Above the Law

Top DOJ Official Wanted A Cut Of The Trump Slush Fund

The fund is dead, the irony is not.

Legal Ethics Roundup: Judge Ross Apologizes Again, Lawyer Chesebro Reinstated In FL, 88 Deans Support Independence, Anti-Trump Protest Prosecutor Suspended, Recusal Over Family Members & More

Your tour of all things related to lawyer and judicial ethics, with University of Houston law professor Renee Knake Jefferson.

Why Litigation Is Starting To Look Like Product Management

Litigation is no longer managed solely as a sequence of isolated matters.

At The Kennedy Center, It’s Curtains For Trump

It was a disastrous run.

Amgen Turns To An Independent Review To Defend Rare Disease Drug In FDA Crosshairs

FDA concerns about Amgen’s Tavneos were sparked by securities fraud litigation against ChemoCentryx, the company that originally developed the rare disease drug. The FDA wants to withdraw Tavneos’s approval, citing safety risks and alleged manipulation of the drug’s clinical trial data.

Morning Docket: 06.15.26

* Spencer Fane keeps merging. [American Lawyer]

* Trump keeps paying his personal lawyers in patronage instead of cash,. [New York Times]

* SBF conviction upheld. [Law360]

* Judge orders administration has to return history to national parks. [Reuters]

* Trump administration shuts down Claude’s most advanced model and bans its top engineers from working on it — which is exactly how you forfeit the global economy to China. [WIRED]

* “Paul Weiss Ties to Tisch Family Cited in Malpractice Allegations” [Bloomberg Law News]

* Justin Baldoni ordered to pay Blake Lively’s legal fees. [Hollywood Reporter]

Rough Week To Be A Federal Judge — See Generally

Meet In The Parking Lot After School: Ninth Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson is catastrophically bad at parking. Also in keeping his hands to himself, as he’s charged with misdemeanor battery and malicious injury to property.

Maroon 1: The 14th annual ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings are here, with the University of Chicago back on top for the first time since 2021 and the formula still rewarding the outcomes — jobs, bar passage, cost — that actually pay the loans.

Sorry Excuse: Judge Eleanor Ross sent her former clerks apology letters so deliberately vague they named neither the affair nor the lying about it — exactly the toothless wrist-slap her colleagues blessed when they tried to keep the whole thing confidential.

Face The Music: A DC judge tossed the Trump-rebranded Kennedy Center’s breach-of-contract suit and then lost its name.

Just Good Friends: Chapman’s former dean Paul Paton, the law school’s first openly gay dean, sued for discrimination, alleging the university fired him for marrying his husband and dressed it up as a pretextual scholarship-budget dispute — in a complaint that pointedly notes Chapman treated John Eastman better.

All Quiet On The Cravath Front: The 2026 salary wars are underway, but the firms matching Milbank’s new scale are almost all litigation boutiques while traditional Biglaw sits on its hands, waiting for Cravath to bless the raise before anyone breaks lockstep.

Cite Unseen: A Mississippi federal judge disqualified all the lawyers in a case after both sides caught with hallucinated cases.

Even Biglaw Is Celebrating The Knicks! — See Also

Knicks-Supporting Partner Tells Associates The Work Can Wait Until Later: If your partner didn’t, they’re probably a Spurs fan.

Judge Ross’s Sorry Apologies Have No Consequence: Chief Judge Pryor says the low-effort response is good enough for the judiciary.

4 Attorneys Disqualified Over Poor Work Product: Yes, this is an AI story.

Ariana Grande Joins The DO NOT PLAY AT Rally Playlist: She described the White House’s actions as ‘heinous nonsense.’

Where The Biglaw Hours Aren’t That Bad

Associates give the firm thumbs up for the hours they're working.

How To Build Authority Through Guest Posting And Digital PR

To truly capitalize on the opportunity a guest post affords, work with your digital marketing team to ‘connect the dots’ by ensuring you showcase your authority on closely related topics across multiple digital surfaces.

Some Judges Seem To Prefer Local Attorneys Over Out-Of-Town Lawyers

All lawyers are valued equally by court officials. But some are occasionally valued more equally than others.

How Appealing Weekly Roundup

The week in appellate news.

Ariana Grande Tells White House They Can’t Be Friends

Good Lord, I love this song!

The Florida Supreme Court Just Sent Lawyers A Message About AI

Technology changes. Professional responsibility does not.

Biglaw’s Summer Of Money: Tracking The 2026 Salary Wars

The race to match is on. We'll keep track of every raise, bonus, and compensation move as law firms make their decisions.