See Also

ChatGPT Experts, $700 Million Law Firms, And Frat House Felonies — See Generally

Expertly Flawed: An expert witness collected $90,000 from 3M to ask ChatGPT, "show how 3M is 0% at fault." Plaintiffs' counsel turned the resulting 350-page prompt log into the deposition of a lifetime.

Barbarians Inside The Gate: Wood Smith Henning & Berman reportedly signed a letter of intent to sell a stake to Charlesbank Capital Partners at a roughly $700 million valuation, which would make it the largest private equity investment in an American law firm... so far.

Indisputably Disputed: The DOJ told a court there's "no serious dispute" that "86 47" means a threat, even though everyone outside the White House orbit seriously disputes exactly that.

Run For Your Licenses: A whistleblower disclosure sent to Congress describes DOJ civil rights attorneys leaving the antisemitism task force because staying might cost them their law licenses.

Like Father, Like Son... Allegedly: A prominent Pittsburgh product liability lawyer was charged alongside his son in an alleged cocaine trafficking operation run out of Penn State fraternity houses. The son has since lost his $188,000 law school scholarship over it.

Group Chat Privileges Revoked: A UK barrister was disbarred after WhatsApp messages saying a former employee belonged in a "mental asylum" with "restraints lol," conduct an employment tribunal had already found amounted to harassment.

The Piece Of Me Practice: Greenberg Traurig's Mathew Rosengart has become the go-to litigator for Britney Spears, FKA twigs, and now Selena Gomez, who tapped him to defend the fraud suit over her mental-health startup Wondermind.

A Bow Too Far?: Legal commentators are split on whether the Lindsay Clancy prosecutor's daily hair bows are a tribute to one of the young victims or a courtroom optics problem headed for an appellate brief.

Matching The Milbank Scale Before Most Of Biglaw — See Also

While The Rest Of Biglaw Waits On Cravath, McKool Smith Just Matched Milbank: The Texas trial powerhouse is raising associate salaries $10K to $20K — effective January 1. The 'Kool' kids always come through eventually.

Crim Law Lessons Start Early: Penn State frat coke ring costs prospective law student their slot.

Lowering Standards? In This Administration?: The Department of Education begins process of ending ABA law school accreditation. Who could have guessed that giving in to the administration's demands would backfire?

The Associate Compensation Scorecard: Catch up with the firms brave enough to issue bonuses and raises this cycle.

It's A Wild Time To Be Working In Public Health: That's why we need great schools like this for those interested in health law.

Is You Taking Notes?: Former prosecutor accused of leaving a robust written record of violent threats against former bosses.

The First Big ‘Yes’ In Private Equity’s Slow March Into Law — See Also

Private Equity's Law Firm Takeover Isn't Here, But It Just Got A Lot Closer: The reported $700 million Charlesbank deal for Wood Smith Henning & Berman gives PE a toehold in the industry.

Todd Blanche's Potential Successor Has A Slush Fund Problem Too: The Senate is going to love this.

Federal Judges Say The Darnedest Things: Judicial complaint compiles judge's media hits and there's just a whole lot of bigotry.

Texas Says ‘No Thanks’ To The Constitution: Well, at least its Governor did.

That's One Way To Get Out Of A Hearing: Condolences on losing the election.

Jim Comey Case Proves Words Are Hard For DOJ — See Also

86: DOJ says no one disputes the meaning of term that literally everyone disputes.

Get Out While You Can: Meanwhile, DOJ whistleblower disclosure suggests government attorneys are starting to fear losing their licenses when this is all said and done.

Better Call Saul Reboot: Penn State fraternity coke ring ensnares prominent Pittsburgh lawyer.

Dershowitz Drama: Martha's Vineyard is quieter this year, but Alan Dershowitz still has time to complain about it.

Minnesota Pride: Senate candidate embarrassed by the state.

Expert Has ChatGPT Write Report. That Was A… Poor Decision — See Also

The Defense Calls ChatGPT: An expert used ChatGPT to draft "90 to 85" percent of his report. The plaintiffs' attorney had a deposition for the ages on that one.

The Most Closely Guarded Secret In The Biglaw EO Case Is Who Wrote The Orders: A government proud enough from the podium has suddenly gone shy about signing its work.

The Biglaw Superheroes Of Client Service: Find out which firms, and which lawyers, are considered the best of the best.

Robot Judges: This judge probably did NOT use AI to decide this case, but if she had... a court ruled that it would be covered by judicial immunity.

The Travel Trap: Before boarding a plane, whether for international or domestic travel, immigrants should understand their individual risks.

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.

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.

Boutique Money Is Where It’s At — See Also

Up To $170K In Bonus Bucks! This firm has already handed out three bonuses, while Biglaw associates are waiting to see if they'll maybe get one.

Purcell Unprincipled: Alabama held its first primary since the Supreme Court jettisoned the Voting Rights Act, and people mostly didn't vote... which from the Court's perspective is a feature not a bug.

The DOJ Doesn't Miss A Lesson: DOJ arrests former SPLC employee now that the court has blessed malicious prosecution.

'I'll Be Charging People With Assault': Florida's AG discovers the WNBA

Dance Dance Insurrection: Jeanine Pirro turns to dance photographer to pursue charges with a "special" grand jury.

Asked Why He Cheated, Ken Paxton Would Like To Tell You About His Grandchildren: A town hall caller asked the question we're all thinking.

Someone Is Keeping Up With Milbank — See Also

Keeping That Raise On Ice: Ice Miller increases associate pay in New York, but not until 2027.

Blame It On The AI: Company tried to pin labor law violation on ChatGPT.

The Tech Isn't The Key: Legal AI needs to build a winning user experience if it's going to capture Biglaw.

Everyone In MAGA Land Has Notes For Jeanine Pirro This Week: 'Never mention her friggin' name to me,' fumed the man demanding she fire a prosecutor.

Biglaw Flirts With Private Equity, Because Ruining Everything Else Wasn’t Enough — See Also

Biglaw Wants Private Equity's Money -- Ask Your Vet How That Turned Out: The same 'management services' trick that swallowed your dog's clinic is now knocking on Paul Weiss's door.

That's Some Catch, That Catch-22: The administration may talk like the SPLC case is a vindictive prosecution, but this Trump judge says there's no way to know for sure without discovery. Also, she will not allow discovery.

Ballroom Blitzed: D.C. Circuit judges block the Trump bunker ballroom.

The Senate Confirmed Todd Blanche As Attorney General In The Dead Of Night: Collins and Murkowski got their moderate bona fides. Cassidy got the blame and Blanche got the job.

Your LSAT Score May Be High, But Is It THIS High? Check out the law schools with the highest LSAT scores.

Trump Rewrites Supreme Court Loss As A Win — See Generally

Just When You Thought The Paul Weiss Surrender Couldn't Get Worse: The New York Times dug into the first Biglaw capitulation and it's even more cowardly than we thought. Dropping a client to keep the administration happy and internally considering running management decisions by Stephen Miller.

And Then This: The same report also claims Paul Weiss paid its first openly transgender partner $3.5 million for a non-disparagement agreement as they parted ways.

Til Disgorgement Do Us Part: Jackson Walker will pay $15 million to end the U.S. Trustee's suit over its former partner's undisclosed romance with the bankruptcy judge hearing her cases.

Just Pretend You Won: After raging over his loss in the birthright citizenship case, Trump issued new executive orders asserting that he actually won.

Reflecting Poorly: Jeanine Pirro dropped the vandalism case against a 67-year-old former Olympian after the Interior Department finally turned over documents showing that a $14 million renovation had simply been botched, and the president has spent the days since complaining about her.

Lateral Thinking, In Bulk: Brown Rudnick picked off a massive lawyer intellectual property litigation team from HSF Kramer, the largest group hire in the firm's history, and opened a Silicon Valley office to put them in.

Too Big To Hire: Firms of more than 500 lawyers are now the single largest employer of new law graduates, taking more than one in five members of the Class of 2025. Those same firms hired 7.5 percent fewer of them than the year before, the first drop in Biglaw entry-level hiring since 2014.

Come Early, Stay Late: Milbank is offering its incoming first-years the chance to start three weeks ahead of schedule on the strength of "exceptionally strong client demand."

Losing Supreme Court Argument? No Problem! — See Also

When You're A Star: Donald Trump bitterly complained about losing the birthright citizenship cases. Yesterday, he issued executive orders asserting that he won.

Collins No. Murkowski No. McConnell Absent. Cassidy: Sure, Fine. Todd Blanche is going to be Attorney General of the United States. but it's closer than anyone expected.

The Bar Exam Waiver Comes For Washington's Grads. Just Not All Of Them. First-timers who got shut out are being waived in. The ones who ground through the broken exam are stuck with their scores.

Pay Me What You Owe Me: Raises for Biglaw associates are still MIA. Firms need to stop waiting for Cravath.

This Is Bananas: FedSoc co-founder befuddled by green bananas.

The Incredible, Shrinking Biglaw Class — See Also

Go Big Or Go Home: Biglaw may be the largest single employer of new law school grads, but now associate class sizes are shrinking.

Senator Schiff Tried A New Approach With Trump's Election-Denying Judicial Nominees: He asked about 2008, 2012, and 2016 first. The nominee answered all of them. Then came 2020...

RICO Not-So-Suave: Reed Smith can't easily get out of claim that it took part in fraud.

Down And Out In Law School: Law schools ran up big debts chasing higher rankings and the bill has finally come due. Nearly 70 percent of law schools face financial uncertainty.

Bar Exam Tragedy Still Not Addressed: A woman who suffered cardiac arrest during the exam has sued the site, but the bar examiners still haven't changed the rules that brought us here.

New Mexico Is Suing Todd Blanche To Get Access To Epstein's Zorro Ranch Files: New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is done waiting... he's suing Todd Blanche.