Above the Law

Tracking Biglaw Bonuses And War Crimes — See Generally

Bonus Tracker Season Officially Begins: Clear your calendars, mute your partners, and keep refreshing — the market has opinions and associates have spreadsheets.

Military’s New GenAI Knows A War Crime When It Sees One: Pete Hegseth’s new toy immediately doubleclicked on why you can’t double tap.

Federal Judge Who Allegedly Ignored Court Orders Now Allegedly Ignoring Court Ethics: Emil Bove remains consistent!

The Time For Persuasion Is Over: Justice Sotomayor had the administration by the throat, but opted to try to convince the majority to see reason when the nation is well past that point.

Global Biglaw Merger Discovers Divorce Is Also An Option: The once-trumpeted international tie-up is quietly preparing to go its separate ways, proving synergy is temporary but regret is forever.

Firm Beats Trump In Court, Loses To Office Attendance Policy: After defeating executive overreach, the firm turned inward and mandated more face time with the copy machine.

Professor Sues After Discovering Free Speech Has Conditions: Retaliation over comments about Charlie Kirk heads to federal court, where irony enjoys strong venue selection.

Since When Can Presidents Do That? — See Also

President Trump Pardons Election Denier For State Crimes: What part of Federalism is this?

See If You Can Catch All Of The Issues With Trump’s AI Executive Order: Who said issue spotters were just a law school thing!

Mega Merger Alert!: Winston & Strawn and Taylor Wessing are in tie-up talks.

At This Firm The Market Is The Floor!: Associates at Axinn are making bank!

Elon Thinks Any Regulation Is Censorship: That’s not at all what the fine for violating the Digital Services Act is doing.

Judge Mandates Breakfast Break During Immigration Hearing: ICE drove someone in custody 7 hours without feeding them.

Stat(s) Of The Week: New Study Reveals Gender Ambition Gap

An uneven playing field may make women less ambitious at work.

Lawyers Should Avoid Using Work Computers For Personal Tasks

Lawyers should act like everything they do on a work device will be reviewed by managers.

Take Our Law Firm Compensation Survey!

If you are an attorney working in a small or midsize firm, we want to hear from you.

Brown Rudnick’s Global Life Sciences Practice Group Co-Leaders Outline The Opportunities Defining Today’s Market

These Biglaw partners have the scoop on the trends -- and trouble spots -- every market player should be preparing for in life sciences work.

Biglaw Voltron, Assemble! Winston & Strawn And Taylor Wessing Explore Combining Into One Even Bigger Firm

Biglaw is basically just collecting Pokémon now.

Firm That Shocked The Market On Salaries Unveils Bonuses With Massive Bumps Up To $240,000

Market bonuses are the merely the base for associates at the firm - - they have the potential to earn much more.

Morning Docket: 12.12.25

* DOJ flops in third effort to properly indict Tish James. Only two more and the DOJ gets a free sandwich! (A ham sandwich… obviously)[National Law Journal]

* Winston & Strawn talking merger with Taylor Wessing. [Law.com International]

* Court orders release of Abrego Garcia with blistering opinion noting, among other things, that the supposed 2019 removal order that this is all about… never existed! [NBC News]

* Lawyer hospitalized after being bodyslammed at courthouse. Don’t these people realize only ICE is allowed to arbitrarily beat people in courthouses? [ABA Journal]

* Trump issues executive order banning state AI regulation. Remember when these cared about states’ rights? [CNBC]

* The president also pardoned Tina Peters, who was convicted of state crimes rendering the pardon entirely useless. [The Hill]

* David Lat talks about data centers from the perspective of Biglaw lawyers working on the deals and — hopefully — getting paid before the bubble bursts. [Original Jurisdiction]

* “Lawyer serves up ‘council estate dinner’ of chicken dippers and Sunny D.” Look, it could be worse… it could’ve been the purple stuff. [Roll on Friday]

So Much Bonus Money! — See Also

Boutiques Are Sharing The Wealth: Perry Law, Pallas Partners, and Ross Aronstam & Moritz!

As Are Biglaw Firms!: Freshfields and Sullivan & Cromwell!

Latham Gets Honored As A Pro Bono Innovator: They somehow forgot to mention the pro bono payola.

Lawsuit Aims To Know What Work The Trump-Cowering Firms Are Up To: American Oversight wants answers.

Mind The Deadline!: Apply for the Startup Alley Competition at ABA Techshow!

The Seat Of The Legal Industry’s Expansion

The big can, in fact, get bigger.

Morning At AI Summit: Tech Debt, Cultural Debt, Whack-A-Mole, And The Benefits Of ‘I Don’t Know’

Be flexible. Look at AI and what it can do holistically. Deal with not knowing the future by admitting that you don’t.

Incident Response Has Become A Law Firm Survival Skill

Cyber incidents are no longer unexpected events. They are statistically inevitable.

Law Firm Merger Mania Likely To Continue In 2026

Mergers sure are looking good for law firms right now…

Another Elite Litigation Boutique Comes Over The Top Of Biglaw For Year-End Bonuses

Small firm. Big money.