Above the Law

Morning Docket: 03.18.26

* Chief Justice Roberts says personal attacks against judges have got to stop. But, one might ask, what if those attacks are official acts of the president? [Reuters]

* Jurors must ponder whether Elon Musk was deliberate or stupid. [Law360]

* The Senate Commerce Committee asks “Liability or Deniability?” as Section 230 turns 30. A milestone birthday that, like most 30th birthdays, will be celebrated with existential dread and questioning whether it should even still exist. [Senate Commerce Committee]

* Weil finds its new leader. [American Lawyer]

* Donald Trump wants election tamperer Tina Peters out of prison with his “full pardon” of exclusively state crimes, but after scuffling with fellow inmate, Peters has new legal trouble. [Denver Post]

* SEC announces guidelines for cryptocurrency clearing the way for fake money Ponzi schemes. [Coindesk]

* Trump administration files its defense of the Pentagon’s supply chain risk designation for Anthropic arguing that Anthropic presents an incurable threat to the United States… that the government needs to use for its most sensitive applications immediately. [US News]

Open Offices And Talent Acquisition — See Also

Reed Smith Opens A New Office And Grabs Talent From Other Firms: Yoink! Yoink!

VanDyke Supporters Are Cracking Out Philosophy To Defend Him: Much easier to call the guy dumb and move on.

Read This Before That Law Review Submission: Taking legal scholarship seriously is a step-by-step process.

Did You Catch Trump’s Supreme Court Meltdown?: This Truth Social rant makes you wonder if he needs to do another round of testing.

Amazing Name, Even Better Service: RealityCheck catches AI hallucinations in legal briefs!

Judge Kaplan Is On Karen Duty: Did SBF’s mom leave a voicemail for the judge?

No Experience? No Problem!: DOJ drops experience requirements to keep the dumpster fire going.

Legalweek Has Left The Building – And Successfully Landed In A New One

Last week, Law.com Legalweek pulled off something genuinely impressive: It moved.

Introducing Clio’s Legal Trends Report

Exploring law firm data in an era of rapid transformation.

Pigs Can Fly!: The Sins Of Legal Scholars

Sometimes scholarship isn’t scholarship.

Top Biglaw Firm Goes On Lateral Shopping Spree For Splashy Boston Launch

This isn’t a soft launch -- it’s a full-on talent grab. Welcome to Boston!

It’s Not Legalweek Unless It Snows: Here’s My 2026 Recap

Good show. Lots of positives. Yes, a few negatives. But that’s the story for most Legalweeks.

Why The Epic-Health Gorilla Case Just Got Juicier

GuardDog Telehealth admitted it misrepresented its services to access patients’ health information, marking the first major concession in Epic’s lawsuit against Health Gorilla and other defendants.

Morning Docket: 03.17.26

* DOJ announces that it will start hiring prosecutors straight out of law school. At this point, replacing a whole US Attorney’s Office with ChatGPT wouldn’t be a huge dropoff. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Supreme Court taking up case of Haitian and Syrian temporary status holders challenging the administration decision to arbitrarily cancel the program. But, the Supreme Court did not use its shadowy authority to overturn the existing stays blocking Trump action… maybe publicly insulting the Chief Justice does have consequences. [MS Now]

* CEO blows off lawyers and asks AI to get him out of a $250 million contract. Yadda yadda yadda, he owes $250 million. [404 Media]

* Judge voids illegal government appointment. [National Law Journal]

* Todd Blanche throws DOJ behind effort to help void guilty plea of a man with ties to Russian intelligence who was sent to prison for 6 years for making up a fake story about Joe Biden receiving a bribe. [Mother Jones]

* Children sue Elon Musk’s AI operation for generating sexually explicit images of them. [Reuters]

* RFK Jr’s bid to cancel many essential childhood vaccines blocked by federal judge. [Law360]

There Goes The Tampa Office — See Also

Baker McKenzie Scales Back Even Further: Restructuring has its consequences.

Jeanine Pirro Does It Live!: Catch up on her meltdown here.

Judge Newman Petitions The Supreme Court: Will they affirm her dissenting opinion once again?

Is The Better Place In The Room With Us?: John Lauro’s take on the DOJ is hard to believe.

Law School Has A Hard Time Getting Its Graduates To Pass The Bar Exam

You will need to pass the bar if you actually want to practice law.

Why Legal AI Needs Mentors, Not Models

Tools may look impressive but fail quietly in practice.

2 Problems With Calling Off The War In Iran

Maybe Trump will have to negotiate after all.

Donald Trump Has Totally Not Dementia-Addled Thousand-Word Meltdown About Supreme Court

Trump heads to Truth Social to launch meandering attack on the rule of law.

More And More Biglaw Firms Are Saying Bye-Bye To The Verein

Say hello to the ability to tap into a bigger profit pool.