Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2017

All the best stories from 2017.

It’s the final work day of 2017, and before you clock out for the year, we thought we’d look back on the year that was here at Above the Law and revisit the most popular stories that graced our pages in 2017 and talk about the broad themes that marked this wild year in the legal industry.

In some ways, this was pretty typical year in the legal industry. The market continued to disappoint for all but the top firms, law firms still have a devastatingly poor grasp of cybersecurity, and porn remains a better career than the law. And while the practice itself generally stayed the course, law schools may be seeing a return to normalcy, with attendance seeing a bump and applications and LSAT test-takers on the upswing (not that you may need the LSAT for long…). The ABA has started cracking down on law schools, while Whittier and Charlotte closed and Valpo decided to stop admitting students.

In other ways, this was an absolutely bonkers year in law. The Department of Justice, run by a man who Republicans rejected for a federal judgeship because they were concerned he just might be too racist, went on a tear: threatening immigration rights lawyers, announcing a new “defense” of free speech from within a no free speech zone, refusing to commit to not jailing journalists, and kicking off a new war on affirmative action. Meanwhile, law professors who dared criticize Sessions found themselves targeted by records requests, which, honestly, was inevitable.

Oh, and the White House is embroiled in a probe and its defense has largely resembled the Keystone Kops. From crazy press conferences to confidential strategy talks in front of the press to Jay Sekulow doing Jay Sekulow things, it’s not exactly been a well-oiled machine over there at 1600 Pennsylvania. And that’s not counting famed attorney Abbe Lowell accidentally releasing confidential material when he mistakenly emailed an internet prankster.

But all of that is “paint-by-numbers” compared to the year the judiciary had. Neil Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court and promptly pissed off everyone. Judge Posner f**king retired out of the clear blue! David Lat chatted with the legal giant to learn more about his decision and his plans, which are largely focused on helping pro se litigants like William Bond in the Fourth Circuit. Judge Alex Kozinski is also stepping down, though under very different circumstances, after a wave of sexual harassment allegations came to light. Meanwhile, the Trump administration and the Senate aggressively sought to fill scores of open judiciary seats with nominees ranging from unqualified ghosthunters to political appointees incapable of grasping basic legal concepts. And those were the ones that didn’t make it. Did you watch now-Judge John Bush’s hearings?

At least the ACLU is still there to make us laugh at their adversaries.

So in honor of a year of unexpected twists and turns, this year’s top 10 goes to 11. Let’s countdown the stories with the most unique pageviews from 2017:

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11. California’s Bar Exam Results Are Absolutely Abysmal: Yeah, this wasn’t a good year for aspiring California lawyers, with nearly two-thirds of all test-takers failing the February exam, further fueling complaints that the state’s cut score is woefully out of whack. The Above the Law editorial staff enjoyed more than one internal debate on this question all year, with most sharply critical of lowering the score and me all by my lonesome siding with the deans who argue the cut score is out of sync with the rest of the country and is nothing more than a protectionist measure that disadvantages minority law grads and indigent clients.

10. Roy Moore’s Lawyer Pens Demand Letter As Embarrassing As His ClientTo borrow from Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation, if I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be as surprised as I was to see a Democrat win Jeff Sessions’s Alabama Senate seat. Sure, Roy Moore was a disgraced jurist before we heard some disturbing stories about targeting 14-year-olds, but I still never believed Alabama would let that stand in the way. In the waning days of the campaign, Moore elicited attorney Trent Garmon to write threatening letters to news outlets — and be the worst racist cable news surrogate ever — to get them to back off the pedophilia stories. This letter was, to use the technical legal term, “bad.” But it did make for some uproarious laughs around the Above the Law office.

9. The 2017 Am Law 100: A Turning Point For Biglaw?: On the surface, the Am Law 100 this year didn’t reveal any major surprises. The group as a whole grew — slowly — despite declining demand, while the elite firms widened their gap over the rest of the field. But a new twist in this year’s report suggested a new potential problem on the horizon for firms, with that stratification manifesting itself in a key indicator that could spell doom for a lot of the Am Law 100 in the next year.

8. It’s Official — There’s A New T14 In Town! (2018 USNWR Rankings Are Here): We’ll have more on this year’s U.S. News rankings later on this list (that’s why we went to 11 — these rankings are basically on this list twice), but let’s revisit the fight this headline set off in the Above the Law offices. Is there a new T14? Or was the “T14” exclusively reserved for the 14 schools who never fell out of the top 14 until this year? And if that’s all it ever meant, then wasn’t it a pretty terrible rubric for identifying the elite schools all along?

7. Associate Bonus Watch: Cravath Announces Its 2017 Associate Bonuses!The holiday season brought more of the same to Biglaw, with Cravath setting the bar for annual bonuses — as usual — and opting to go with the exact same schedule as last year — as usual.

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6. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Claps Back At Neil Gorsuch: Neil Gorsuch getting smacked down at oral argument was entertaining enough, but the way Justice Ginsburg does it quietly blasts him into silence. Damn, that’s cold. That’s “let a trucker die in a winter storm for his company” cold.

5. White & Case Has Built The New ‘Modern’ Law Firm Office — And It’s Awesome: When White & Case decamped for new offices, we all wondered what the firm would do with its new space. Over the summer, I got a chance to tour the offices — and take a bunch of pictures — and they’ve really put together something fantastic. While some more traditional types might balk at the “fishbowl” effect of so much glass or the focus on communal working areas, the openness and abundant natural light make this the sort of office that embraces you as an attorney. White & Case should raise the bar for any firms contemplating a 2018 move.

4. California Bar Examiners Stripped Of Authority To Determine Passing Score On State Bar Exam: After the trainwreck of a February exam, the California Supreme Court told the Cal Bar Examiners to take a hike and took on the role of deciding this issue themselves. They considered all the reasoned arguments available and decided… to do nothing. Thanks!

3. Leaked: Are These The 2018 U.S. News Law School Rankings?: So yeah… new T14. Time to Make Georgetown Great Again.

2. That Awkward Moment When Your Twin Brother Is A U.S. Citizen At Birth, But You’re Not: As an editor, when I saw this headline, I knew this story would make the end of year top 10. It’s just too enticing not to. How can that happen? Well, that’s why the tale of the Dvash-Banks family “at the cross-section of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and immigration law” intrigued so many this year.

1. Trump Selects Law Grad For Housing Job — Law School Says She’s Not A Law Grad: This may come as a complete shock, but Donald Trump nominated a wedding planner to run a critical government office and it she might not have been qualified. And a quick examination of her résumé got her law school a little curious.

And so we conclude the year that was in law.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.