Above the Law

Posts by Above the Law

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.21.26

* Government charges former DOJ lawyer with keeping a copy of Jack Smith's report on Trump criminal conduct. Maybe if she'd kept the report in her resort pool locker she'd be all right. [Reuters]

* Paul Weiss seen as "rebalancing" as litigators depart. [American Lawyer]

* And on that subject, Paul Weiss loses another litigation partner. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Judge orders Trump administration to comply with presidential records law. [Washington Post]

* Lawyer and "influencer" daughter arrested in bizarre murder-for-hire plot to kill boy band member... you have one guess which state. [Fox 35]

* Appellate court doesn't seem to be buying the Jack Daniel's bid to silence a dog toy parody. [Law360]

* Senate confirms U.S. Attorney right after judges had to toss several indictments citing his misconduct, but... YOLO. [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.20.26

* Former member of Watergate prosecution team explains how Trump's January 6 slush fund exposes DOJ lawyers to fraud charges down the road. Not if they all get pardons first... [Bloomberg Law News]

* James Comey realizes he's probably one of the only people actually due some money from this "anti-weaponization" fund, which is both true and honestly hilarious. [The Hill]

* Reed O'Connor "enjoins" hospital from complying with federal judge ruling from their own state. In a normal world, that would be a swift impeachment and removal from the bench, but it's the full Caligula era now. [Slate]

* Todd Blanche seems to be lying under oath, which honestly tracks. [The New Republic]

* NYC lateral hiring at 3-year high. [New York Law Journal]

* Alex Murdaugh now suing the clerk whose actions led to his murder convictions getting overturned. [ABA Journal]

* Boies Schiller and Dentons defeat RICO suit brought by former client. [Reuters]

* Quinn Emanuel sanctioned... more. [Law360]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.19.26

* Department of Justice announces it has settled Trump's lawsuit against the IRS and the judge acknowledged that she has no grounds to block the settlement. Now $1.8 billion in taxpayer funds will go into a non-reviewable fund to compensate January 6 rioters. [NBC News]

* Top Treasury lawyer abruptly quits after announcement of rioter slush fund. [WSJ]

* Interview with Legal Aid attorney present as baby born during arraignment denies account of woman's lawyer, and says mother was restrained the whole time. [Hell Gate]

* Wrongfully convicted defendants in Pennsylvania have to fight their own lawyers for chance at freedom. [Inquirer]

* Elon loses lawsuit trying to tear down OpenAI. [Corporate Counsel]

* Constipation drug illegally blocked up by antitrust violation. Jury finding sets market on path to regularity. [Reuters]

* Some chemicals may be forever, but EPA regulations against them aren't as Trump administration lifting rules against poisons. [Law360]

* Are Harvey and Legora on borrowed time? [Law.com International]

* Partner advertised mentoring sessions on TikTok. [Legal Cheek]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.18.26

* California moving closer to adopting NextGen UBE, coming full circle back to the same dumb arrangement that ran them into the red the first time. [ABA Journal]

* Former CFTC leaders worry the agency can't handle regulating crypto and prediction markets, but they're missing the trick: taking jurisdiction over those industries and then doing nothing is easy! [Bloomberg Law News]

* Supreme Court rejects Virginia's bid to use a Trump administration argument to overturn their own state supreme court's comically reasoned decision. [NY Times]

* Proposed class action accuses Amazon of foregoing tariff refunds to make Trump happy. [Law360]

* Applicants who don't go to ABA-accredited law schools are less likely to pass bar exam, more likely to be disciplined. Well, it's a good thing a bunch of states are making high-profile breaks from the ABA, huh? [Law.com]

* Harvey Weinstein rape trial ends in mistrial. [Reuters]

* DOJ eyes AI to analyze price-fixing and collusion, hopefully allowing antitrust officials identify companies to settle with in exchange for a Trump Organization kickback. [Corporate Counsel]

See Also

Trump’s Ballroom Case Gets Loopy — See Generally

They Didn't Cover "Trump" In Legal Writing: The ballroom case briefs continue to sound like a dementia patient wrote them.

Admit It, You've Ordered A "6-3 Decision" This Week: Matt Damon brought his Brett Kavanaugh impersonation back to SNL and brought us an iconic legal drink order.

Insider Trading Case Update: This week, we learned the identity of the Wachtell insider.

James Comey Does The Don Draper Meme : The former FBI Director doesn't think about Todd Blanche at all.

Trust The Associates: Judge applauds Susman Godfrey for giving key argument to junior lawyer.

All Partners Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: Another firm looks to the non-equity partner model.

John Roberts Pulls The Racial Discrimination Panic Button: The Chief thought Alabama's proposed maps were too racist a few years ago. But that was before Republicans faced grim Midterm prospects.

DOJ Launches Attack On Ethics: Government sues D.C. Bar for trying to enforce ethical rules.

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.15.26

* Elon Musk leaves country despite judge in OpenAI trial warning him that he wasn't excused. [Independent]

* Clients don't mind lawyers working from home, blowing up a key law firm excuse for aggressive back to office drives. [Roll on Friday]

* Supreme Court allows mifepristone telesales to continue -- suddenly Alito and Thomas are very angry about the shadow docket. [NBC News]

* Ethics lawyer calls out "fundamental threat" to profession in DOJ effort to sue D.C. Bar into refusing to enforce ethical rules against government lawyers [National Law Journal]

* Judge blocks Texas immigration law noting that "it is implausible to imagine" every state having its own immigration law. [Texas Tribune]

* Wilson Sonsini handing out big bucks to encourage pro bono work. [American Lawyer]

* Supreme Court says courts continue to have power over cases they've sent to arbitration. [Law360]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.14.26

* The DOJ takes the fight against law firms that refused to bow to Trump's intimidation campaign to the appellate court. [National Law Journal]

* Federal judge has concerns over SEC's sweetheart Elon Musk settlement. [Reuters]

* DOJ sues D.C. Bar for seeking professional discipline against Trump allied lawyers. There's a reason... they understand bar discipline is coming for them all and they want to get a head start in intimidating licensing authorities to stay out of it. [NY Times]

* Private equity firms are unhappy with lawyer rates. Boo hoo. [Financial Times]

* Anthropic bid to become the legal industry's AI front door and now it's up to the rest of the tech industry to figure out how to react. [Legaltech News]

* Judge McElroy absolutely lets the DOJ have it in attempt to subpoena hospital records of trans patients. [Boston Globe]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.13.26

* Claude launches legal industry blitz, announcing connectors across the legal tech industry. [LawSites]

* Former DLA Piper associate sues firm alleging she was fired after revealing her Palestinian heritage. [American Lawyer]

* SEC junks rule barring defendants from denying settled allegations -- a rule that exists because keeping market fraudsters from lying to their investors is kind of a big deal. [National Law Journal]

* Sam Altman tells jury he believes he's trustworthy. Which is also what ChatGPT says and we know how that turns out. [Law360]

* Interim NDNY US Attorney committed professional misconduct according to disciplinary authorities. [ABA Journal]

* Biden fighting back against DOJ plan to release tapes of meetings with biographer. [Politico]

* Judge Liman getting very tired of this Lively-Baldoni case. [Page Six]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.12.26

* Supreme Court lifts order barring Alabama from redistricting away Black voting power, three years after rejecting the same proposed redistricting. [Washington Post]

* ABA Committee recommends dropping law school diversity rules in order to protect accreditation status from Trump administration. [Reuters]

* Ye argues that his use of another person's song was "test drive" and not infringement. Pretty sure that's not in the hornbook. [Law360]

* Trump continues to pay his personal lawyers in federal appointments as opposed to cash. [National Law Journal]

* Virginia asks U.S. Supreme Court to overturn state supreme court decision. Which is crazy because the Supreme Court doesn't rule on exclusive state constitutional issues... unless it's Bush v. Gore. [Bloomberg Law News]

* Federal judge applauds Susman Godfrey for trusting young associate with high stakes copyright argument. [Litigation Daily]

* Lawyer spends evenings as extra on hit soap opera. [CBS]

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.11.26

* Legal shared in this month's decent job report. But if recent history is any guide, expect a downward adjustment in a couple months. [Law360]

* David Lat talks to Neal Katyal about the flak the lawyer's faced since his TED Talk. [Original Jurisdiction]

* Lawyers getting worried about proliferation of AI notetakers. [NY Times]

* Alleged Correspondents' Dinner attacker seeks recusal of DOJ leaders who've spent the last several days publicly talking about being fact witnesses. [ABA Journal]

* Law students enrolling early to get around federal loan changes. [Reuters]

* DOJ investigating prosecutor for "preferential treatment" of undocumented migrants, which just means "not automatically sending them to black site prisons for jaywalking." [National Law Journal]

* Second hundred firms more cautious with their AI spend. [American Lawyer]

See Also

Biglaw’s Inside Job — See Generally

The DOJ's Insider Trading Case Is Basically A Vault 100 Firm Directory: Sidley, Latham, Goodwin, Weil, DLA Piper, Willkie, Wachtell -- this indictment would be for an impressive on-campus interview schedule.

Paul Weiss Technically Isn't Having Layoffs, It's Just That Associates Are Leaving Very Quickly And Not By Choice: The firm keeps losing litigation leadership and now its "performance" reviews have forced out a suspicious number of litigation associates.

A Newly Combined Firm Has Also Embarked On Layoffs: A newly merged top-20 Biglaw firm is working through growing pains that include layoffs, which is what "synergies" always meant in the fine print if anyone had bothered to read past the press release.

In Alito's Defense, The Made-Up Facts He Cited Would Have Been Convincing: The Supreme Court inserted fabricated factual claims into its opinion functionally striking down the Voting Rights Act.

But, Remember, Stop Talking About The Emperor's Lack Of Clothes: Chief Justice Roberts is disappointed that everyone seems to think the Court is political just because they decided to rewrite election law.

Virginia Supreme Court Rules 'Sure, The Text SAYS This Is Legal But What This Opinion Presupposes Is... What If It Didn't?': After Virginia voters approved congressional redistricting, the majority of the state supreme court spent 30 pages redefining one sentence.

Republicans Seem To Get Carded A Lot: Todd Blanche thinks you need ID to go to a restaurant (this guy must really want to start eating at a private club).

Good Things Come In Small (And Midsized) Packages: Vault drops its annual small and midsize firm rankings.

Law Students Create Content That Is More Watchable Than Anything The DOJ Filed This Week: The 17th annual ATL Law Revue Video Contest has a winner.