See Generally

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."

Bar Exam Meltdown And Summer Bonuses — See Generally

Yakima, We Have A Problem: Washington scrapped its entire July NextGen administration after a convention center hardware failure left roughly 645 applicants unable to log in, offering them a tentative September makeup date, a transfer to February 2027, or a refund.

The NCBE Disaster Is A Reminder: Everyone mocked California's attempt to develop its own bar exam, but across the country the supposed "experts" didn't do better.

Maryland Wins By Losing Least: One Maryland site went down for under an hour before applicants finished day one on schedule, which by the standards of this week's rollout qualifies as a triumph.

Milbank Doesn't Need A Permission Slip: For the third straight year, Milbank opened summer bonus season without waiting on Cravath, handing associates and special counsel between $6,000 and $25,000 depending on class year, payable by August 31.

The Most Expensive Bench In Central Park: Gibson Dunn pulled six litigation partners out of Wachtell, including executive committee co-chair William Savitt, and the seventh name on the list quietly vanished from the deal after a TikTok caught him making out with an associate.

IMMEDIATELY, Adverb, Meaning Never: Trump announced on Truth Social that he would seek rehearing of his 6-3 birthright citizenship loss in Trump v. Barbara, and then let the 25-day window under Rule 44 close without filing a thing.

Todd Blanche Is Doomed Because Of Todd Blanche: Senate Judiciary postponed Todd Blanche's confirmation vote because Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances that Blanche refuses to provide.

Pardon Me?: Anthony Fauci's pardon theoretically prevents him from invoking the Fifth but the caselaw never contemplated a bad faith investigation.

Partner-Associate Park Passion Predicament — See Generally

What's The Billing Code For This: A midday park-bench makeout session between a Biglaw partner and associate ends up going viral.

$1.2 Billion Worth Of 'Are You Sure This Is Legal?': MV Realty has sued Holland & Knight claiming it sank $156 million into a unique financial product blessed by the firm and 16 state attorneys general came calling.

John "Torture Memo" Yoo Invents New Crime To Threaten Administration Critics: John Yoo went on Fox News suggesting the Trump DOJ investigate Zohran Mamdani for asking New York City lawyers to evaluate the city's obligations in light of the ICC arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.

Judge Requests That Beatings Continue Until Morale Improves: Judge Lawrence VanDyke used a dissent from denial of rehearing en banc to ask the Supreme Court to start berating his colleagues. He is never, ever beating the "he wasn't qualified for this job" rap.

The Pile Is Starting To Speak For Itself: DOJ walked into Judge Arun Subramanian's courtroom with grand jury subpoenas for five New York Times reporters and took the judge's offer to withdraw rather than be quashed, and then issued a statement accusing him of overriding "common sense."

Twenty-Five Schools Where The Math Actually Works: U.S. News ranked the law schools whose 2024-2025 graduates post the highest private-sector salary-to-debt ratios, and BYU leads at 3.41-to-1 with Utah at 1.98 and Temple at 1.91, which is a useful list right up until you notice how far the numbers fall after the top three.

One Paragraph Of Law, The Rest Of It Vibes: Ordered by Judge Emmet Sullivan to unredact Epstein Act documents by July 2, Todd Blanche produced no documents and instead filed a response consisting of a single Privacy Act argument surrounded by many pages of random grievances.

A Bold Confirmation Strategy: Tell The Committee They're Lying: Asked in written questions whether he stood by admitting the slush fund was a mistake, Blanche answered "I contest the accuracy of this statement." Then he called Senators Durbin and Blumenthal liars.

"Ketanji, You Were Very Good. Matt, We'll Talk.": Shown a clip of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recounting their undergraduate acting scene, Matt Damon told CBS Mornings he remains stuck on the fact that a sitting Supreme Court Justice would say "I know that guy" about him.

Bad News Out Of Biglaw — See Generally

Opening The Gates (To Push People Out): K&L Gates cut roughly 10 percent of its business-services staff -- accounting, marketing, and IT, several of them with more than a decade at the firm.

U.S. Attorney's Fifty-Four Minutes Of Fame: Roger Rogoff was sworn in as U.S. Attorney and fired by the administration fifty-four minutes later, cleared out for the same first-assistant shell game that keeps rendering indictments worthless.

Crystal-Balling The Next Rankings Circus: Pepperdine's Paul Caron ran the ABA numbers to project the 2027 U.S. News law school rankings, and the suspense is whether Yale -- knocked out of the top spot for the first time ever this year -- can claw its way back.

Unitary Executive Theory Steps On A Rake: After successfully getting the Supreme Court to bless the idea that Donald Trump controls everything the government does -- except the Fed -- a federal judge cited that right back to him over his attempt to sue the federal government to give himself a sweeping release and his cronies a slush fund.

Always Be Charging: The Department of Justice has told all 93 U.S. Attorney's offices that every line prosecutor must keep at least 25 open matters at all times.

No Honor Among Capitulators: The DOJ hit all nine Biglaw firms that bought their way out of Trump's executive orders with subpoenas and deposition notices, demanding their communications with Boris Epshteyn and dragging in the very firm leaders who signed the $940 million in deals to avoid this in the first place.

Welcome To The Gaslight District: Legal scholars reviewing Kathryn Ruemmler's closed-door House Oversight testimony about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein called it "classic gaslighting."

Speaking Of Gaslighting: Amy Coney Barrett, who once told the public to "read the opinion" before judging the Court, informed Congress that it is inappropriate to expect the justices to actually explain their shadow-docket opinions.

Recuse Me While The Whole Bench Bails: Lawsuit to block Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove from becoming dean of Kentucky Law over faculty objections kicked upstairs after every judge acknowledged a conflict in a case against their colleague.

If At First You Fail Miserably At The Supreme Court, Try, Try Again — See Generally

Insanity Is Doing The Same Thing Twice And Expecting...: Trump wants the same Supreme Court that just rejected his birthright citizenship order to rehear the whole thing "immediately." And he decided to insult them in the process.

Grievance Studies: A conservative watchdog group filed a bar complaint against Roberta Kaplan as Trump keeps trying to wriggle out of paying the nearly $5.8 million he owes E. Jean Carroll.

Redlined: Sullivan & Cromwell promised its partners it would stay out of Trump's Carroll cases, then jumped in anyway, and now there's a civil war.

The House Always Wins: A member of Congress wants John Roberts to explain what exactly stops justices and clerks from betting real money on Kalshi about cases that only they know the outcome of.

Time Served: Legacy Cadwalader timekeepers have until July 20 to re-audit six months of six-minute entries because the merged firm's systems don't talk to each other.

The Unexamined Laptop Is Not Worth Using: The University of Chicago is yanking laptops out of 1L classrooms and leaning back into the Socratic method as its answer to the AI era.

Hard To Get: Yale tops the list of law schools that reject the most applicants, with the twenty most selective schools admitting an average of just 11 percent.

Prestige Without Borders: Harvard edges out Yale and Stanford atop the Quacquarelli Symonds global law school rankings, because the rest of the world grades on a different curve than U.S. News.

Supreme Court Term Goes Out In Blaze Of Hypocrisy, False Retirements, And Bad Ratings — See Generally

Roberts Writes Two Opinions With One Shrug Emoji: The Chief Justice declared independent federal agencies unconstitutional and then turned around and, without a note of irony, said that OF COURSE the Federal Reseve is a duly ordained independent federal agency because... [trails off].

Neil Gorsuch Takes Road Less Traveled By: The Birthright Citizenship case broke down into those who think the Fourteenth Amendment says what it plainly says and everyone agreed it said for well over a century, and conservatives looking to rewrite history... and Neil Gorsuch, who managed to find an idiosyncratic third path that both rejected the Fourteenth Amednment but seemed to cover children of undocumented migrants.

Sam Alito Has Not Retired: NPR accidentally published Nina Totenberg's pre-written Alito retirement piece, creating a 10 minute fire drill. But when all was said and done, Sam Alito continues to let his freak flag fly at the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Sets Another Low Point: New poll finds that only 22% of registered voters have "a great deal" or "quite a bit" of faith in the Supreme Court. Even 47% of Republicans say the Court needs stronger oversight.

We're All Looking For The Guy Who Did This: Former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb called Trump's $1 billion crypto haul "the greatest onslaught of corruption in the history of mankind."

Second Circuit Judge Collects Second Reprimand: Judge Sarah Merriam has been scolded a the second time for creating a "tense and challenging" work environment.

The Firms Clients Love, Or At Least Will Call Back: BTI Consulting released its annual ranking of the 113 law firms that in-house counsel love most.

Sam Alito Complains That Dog Ate His Homework — See Generally

Sam Alito Huffed That He Totally Could've Made Better Arguments (Spoiler: He Could Not Have): Alito broke protocol at the Supreme Court this week to whine from the bench that Sotomayor's dissent made him look bad for gutting Holocaust-era asylum protections in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado.

Everybody Loves Living By The Sword Until The Sword Turns Around: While star partners are hauling in packages approaching $40 million, consultants estimate that 10 to 30 percent of partners are heading into mid-year reviews with a pay cut coming, because lockstep's replacement is a system that concentrates rewards at the top and somebody has to be at the bottom.

Ben Sasse Is Either Totally Oblivious Or The Funniest Man Alive: The former senator argues that adding cameras might make the Supreme Court seem political.

Stan Woodward Sends Judge Strongly Worded Note; The Judge Sends Back Scheduling Order: Stan Woodward, the DOJ's go-to signature for its most embarassing filings, sent a two-page "notice" informing Judge Leonie Brinkema that her recent order was "unnecessary." She was not amused.

The Faintest Praise Money Can't Buy: Bill Barr wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that Todd Blanche should be confirmed as AG because he "will run the department as effectively as anyone could under President Trump."

The Swamp Is Real And It's At The Lincoln Memorial: Trump spent millions of taxpayer dollars painting the Reflecting Pool blue, and now Jeanine Pirro's Justice Department is arresting citizens for the president's pool maintenance failures.

Trump's Favorite Law Firm Loves A Pay Raise: Sullivan & Cromwell -- Donald Trump's preferred law firm these days -- has apparently matched the new Milbank salary scale.

The Machine Had The Right Answer; The Court Had The Law: An AI transcript accidentally rendered a defendant's ambiguous "Do I need to have an attorney here?" as a clear invocation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, but the judge decided it wasn't THAT clear and evaporated the defendant's Miranda rights.

The Law Review Article That Made Me Chuckle (Once, Then Twice When He Explained The Joke): A Vermont Law Review article argues that humor improves legal pedagogy and retention, is itself funny enough to prove the thesis, and then undermines its own credibility by following two of its better jokes with "See what I did there?" -- which is, somewhat poetically, a lesson in why timing matters.

The DOJ’s Slush Fund Fallout — See Generally

Ain't No Government Service Like Self-Service: The Senate-confirmed DOJ official tasked with selling the slush fund to Congress, quietly tried to recuse himself from that work so he could file his own personal claim against the fund.

Bar Tab Comes Due:  Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who signed off on the slush fund that would have paid out his own former clients, now faces a D.C. bar complaint.

All The News That's Glaringly Obvious: The New York Times editorial board laid out four reasons Todd Blanche shouldn't be confirmed as Attorney General.

Tarp Of The Morning: A D.C. Circuit panel denied the stay, the scaffolding went back up, and Trump's name came off the Kennedy Center under cover of 1:30 a.m. tarps unfurled in front of a cheering crowd.

Not It: The Supreme Court declined to review the due process questions surrounding 98-year-old Judge Pauline Newman, suspended by her own colleagues without the impeachment process the Constitution requires.

Stacking The Deck: A new study of 146 federal judges finds that clerkship "stacking" has turned a one-year launchpad into a multi-year credential arms race that the judges fueling it freely admit is broken.

Gone Phishin': Lewis Brisbois ordered its remote staff back to the office after a cyberattack.

He Said, She Said: Running the same Biglaw resume through Gemini under a man's name and a woman's name turned identical experience into "extensive" for Thomas and a downgrade for Vivian, who also somehow saw her $700 million deal shrink to $700.

Rough Week To Be A Federal Judge — See Generally

Meet In The Parking Lot After School: Ninth Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson is catastrophically bad at parking. Also in keeping his hands to himself, as he's charged with misdemeanor battery and malicious injury to property.

Maroon 1: The 14th annual ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings are here, with the University of Chicago back on top for the first time since 2021 and the formula still rewarding the outcomes -- jobs, bar passage, cost -- that actually pay the loans.

Sorry Excuse: Judge Eleanor Ross sent her former clerks apology letters so deliberately vague they named neither the affair nor the lying about it -- exactly the toothless wrist-slap her colleagues blessed when they tried to keep the whole thing confidential.

Face The Music: A DC judge tossed the Trump-rebranded Kennedy Center's breach-of-contract suit and then lost its name.

Just Good Friends: Chapman's former dean Paul Paton, the law school's first openly gay dean, sued for discrimination, alleging the university fired him for marrying his husband and dressed it up as a pretextual scholarship-budget dispute -- in a complaint that pointedly notes Chapman treated John Eastman better.

All Quiet On The Cravath Front: The 2026 salary wars are underway, but the firms matching Milbank's new scale are almost all litigation boutiques while traditional Biglaw sits on its hands, waiting for Cravath to bless the raise before anyone breaks lockstep.

Cite Unseen: A Mississippi federal judge disqualified all the lawyers in a case after both sides caught with hallucinated cases.

RAISES!!! — See Generally

Milbank Shocks The Market: Everyone had settled into the old associate pay scale, when Milbank decided to yet again respond to the rise in the cost of living.

Scoreboard: Follow all the matching salary moves with this scorecard.

That's The Price Of A Checked Bag: Davis Polk's Spirit Airlines bankruptcy filing shows second-year associates billing $1,410 an hour.

Send In The Clones: Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease built AI "personas" of 19 of its partners so associates can consult a low-resolution map of the partner's brain without bothering the actual partner.

You Got Mossed: A federal judge gutted the DOJ's theory that "86 47" reads as a threat, holding in a separate protest case that the phrase is protected speech weeks before James Comey's seashell trial.

DOJ Lawyers Either Very Dumb Or Working As Moles: The superseding indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center managed to make the government's already flimsy case even worse.

Never Never Land: A federal judge ruled Trump's handpicked board can't rename the Kennedy Center after him and found the president lied about the renovation study, prompting Trump to rage-quit.

Calvinball With A Twist: Supreme Court Republicans used the shadow docket to let Alabama install new, racist maps... because they don't want to even try to pen an opinion explaining this one.

Regularity Is A Virtue: Supreme Court reform is almost inevitable. The latest installment in this spirited debate explains why term limits are the right answer.

A Banner Week For Getting Caught Screwing Around — See Generally

If The Chambers Are A-Rockin' Don't Come A-Knockin': A federal district court judge was caught having sex in her chambers with a high-ranking police official and then lying about it. judicial complaint. Her fellow judges issued a private reprimand, scrubbing the report of obviously identifiable material. But the judges didn't realize that AI could decipher that it was Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia within minutes based just on the reports and public internet access.

Department Of Justice Served With Bar Tab: A New York bar complaint targets Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche after Chief Judge Waverly Crenshaw found that he orchestrated a presumptively vindictive prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. At the same time, more than 120 scholars and former judges reminded the Florida Bar that it previously said that as long as Pam Bondi remained the sitting Attorney General it couldn't investigate ethics charges against her. And, well, she's not anymore.

A Real Dog Of A Case: Houston attorney Steven Swain faces a bestiality charge after his wife's newly installed home-surveillance cameras allegedly caught him with the family dog.

Two Fox Rothschild Attorneys Shot Outside A North Carolina Courthouse: Both lawyers are expected to survive after a pro se plaintiff allegedly opened fire following a contentious hearing.

DOJ Continues To Confuse 'Enforcing Criminal Laws' With 'Weaponization': The DOJ fired four career prosecutors who enforced the FACE Act and then released a Weaponization Working Group report branding their work as biased against criminals that Republicans agree with,

When It Rains, It Pours Sanctions: A Cayman Islands judge concluded that a Quinn Emanuel partner's affidavit was a deliberate attempt to mislead the court, adding to a rough year that already featured a $3 million sanctions order from Judge Edward Chen.

A Hot Bonus Spring: Selendy Gay surprised associates with spring bonuses of up to $25,000, the latest sign that the boutiques are again setting the pace on comp.

Looking For More Experience: For the first time in years, the majority of Biglaw associate hiring happened on the lateral end of the market in 2025, with law student hires sliding to 37.5 percent.

Threats To Judges Apparently Only Count Above A Certain Pay Grade: A swatting attempt at Justice Amy Coney Barrett's home generated headlines, but the documented surge of threats against lower court judges -- 241 against 202 judges in 2026 alone -- keeps getting buried near the bottom of the story.

Working For Trump Is Its Own Form Of Punishment: DLA Piper's Caryn Schechtman signed a brief for Trump in the Central Park Five defamation appeal, joining a long line of lawyers serving a client who already owes a dozen firms $1.6 million.

Biglaw Firm Slapped Over ‘Culture Of Lawyering That Is Deeply Disturbing’ — See Generally

Write Your Own Detention Slip: Judge Edward Chen hit Quinn Emanuel with nearly $3 million in sanctions and ordered three of its attorneys to complete an eight-hour ethics course that the firm itself must design.

Devil's Food, Not Bundt Cake: The DOJ indicted a former federal prosecutor for emailing herself the still-secret volume of the Jack Smith report under the file name "Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf." Because the administration REALLY doesn't want that report going public.

Stand Down And Stand By Reaches Its Payday: Todd Blanche testifies that he's not ruling out taxpayer funds flowing to pardoned J6 rioter -- one convicted of molesting two children and reportedly promising victims "Trump bucks" for their silence out of $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund."

Temu Schoolhouse Rock: The Federal Circuit released a civic-education theme song boasting that judges "serve for life to stay independent and fair" -- while it is actively in litigation for locking Judge Pauline Newman out of her courtroom.

Litigation Department Is Fine, Says Litigation Department On Fire: Paul, Weiss has lost even more litigators.

An Improper, Warrantless Breakfast: Judge suppressed evidence in the Luigi Mangione case after finding that Altoona police conducted an improper, warrantless search of his backpack at a McDonald's -- a ruling the press framed as the court "throwing him a bone" rather than the Fourth Amendment doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

$22,500 A Day For A Meme: Larry Bushart, a retired Tennessee sheriff who spent 37 days in jail for posting Facebook memes about Charlie Kirk's death, settled his First Amendment suit against Perry County for $835,000 -- proof that the arresting officers might have wanted to skim the Constitution before skipping straight to the cuffs.

Todd Blanche's 'Trump's Personal Lawyer' Shirt Has People Asking A Lot Of Questions Already Answered By His Shirt: Pressed by Senator Van Hollen on his conflict of interest, Blanche responded by yelling that the press should stop calling him Trump's former personal lawyer despite being entirely accurate.

Arraignment Proceeds Without The Defendant -- Or Her Dignity: A 33-year-old woman gave birth on a bench in a Brooklyn arraignment courtroom after being held more than 30 hours on low-level charges, and the system, rather than pausing for the arrival of a human being, simply ran the arraignment without her.

The Looksmaxxer Got Out-Looksmaxxed: Looksmaxxing influencer "Clavicular" took a plea deal for shooting a dead alligator on livestream, but the internet ignored the charge entirely and instead declared that Miami-Dade Judge Marcus Bach-Armas had decisively "mogged" the 20-year-old in his own courtroom.

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.

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.

Accidentally Filing A Draft Motion Might Be The Least Embarrassing DOJ Story Of The Week — See Generally

Tell Me The DOJ Didn't Check The Filing Without Telling Me: Justice Department files motion complete with giant "DRAFT" watermark on every page. Cracker jack lawyering!

Somehow This Wasn't The Most Racist Legal Story Of The Week: But this Georgetown professor gave it his best effort until the Supreme Court eclipsed him.

Donald Trump Scolds Democrats For Disrespecting The Supreme Court He Just Called A Disgrace: He might not like a Court that strikes down tariffs, but he'll defend to the death a Supreme Court taking voting away from Black people.

DOJ Can't Help But Feed The Conspiracy Theories: Hours after the White House Correspondence Dinner attack, the DOJ put aside the serious task of criminal justice to lean into "false flag" conspiracies by reorienting the response around salvaging Trump's illegal ballroom project. If that wasn't enough, Todd Blanche followed this up in the grand tradition of JFK and Trump's Butler attempt, by inventing a new magic bullet -- suggesting this attacker's bullet vanished into thin air.

Dementia Take The Wheel: The government followed up with a new brief demanding an end to the ballroom lawsuit and it reads as though the lawyers gave Donald Trump final cut.

The Biglaw To OnlyFans Pipeline: A 20-year Skadden veteran bolts for new business cards only slightly more awkward to hand out at bar association events.

Jeopardy Champ's Next Opponent: The DOJ: While Seton Hall law student turned Jeopardy megachamp preps for the Tournament of Champions, he's adding a new battle, taking on intervenor status in the fight in New Jersey's ongoing fight to protect its voter rolls from the Trump DOJ.

The Upper Crust Does Not Appreciate Bottom-Feeders: Todd Blanche is trying to join an exclusive Washington club -- members are not enthusiastic about it.

Shell Game: James Comey indicted over seashell picture.

The Invoice Says $2,000; The Check Says 'Let's Talk': Biglaw's optimistic quarter has some problematic caveats.

Drake Law Saves On Overhead By Eliminating The 'Justice' Part Of 'Justice Clinic': Law school shutters wrongful convictions clinic after a dispute involving a $154,000 estate.

Your Motion To Reconsider Has Been Reconsidered, And The Answer Is Now Worse: A federal judge received the government's motion to reconsider a prior ruling, thought about it carefully, and realized the DOJ had successfully argued itself into a less favorable position.

The Bar Is A Vague Suggestion For Federal Prosecutors Now: Trump's latest U.S. Attorney pick has a thin trial record but an impeccable resume for at least one very specific day in January 2021, which in this administration apparently counts as a distinguished credential.