start finding a job. (SPOILER ALERT: Now). And how to start finding yourself.

College football is back in all its amazing and absurdist glory. Texas already lost to Maryland?!?! Cam Newton has a little brother?!?! Joe and Elie took advantage of the dawn of another season to examine the ultimate "JD Advantage" job by talking with Shutdown Fullcast co-host and SB Nation contributor Ryan Nanni about college football and how an NYU Law grad transitioned from Biglaw to covering...

Remember the right to vote? That was a fun right, wasn't it? Elie and Joe talk to Professor Rick Hasen about the voting rights and redistricting battles being waged at the nation's highest courts. Also, apparently you can run a whole course on what's wrong with election law by only using examples from North Carolina. Good job Tar Heels.

When Peter Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan's ultimately successful suit against Gawker, he didn't just make every litigation financier look bad, he struck another blow in a systematic war on journalists being waged by the powerful. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, a new documentary by Brian Knappenberger, probes the Hogan case and other assaults on the press featuring interviews with Gawker pri...

Joe and Elie discuss the relatively sleepy Supreme Court Term with Goldstein & Russell's Tejinder Singh. How has Gorsuch changed the Court? How mad can one guy get over a footnote? What's really happening with that travel ban? We get to the bottom of all these questions.

Lost in the shuffle of big headlines at the end the Supreme Court Term was the decision to take on New Jersey's challenge to PASPA, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, otherwise known as the "why you can only bet on sports in Nevada law." But as guest Steve Silver of The Legal Blitz explains, this is a potentially huge state's rights case directly linked to the Shelby County voting...

With Harvard following Arizona's lead and accepting GRE scores in the admissions process, more schools are starting to warm to the exam. But is the GRE really as good as the LSAT? Are schools just doing this as a cash grab at the expense of the profession? Elie thinks the GRE is basically filled out in crayon. Joe thinks it's a perfectly acceptable alternative test. Jeff Thomas of Kaplan Test Prep...

Above the Law unveils its 2017 law school rankings and uncorks a few surprises. Elie and Joe discuss the new rankings, the ATL methodology, and why everyone should consider the Above the Law rankings if they're deciding on law school with special guest Brian Dalton, Above the Law's Director of Research.