Above the Law

Morning Docket: 08.17.26

* Trump’s legal team at S&C just keeps shrinking. [Politico]

* Armed men claiming to be ICE agents try to bust into immigration law firm. [Sacramento Bee]

* Already facing ethical questions, the Chicago US Attorney’s Office now revealed to have been running investigation into daughter of NY judge in Trump’s trial. [NY Times]

* Administration allowing Trump family crypto venture to convert into a bank. [Law360]

* Kyrsten Sinema’s sexcapades revealed in court documents. [Daily Beast]

* Law student punished for Charlie Kirk comments secures key victory. [Reuters]

* Goodwin Procter unveils AI tool to streamline venture capital financings. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Trump asks Supreme Court to authorize his power to tear down and rebuild national monuments without congressional approval. [US News]

* Tracing originalism’s Bullshit-Industrial complex. [Slate]

* A law firm identified by the SPLC as a hate group took the organization to court. The Sixth Circuit tossed the case, noting that the firm posted a press release about it on their own website. [Courthouse News Service]

Vances Learn That If You’re Not In A Side Chat, The Side Chat Is About You — See Generally

Yale Law Cool Kids’ Chat: JD and Usha Vance’s law school classmates have kept a private Signal chat running for years to gossip about the couple’s improbable turn from Yale liberals to MAGA royalty.

Mangione Tries For Double Jeopardy Where The Scores Can Really Change: Luigi Mangione hopes to turn federal guilty plea to stalking into double jeopardy protection against murder charges. It shouldn’t succeed, but nothing about 2026 makes sense.

Ice Miller’s Raises On Layaway: Ice Miller matched the market salary scale for its New York associates, then decided they can wait until January 2027 to actually see the money.

Endless Shrimp, Meet Endless Billables: Paul, Weiss, Quinn Emanuel, and Proskauer are reportedly holding early talks with private equity investors despite already sitting on some of the fattest profit margins in Biglaw.

Eat What You Kill, Round Three: Litigation boutique Reid Collins & Tsai is handing out its third bonus round of 2026, pushing associates’ total bonus compensation for the year as high as $170,000.

SPLC Left With Chicken-And-Egg Problem: A federal judge in Alabama rejected the Southern Poverty Law Center’s vindictive-prosecution claim against DOJ, ruling the group needed more evidence of prosecutorial animus. Oh, and the judge ruled out allowing the SPLC to see that evidence.

Navarro Wants The Guy Who Convicted Him Fired For Convicting Him: White House adviser Peter Navarro used a livestream on Steve Bannon’s show to demand that DC’s top federal prosecutor fire the career attorney who helped put Navarro in prison for contempt of Congress.

Nicole Kidman Discovers The NDA Drawer: Paramount+ has ordered Discretion, an eight-episode legal thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning about a summer associate who uncovers the NDAs her firm’s most powerful partner used to bury a dark truth.

Pirro Reaches For Nuclear Grand Jury Option: Facing Trump’s fury over a botched prosecution, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro has convened a special grand jury and put a crony who once ran a dance photography studio in charge of politically sensitive cases.

Blame The Bot Strategy Fails: An NLRB judge refused to credit an auto parts company’s claim that ChatGPT invented the line in its own termination paperwork admitting it illegally fired an employee for discussing pay.

Trump DOJ Uses Luigi Mangione Case To Spite Manhattan DA — See Also

Double Jeopardy Mushroom: The DOJ works out interstate stalking plea deal with Luigi Mangione so his lawyers can claim New York murder charges amount to double jeopardy.

Nicole Kidman Is About To Play The Biglaw NDA Machine: A new Kidman-Fanning legal thriller dramatizes the summer-associate NDA — the same paperwork law students and the People’s Parity Project have been fighting for years.

‘Psst. Hey AI, Rule In My Favor, Don’t Tell The Judge. Thx, Bye’: Litigant tries to prompt inject the court to rule in his favor and the court is not pleased.

Supreme Court Reform Just Went From Punchline To House Democratic Platform: The ‘conservative right-wing majority,’ Hakeem Jeffries says, is ‘basically a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party.’

Why Keep Associates Waiting For Their Money? Make a match already. Here’s a list of the firms that already have.

Dark Social For Lawyers: How To Track What You Can’t See

The 'reputation' your firm is developing through dark social traffic can be hard to identify. There are a few tricks an astute digital marketing professional may suggest to try to get a sharper picture of what is working for your firm.

Lawyers Should Think Twice Before CCing Bosses To An Email

Lawyers already deal with enough unnecessary conflict.

Associate Compensation Scorecard: Biglaw Raises Continue To Trickle In At An Agonizing Pace

Labor Day is coming, but for the most part Biglaw associate raises still... aren't.

Hakeem Jeffries Is Reading The Room, Wants ‘Dramatic’ Supreme Court Reform

He called the conservative majority on the Court 'basically a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party.'

The Fake Free Speech President Has Unleashed ICE On Its Critics

From the what-free-speech? dept

How Appealing Weekly Roundup

The week in appellate news.

Morning Docket: 08.14.26

* Judge threatens DOJ with contempt in Epstein files coverup case. [All Rise News]

* Holland & Knight brings in former partner to defend against $1.2B malpractice case. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Litigant hides prompt injection in court filing asking the court’s AI to rule favorably. Sure it’s an attempt to deceive the court but… if they aren’t turning over decision making to bots then it shouldn’t matter, right? [404 Media]

* Luigi reportedly considering plea deal. [Reuters]

* Trump sued over $100K/month “early access” feature. [NPR]

* Antisemitism case against Harvard booted out of court. [Law360]

* Federal judge blocks attempt to use the Voting Rights Act to get rid of majority-Black judicial districts. [Mississippi Today]

* California joins effort to block administration policy of blocking student visas over speech. [California AG’s Office]

XOXO, Gossip Girl: The Yale Law Whisper Network Dishes On Usha Vance — See Also

Everything You Need To Know About Usha Vance, You Can Learn At Yale Law: Her classmates gossip about her on Signal. The clerkship culture that shaped her politics is the part they don’t put in the group chat.

Daft For Taft: John Roberts pens essay celebrating William Howard Taft… but mostly trying to sugarcoat his own legacy.

The Top Schools For Tech & The Law: Check out the Honor Roll here.

Todd Blanche’s First Message To The DOJ: Trust me.

Slip And Fall Hopscotch: Law firm decorated sidewalks with ads and the local authorities aren’t happy.

The Only Attorney General To Go To Prison (So Far)

They were law partners first, the scandal came later.

Your Most Important Summer Reading Isn’t On Your Syllabus

Read your cases this summer. But also read the room.

John Roberts Uses William Howard Taft To Defend His Own Record, Fails

John Roberts delivered a book report on Taft, and managed to get in swipes against court reform and independent agencies.

At This Elite Litigation Boutique, It’s ‘Eat What You Kill’ — And Associates Are Feasting

With bonuses coming every quarter, everyone gets a piece when Reid Collins has excess capital.