David Lat
David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a lawyer turned writer and speaker. You can read his latest writing about law and the legal profession by subscribing to Original Jurisdiction, his newsletter on the Substack platform. David's book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as "the most buzzed-about novel of the year" among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can learn more about David on his personal website; you can connect with him on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at davidlat@substack.com.
Posts by David Lat
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Attorney Misconduct, Holidays and Seasons, Parties
Holiday Party Scandal Stories, Please
It’s December, and you know what that means. In addition to law firm associate bonuses — which we’re still waiting for, with bated breath — we get to go to… Christmas HOLIDAY PARTIES!!! As noted by Alan Kopit, hosting a holiday party is fraught with legal peril. If you’re planning to host such a party, […] -
2nd Circuit, Erwin Chemerinsky, Gender, Goldman Sachs, Hotties, Money, Wall Street, WSJ Law Blog
Shouldn't That Be "Mistress" of the Universe?
Our big sibling reports on the departure of high-finance hottie Suzanne Nora Johnson from Goldman Sachs, the obscenely profitable investment bank. Johnson, who served on the firm’s 23-member management committee, was the highest-ranking woman at Goldman Sachs.* And as the WSJ Law Blog notes, in a post entitled Associates, You Too Can Become a Master […] - Sponsored
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
ChatGPT ushers in the age of generative AI – even for law firms. -
Hotties, Litigatrix, Old People, Sex
UrbanCougar, Esquire?
In case you’re not familiar with it — and we’re guessing you’re not — check out urbancougar.com (probably safe for work, although the IT people might snicker around you). Here is the website’s mission statement: urbancougar: it’s not a stigma, it’s a sophisticated species of female who seeks the pleasure of younger males. She avoids […]
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Advice for the Lawlame, Ann Israel, Biglaw, NYLawyer.com, Pranks
Advice for the Lawlame: Hell Hath No Fury Like An Advice Columnist Mocked
Back in this post, an ATL reader confessed to playing a little trick on Ann Israel, the legal recruiter who writes NYLawyer.com’s popular Advice for the Lawlorn column. He wrote: Love ATL’s Advice for the Lawlame column. My friends and I have been reading NYLawyer.com’s Advice for the Lawlorn with a sort of amused contempt […] -
Andrew Gardner, Biglaw, Bonuses, Gay, Money, Rank Stupidity, Sex
Associate Bonus Watch: Waiting for the White Shoe To Drop
Sigh. We’re still waiting for the first big announcement of law firm associate bonuses — and we’re getting impatient. As soon as you hear something, please let us know. We’ve visited the message boards this morning, to see if there’s any news, and to kill some time. They didn’t offer any enlightenment. But they did […] -
Cellphones, Drudge Report, Hillary Clinton, Pictures, Politics
Matt Drudge Is Too Funny
(Yes, politics may lie slightly beyond the legal beat — but not by much. Senatrix Hillary Clinton is, of course, a lawyer by training. And if elected president, she’d probably get to appoint at least two Supreme Court justices. So we think we’ve established an adequate topical nexus for posting this amusing screenshot.) Clinton Reaches […] -
Affirmative Action, Anthony Kennedy, Constitutional Law, John Roberts, Paul Clement, Racism, SCOTUS, Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court
Dispatch from One First Street: The Race in Public School Cases
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases concerning the use of race as a factor in assigning students to public schools: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1, out of the Ninth Circuit, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, out of the Sixth Circuit. It appears that […] -
Weddings
Your November 2006 Couple of the Month
This morning we closed the polls in our November 2006 Couple of the Month contest. And this was not, we’re sorry to report, one of our more exciting races. It was nowhere near as thrilling as last month’s competition, in which Katherine Dowling and Marc Axelbaum staged a dramatic, come-from-behind victory over Lori Alvino and […] - Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
If 2023 introduced legal professionals to generative AI, then 2024 will be when law firms start adapting to utilize it. Things are moving fast, so… -
Deaths, Fast Food, Food, New Jersey
Are We Prophetic, or What?
Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Investigations are underway — and lawsuits can’t be far behind. And when the plaintiffs are ready to file suit, they can turn to law firms that actually specialize in E. coli litigation. Take, for example, Marler Clark, which touts itself as “the nation’s foremost law firm with a practice […] -
Judicial Nominations, Politics, Senate Judiciary Committee
About That Cancelled SJC Hearing, and New Leadership at CFJ
Via Howard Bashman, we learned of the cancellation of tomorrow’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. This piqued our curiosity: What was the hearing for, and why was it canceled? So we did a little poking around. We learned that the SJC was planning to hold confirmation hearings for an “unspecified handful of district court nominees.” But […] -
Affirmative Action, Biglaw, New York Times, Racism
More About Minority Lawyers and Biglaw
In response to this post — about the low partnership rate for minority lawyers at large law firms, the subject of a recent New York Times piece — an ATL commenter wrote: [UCLA law professor Richard] Sander relies too heavily upon grades as predictors of law firm performance. All of us know scores of brilliant […] -
Biglaw, Boutique Law Firms, Law Firm Mergers, Musical Chairs
Musical Chairs: 12.04.06
Law Firm Mergers: * One of Seattle’s top firms, Davis Wright Tremaine, is acquiring D.C-based Cole, Raywid & Braverman, a telecom boutique with 35 lawyers. The acquisition will be effective on January 1. Lateral Moves: * Intellectual property/M&A lawyer Leonard Jacoby, to Cleary Gottlieb, from Wilson Sonsini. Jacoby’s practice focuses on IP issues related to […] -
Advice for the Lawlame, Biglaw, Practice Pointers
Advice for the Lawlame: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
It has been forever since the last edition of Advice for the Lawlame. In this feature, we take a question submitted to one of NYLawyer.com’s popular advice columns, such as “Advice for the Lawlorn,” and offer our own unique take. Here’s the condensed version of today’s question: I am a mentor in my firm to […]
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Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
In this CLE-eligible webinar, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm.
Sponsored
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
ChatGPT ushers in the age of generative AI – even for law firms.
Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
If 2023 introduced legal professionals to generative AI, then 2024 will be when law firms start adapting to utilize it. Things are moving fast, so…
Sponsored
Sponsored
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
The rise of remote work has dramatically reshaped the relationship between Lawyers and Law Firms, see how Scale LLP has taken the steps to get…
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Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
How to best leverage generative AI as an early adopter with ethical use.
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4th Circuit, Federal Judges, Hotties, Judicial Nominations, Vicious Infighting, William Wilkins
Chief Judge Wilkins Makes Way for "Miss Karen"
Last week was a busy one in legal news, so we apologize for our tardiness in bringing you this news. As first reported at the South Carolina Appellate Law Blog, and later picked up by The State, Chief Judge William Wilkins is retiring as chief judge of the Fourth Circuit. William “Billy” Wilkins of Greenville […] -
Biglaw, Bonuses, Eavesdropping / Wiretapping, Money
Associate Bonus Watch: We're All Ears
Christmas is just three short weeks away. Biglaw partners are making their lists, checking them twice, and doling out cash to all associates who are nice. But no big bonus news has broken yet. We’ve stopped by the message boards, and they’re relatively quiet. There is a rumor going around that a top five firm […] -
Federal Judges, Judge of the Day, Plaintiffs Firms, William Lerach, You Go Girl
Judge of the Day: Melinda Harmon
People pay attention to a judge’s reversal rate — how often that jurist gets reversed by a higher court. And a high reversal rate is usually regarded as “not a good thing.” But we kinda admire judges who aren’t overly concerned with their reversal rate. We respect judges who are willing to go out on […] -
Civil Rights, Department of Justice, Orrin Hatch, Politics, Senate Judiciary Committee
Senator Hatch Really Is Leaving Judiciary
The Legal Times is wondering about the Senate committee plans of Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). They speculate that he might take over the Antitrust Subcommittee of the judiciary panel. But as we previously reported, Hatch is actually leaving the Senate Judiciary Committee altogether. And now other sources, from the mainstream media, are repeating what we […] -
David Boies, Fashion, Oy, Paul Clement, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
Amateur Hour at One First Street?
In about fifteen minutes, the Supreme Court will start hearing oral argument in two big-ticket cases about the use of race as a factor in assigning students to public schools. One case comes from Louisville, Kentucky, and the other from Seattle, Washington. Expect a packed courtroom — the cases are sexy enough to merit same-day […] -
Bad Ideas, Cars, Police, Pranks, Racism, Rap, Reality TV, Traffic Accidents
Does a Traffic Stop Give an Officer Probable Case... To Make the Driver Rap?
Yet another sign that reality television has gone too, too far: City leaders have apologized after a program on Tempe’s cable channel showed a white police officer telling two black men they could get out of a littering ticket by performing a rap…. [After pulling the car over,] the officer then tells the men that […] -
5th Circuit, 7th Circuit, Biglaw, Bonuses, Books, Frank Easterbrook, Hotties, Judicial Nominations, Lee Rosenthal, Money, Morris Arnold, Politics, Richard Posner, SCOTUS, Senate Judiciary Committee, Sex, State Judges, State Judges Are Clowns, Supreme Court, Weddings, Week in Review
ATL Week in Review: November 27 - December 1
* It’s all about the benjamins, baby. Bonus season is upon us. And we’re standing by to broadcast every move. So please email us with any news, rumors, and leaked memos about bonuses. * Truthful tips are especially welcome. Look for the first wave of bonus announcements in the coming week. * And check out […]