Above the Law

Trump Rewrites Supreme Court Loss As A Win — See Generally

Just Pretend You Won: After raging over his loss in the birthright citizenship case, Trump issued new executive orders asserting that he actually won.

Just When You Thought The Paul Weiss Surrender Couldn’t Get Worse: The New York Times dug into the first Biglaw capitulation and it’s even more cowardly than we thought. Dropping a client to keep the administration happy and internally considering running management decisions by Stephen Miller.

And Then This: The same report also claims Paul Weiss paid its first openly transgender partner $3.5 million for a non-disparagement agreement as they parted ways.

Til Disgorgement Do Us Part: Jackson Walker will pay $15 million to end the U.S. Trustee’s suit over its former partner’s undisclosed romance with the bankruptcy judge hearing her cases.

Reflecting Poorly: Jeanine Pirro dropped the vandalism case against a 67-year-old former Olympian after the Interior Department finally turned over documents showing that a $14 million renovation had simply been botched, and the president has spent the days since complaining about her.

Lateral Thinking, In Bulk: Brown Rudnick picked off a massive lawyer intellectual property litigation team from HSF Kramer, the largest group hire in the firm’s history, and opened a Silicon Valley office to put them in.

Too Big To Hire: Firms of more than 500 lawyers are now the single largest employer of new law graduates, taking more than one in five members of the Class of 2025. Those same firms hired 7.5 percent fewer of them than the year before, the first drop in Biglaw entry-level hiring since 2014.

Come Early, Stay Late: Milbank is offering its incoming first-years the chance to start three weeks ahead of schedule on the strength of “exceptionally strong client demand.”

Losing Supreme Court Argument? No Problem! — See Also

When You’re A Star: Donald Trump bitterly complained about losing the birthright citizenship cases. Yesterday, he issued executive orders asserting that he won.

Collins No. Murkowski No. McConnell Absent. Cassidy: Sure, Fine. Todd Blanche is going to be Attorney General of the United States. but it’s closer than anyone expected.

The Bar Exam Waiver Comes For Washington’s Grads. Just Not All Of Them. First-timers who got shut out are being waived in. The ones who ground through the broken exam are stuck with their scores.

Pay Me What You Owe Me: Raises for Biglaw associates are still MIA. Firms need to stop waiting for Cravath.

This Is Bananas: FedSoc co-founder befuddled by green bananas.

The Three Pillars Of Business Development For Lawyers 

How to go from random acts of marketing to a real strategy, in this episode of the 'Be That Lawyer' podcast.

Judges Should Not Make Lawyers Handwrite Orders After Oral Argument

Lawyers may disagree about what the judge actually decided.

Biglaw Is Officially Running Out Of Summer To Announce Associate Raises

Milbank made its move more than two months ago. Please don’t tell us Biglaw is actually going to wait until after Labor Day to match.

Law Firm Website Conversions In The Age Of AI Chatbots

When deployed effectively, AI chatbots can reduce bounce rate, increase law firm website conversion, and enhance your reputation with prospective clients.

What Nobody Tells You About Law School

There's a cost to 'thinking like a lawyer' no one talks about.

Ninth Circuit: Your AI Agent Can’t Violate Hacking Law. But You Might.

From the agentic-law dept

How Appealing Weekly Roundup

The week in appellate news.

Morning Docket: 08.07.26

* Murkowski will vote against Todd Blanche, putting the nomination in the hands of Bill Cassidy to see if he’s learned anything since confirming RFK Jr. [CNN]

* Fresh off losing at the Supreme Court, Trump issues new executive orders to limit birthright citizenship. [NPR]

* Christian Scientist argues company 401(k) violates religious rights by investing in fossil fuels. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Rand Paul refers Anthony Fauci to Justice Department for a contempt of Congress charge based solely on committee vote. Which is illegal, but none of this circus has been particularly legal anyway. [Courthouse News Service]

* Lawmakers asked Skadden to explain its pro bono arrangement with the administration, and the response was… uncooperative. [Law360]

* DOJ earns yet another benchslap in effort to seize voter data. [Raw Story]

* Trump judge temporarily blocks BBC from discovery in Trump’s defamation suit against the network. [Forbes]

The Incredible, Shrinking Biglaw Class — See Also

Go Big Or Go Home: Biglaw may be the largest single employer of new law school grads, but now associate class sizes are shrinking.

Senator Schiff Tried A New Approach With Trump’s Election-Denying Judicial Nominees: He asked about 2008, 2012, and 2016 first. The nominee answered all of them. Then came 2020…

RICO Not-So-Suave: Reed Smith can’t easily get out of claim that it took part in fraud.

Down And Out In Law School: Law schools ran up big debts chasing higher rankings and the bill has finally come due. Nearly 70 percent of law schools face financial uncertainty.

Bar Exam Tragedy Still Not Addressed: A woman who suffered cardiac arrest during the exam has sued the site, but the bar examiners still haven’t changed the rules that brought us here.

New Mexico Is Suing Todd Blanche To Get Access To Epstein’s Zorro Ranch Files: New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is done waiting… he’s suing Todd Blanche.

No Law Degree, No Problem

He sat in all three branches of government, but never in a law school classroom.

Bar Exam FUBARs Are Still Out There

If only NCBE would live up to the mission statement it sets forth on its website in capital letters.  

NetDocuments For Plaintiffs’ Lawyers: It’s Pretty Cool

It will be interesting to see where NetDocuments goes in the plaintiffs’ market

Every Lawyer Has A Book In Them. Most Never Write It.

A nonfiction book can build your reputation, sharpen your thinking, and help others. But only if you stop talking about writing it and begin.