Above the Law

Yale Chokes Back Tears To Declare There’s No Shame In Second — See Generally

Yale Fail: Yale’s two-decade stranglehold on the No. 1 law school ranking ends in a rankings shakeup. Well, at least they have JD Vance — another famous second banana!

Feel Free To Let The Screen Door Hit You On The Way Out: Pam Bondi’s tenure as Attorney General ends just in time for a bar disciplinary investigation, unless Florida invents another reason to absolve Bondi of accountability for her actions.

Epstein, Who?: Meanwhile, Bondi hopes to use her firing to get out of explaining the Epstein files to Congress.

The Annual “Which Gilded Cage Is Most Prestigious” Survey: Vault again ranks the 100 most prestigious law firms in America.

Trolls Gonna Troll: Law school Federalist Society chapter invites Amy Wax to share her thoughts about the problem with women and minorities.

Diploma With A Two-Drink Minimum: Georgetown Law replaces its graduation gala with a school happy hour and many students aren’t happy.

Time Is Relative, Especially On A Timesheet: Lawyer bills more hours than exist in a calendar day, professional hilarity ensues.

The More It Smiles, The More You Should Worry: Legal AI tools optimized for user satisfaction are also the ones most likely to confidently hallucinate a fake circuit court opinion.

The USFL Never Died, It Just Became Federal Policy: Trump deploys the DOJ against the NFL over grievances that predate most of his current staff, because using the justice system as a personal grudge machine apparently has no statute of limitations.

The Pentagon’s Legal Battles Going About As Well As Iran: The Defense Department benchslapped over press policy.

Can’t Take A Dick Joke — See Also

Cops Arrest Woman For Protesting While Wearing A Penis Costume: Can’t believe the prosecution took this case!

Regional Excellence: Check out Vault’s regional ranking of firms.

Justice Sotomayor Tells Law Students To Master AI: What will be the consequences of that mastery?

In Other News, People Still Care About Amy Wax: She got invited to speak by Cornell’s FedSoc chapter.

$35M Is A Lot Of Money!: WilmerHale is facing public scrutiny over a bill that has some wild pay jumps and logged hours.

Lawyers Should Stay Away From A Client’s Office Politics

Not every office is a hive of contented workers performing with the smooth efficiency of a hive mind.

What The Legal Industry Can Learn About AI Hallucinations From Auditors

The unfortunate reality is that hallucinations are a feature of LLM systems, not a bug.

Justice Sotomayor Advises Law Students On AI Adoption — There Should Have Been A Stronger Warning

Whither the structural analysis, Sotomayor?

How To Move From An Elite Biglaw Firm To An Elite Boutique

The case for leaving Biglaw? Boutique litigation shops are offering the kind of hands-on work lawyers say they’ve been missing.

Understanding AI Hallucinations: Making Sure You Don’t End Up At The Wrong Stop

We need to start with thinking of AI not as a person but a product with a foreseeable engineering risk.

Prosecutors Still Trying To Convict 62-Year-Old Woman For Wearing Penis Costume To Anti-Trump Protest

From the more-of-that-famous-prosecutorial-discretion dept

How Appealing Weekly Roundup

The week in appellate news.

Morning Docket: 04.10.26

* Texas judge ordered a lawyer to appear in court for criticizing the judge for berating an IT worker in a viral video. The lawyer refused to show up himself, but his fellow lawyers did to push back on the improper, retaliatory order. [NY Post]

* AI hallucination penalties rise, and yet lawyers keep citing fake cases. [NPR]

* Elon Musk sues Colorado over state’s AI regulations. [Reuters]

* Another court rules that copyright can’t be used to restrict access to the law. [EFF]

* Gibson Dunn partner tapped as next SEC Enforcement chief. He faces a tough challenge to make the agency even more impotent than it was in 2025 when investigations hit historic lows. [Corporate Counsel]

* Court swats down Pentagon press restrictions as “mark of autocracy.” [Law360]

Lawyers Are Bad At Math, But Come On — See Also

Turns Out You Can Squeeze Too Much Out Of A Day: Australian lawyer billed over 31 hours for a day of work.

The Best Firms In The City That Never Sleeps: See the best of the Big Apple!

‘Super Drunk’ Judge Pleads No Contest: He’s set to be sentenced on May 13th.

Like Being Fit For The Job, But Different!: ABA hands down their first unqualified judge designation to this round of Trump nominees.

Freak-Off King Fights For Reduced Sentence: His team argues the judge factored in extra time for behavior he was acquitted of.

$4 Billion In Revenue Is Quite The Accomplishment

This Biglaw firm hit an important benchmark.

Work-Life Balance Is Precious; So Is The Rule Of Law

Today, many lawyers no longer choose to work all hours at the bidding of some senior associates or partner.

LawNext Podcast: Learned Hand’s Shlomo Klapper On Why Courts Are The Next Frontier For Legal AI

Klapper is building what he calls a 'reasoning engine' for judges.

Managing In The Age Of AI: Bring Back Walking Around

Perhaps it’s time to reinstitute and reemphasize the old managing by walking around concept.