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Above the Law's Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2014

What were the 10 biggest stories about the legal profession in 2014, according to readers of Above the Law?

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Are you looking forward to 2015? Some have predicted that it will be an exciting time for the legal profession. Let’s hope that they’re right.

To be honest, 2014 was not a huge year for our corner of the world. The list of finalists for our 2014 Lawyer of the Year contest is smaller and less impressive than the 2013 slate. Heck, even the entries in our (still ongoing) holiday card contest are a bit disappointing.

Still, Above the Law’s traffic grew by almost 20 percent in 2014 over 2013, so something must have happened, right? We’ll share with you the 10 biggest stories at ATL over the past year — an annual tradition we’ve done in 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009.

Before turning to individual news stories, let’s look at the top general discussion topics here at ATL. Leading the way: our second annual law school rankings. We are pleased and proud to help prospective law students make better, more informed decisions about where to enroll. And we’re happy to help introduce some healthy competition into the law firm rankings business.

Next up in terms of traffic generation: the category page for Biglaw, which beat out the category page for Law Schools for the second year in a row. As I suggested last year, this reflects a shift in focus from the “don’t go to law school” story line — a dead horse that got turned into glue a long time ago — and towards the changing legal profession. Law firms are arguably where the action’s at right now — especially when it comes to Bonuses, the next most-popular category page.

Here are our top 10 individual stories for 2014,[1] in ascending order of popularity, measured in pageviews as reported by Google Analytics. Click on the title of each post to be taken to the original story. Note that pageviews do not necessarily match up with importance or seriousness. You won’t see any mention of Hobby Lobby or other notable Supreme Court rulings on this list (although 2014 wasn’t exactly a blockbuster SCOTUS year). Also not on the list is the tragic death — and still unsolved murder — of Professor Dan Markel, a matter that we should not forget as we move into the new year.

10. Judge Posner’s Blistering Benchslaps At The Same-Sex Marriage Arguments. Marriage equality is sweeping the nation — and it might become the law of the land depending on what action the U.S. Supreme Court takes on the cert petitions in same-sex marriage cases now pending before it. While you wait, amuse yourself by listening to the brilliant Judge Richard Posner take apart the arguments (and hapless advocates) against marriage equality.

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9. This Lawyer Just Wrote The Best Smackdown Letter You’ll See Today. Who says discovery isn’t fun? It can be, when a small-firm lawyer gets medieval on some Kirkland & Ellis a**.

8. Porn Star Passes Most Difficult Bar Exam In The Country. While California bar exam scores were going down, so was she — in more ways than one….

7. The 2014 U.S. News Job Rankings: Being A Lawyer Is Worse Than Being A Nail Technician. Check out some of the other careers that beat out lawyering, including “Maintenance/Repair Worker” and “Massage Therapist.”

6. You Must Watch Dogs Reenact Supreme Court Arguments Right Now. Who let the dogs out — and allowed them to take the bench at One First Street? If you haven’t already watched, stop what you’re doing and click through to the amazing video.

5. Bonus Season Comes Early! (And It’s Not Cravath — It’s Simpson). Sure, Davis Polk is getting name-checked a lot because the Davis Polk scale has (mostly) carried the day in Biglaw. But let’s give a warm round of applause to Simpson Thacher for having the guts to take the lead, announcing bonuses before the usual suspect of Cravath, and for setting the bonus bar so high.

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4. Lawyers Really Class It Up In This Insane ‘Save The Date’ Video. There’s not much to be said about this amazing “save the date” for the wedding of a Weil Gotshal associate and a small-firm lawyer, which is done in the style of a music video or movie trailer. Just watch it — and wonder how much it cost to produce.

3. The U.S. News 2015 Law School Rankings Are Here: Smell The Prestige. Our own law school rankings here at Above the Law continue to grow in prominence and influence, but let’s face it: U.S. News is still the Big Kahuna (for now).

2. The Biggest Bar Exam Disaster Ever? ExamSoft Makes Everyone’s Life Hard. For thousands of bar exam takers around the country this past July, technological problems with the ExamSoft platform turned a normally stressful and unpleasant process into a living hell. The company’s ham-handed and tone-deaf response to this major crisis didn’t help matters, and now ExamSoft is facing litigation.

1. Shirtless Wade McCree May Be Heading To The Supreme Court. The scandal-prone former judge, infamous for taking shirtless selfies and having sex in chambers, once bragged that there’s “no shame in my game” — and that’s certainly true when it comes to pageview generation. After the extremely well-trafficked Drudge Report linked to our write-up on McCree’s latest woes, it shot up the list to become our most well-read story of the year.

So there you have it: the 10 most popular stories of 2014. If you have a favorite Above the Law story from the past year that didn’t crack the top ten, please feel free to give it a mention in the comments.

And now for a brief programming note: Since Thursday is the federal holiday for New Year’s Day, we won’t be publishing much (if at all) between now and Friday, January 2 (although we might do some tweeting). Happy New Year, and we’ll see you in 2015!

[1] For purposes of this listing, intended to serve as a look back at 2014’s biggest stories, we excluded posts published in prior years that racked up major traffic in 2014 — e.g., Cam Girl Pleasures Herself In A Top Law School’s Library.

Earlier: Above the Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2013
Above the Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2012
Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2011
Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2010
Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009

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