See Generally

Some Law Firms Got Paid, Others Still Waiting By The Mailbox– See Generally

We Ran The Numbers So You Can Feel Worse: The annual taxonomy of which law firms successfully converted billable hours into generational wealth confirms that yes, some firms are very, very rich.

That Trump Check Is NOT In The Mail: Trump owes over a million in unpaid legal bills. Who could have predicted this except for everybody?

Ethics CLE Bingo: Attorney tells opposing counsel that they'll "burn in hell" for, checks notes, representing the family of a missing child.

A Different Kind Of Briefs: In a career pivot, a former adult film star has joined the legal profession.

The Passion Of The Coup Planner: John Eastman, disbarred coup-memo author, has upgraded his grievance narrative from "political persecution" to full messianic complex.

The 80 Million Dollar Man: Kirkland opens the checkbook to nab Wachtell rainmaker.

Man Who Helped Pave Highway Worried About Lack Of Guardrails: Former Trump lawyer fears that no one in the current administration appears to understand constitutional norms. Thanks for showing up late to the party.

Sir, This Is An Advice Column: Jordan Rothman has thoughts about attorney text message etiquette, and those thoughts are essentially "don't."

Can A Supreme Court Justice Just Leave Oral Arguments For Cancun?: Senate Republicans announced their readiness to confirm a new Supreme Court Justice if needed, and Ted Cruz appears to be a frontrunner.

Law School Faculties Discover Institutional Credibility, Slightly Late: A coalition of law professors has written to warn the ABA that gutting its diversity accreditation standard will damage its reputation, which is a newsflash the institution needed several months ago.

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.

Trump Crashes Out At Supreme Court — See Generally

Born Loser: Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of sitting in as the Supreme Court heard oral argument on the challenge to the administration's executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship. He bailed long before the argument ended once even he could see his case was totally cooked.

You Can't Fix Stupid, But You Can Quote-Tweet It: Justice Jackson asked a hypothetical about stealing a wallet in Japan to -- a hypothetical to explore the various meanings of being subject to jurisdiction -- and kicked a hornets' nest of social media racists questioning her legal credentials from their mom's basement.

Check Your Cites: In its attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship, the administration cited Confederate officer and segregation advocate Alexander Porter Morse as an authority -- a reminder that not every supporting citation is a good idea.

Contempt Of Court, IT Edition: A Texas judge threw an IT worker out of his courtroom for the crime of diagnosing a non-existent audio problem. And then somehow the story kept getting crazier.

Clerk And Awe: Susman Godfrey bumped its federal clerkship signing bonus to $180,000, with $200K for multiple clerkships, joining Hueston Hennigan at the top of the market and making the rest of Biglaw's offers look like a participation trophy.

Bye Bye Bondi: Trump canned his Attorney General, describing her next move as "transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector" -- which is somehow even more brutal than the Kristi Noem treatment, where at least Trump bothered to invent a fake new government position.

Portrait Of A Lady In A Dumpster Fire: Bondi's official portrait was almost immediately spotted in the garbage at DOJ.

Will The Real Bloated Shady Please Stand Up: Trump's legal team argued in the January 6 civil case that, if you think about it, the president is basically like a rapper whose concert gets out of hand -- and Judge Mehta methodically dismantled the analogy.

Birthdays Come And Go, But Billable Hours Are Forever — See Generally

Biglaw Partner Drops Future Therapy Fodder: Asked how she juggles being a working mom, a newly minted partner offered a refreshingly horrifying answer: sometimes you miss your own kid's birthday party.

The AI Pipeline Crisis Nobody Wants To Talk About: AI won't replace lawyers, but it might create a critical shortage of good ones.

Major Regional Firm Calling It Quits: Atlanta's Taylor Duma is shutting down after 21 years, given "the influx of firms into the Atlanta market."

One Law Firm Commits To Doing Something About Broken Recruiting Model: Susman Godfrey is done trying to fight over recruits who haven't even finished their first set of exams.

Former Attorney Generals... They're Just Like Us!: Bill Barr spotted in a 3-hour TSA line at Houston's IAH, courtesy of the president he sacrificed his reputation for.

Trump Says His Own Supreme Court Appointees "Sicken" Him: Girl, same.

My Cousin Vinny Somehow Managed To Get More Realistic Through The Studio Revision Process: In a fun exercise, Litera used the draft screenplays from My Cousin Vinny to show off its document comparison tool and AI assistant.

Jay Clayton's SDNY Throws ICE Under The Nearest Available Bus: Clayton's office informed the court that they've been accidentally lying to judges for months and it's all ICE's fault.

ATL March Madness Bracket Enters The Elite Eight: Voting continues through Monday to decide the Trump lawyer most deserving of their eventual disbarment.

What If We’re Just Mad This March? — See Generally

ATL Bracket: Which Of These Ghouls Should Get Disbarred First? There are still a few hours left to vote in our annual March anger bracket. Which Trump lawyer's ethically fraught work most warrants disciplinary inquiry. We have 4 regions worth of matchups... here, here, here, and here.

Back In The Day, Megafirms Cut Local Back Office Staff, Moving It All Offsite... AI Now Comes For Those Jobs: The jobs that were once cheaper in Tampa are now a lot cheaper with Claude.

Judge Calls Out NJ US Attorney's Office For Three-Raccoons-In-A-Trench-Coat Management Style: Who is actually running the NJ US Attorney's Office? Because the Trump DOJ's inability to do anything right is starting to risk putting child predators back on the streets. I mean... other than the ones in the redacted Epstein files.

Todd Blanche Still Laser Focused On Covering Up For Pedophiles: The Deputy AG seems to take a personal interest in blocking anything that might reveal Epstein's accomplices.

Weil Gotshal Names First Female Executive Partner: Ramona Nee will become Weil's first woman to hold the executive partner title in firm's history.

Trump Rage-Posts 1,000 Words About The Supreme Court At 11 PM On A Sunday: With a war in Iran, a China-Taiwan standoff, and DHS in shutdown, the president still found time for a meandering rant about the Court he packed.

Because I Got Sued (Because I Got Sued): Afroman mocked the cops who wrongfully raided his house... so they sued him for hurting their feelings.

AI Costs Human Lawyer His Job… Just Not The Way The Tech People Expected — See Generally

AI-Brained AUSA Falls On His Sword... I Wonder If That Was Also ChatGPT's Advice: Federal prosecutor who filed AI-hallucinations -- and then made misleading statements about how they got there -- resigned rather than force a judge to decide whether his entire office should share the sanctions.

DOJ Argues Biglaw Cowardice Proves Its Orders Are Legal: After briefly pretending it would stop defending Trump's Biglaw executive orders, DOJ is back in appellate court and arguing that the orders are legal because so many other law firms did NOT challenge the orders.

Ninth Circuit Judges Beg Colleague To Act Like A Grown-Up: Judge Lawrence VanDyke opted for crude trolling in a trans discrimination dissent, prompting colleagues to issue judicial plea for the unqualified judge to display basic professionalism.

Sidley Joins The 'Partner, But Not Like That' Club: Another firm adopts an income partner tier, as old guard attorneys continue building moats around their equity.

Law Student's 'End Political Violence' Flyers Earn Discipline... Earning Law School A Legal Threat: A Campbell Law student put up Charlie Kirk flyers with the message "End Political Violence," and the school pulled them down with a warning. Now they've got some explaining to do before ending up in court.

UNM Law Hits The Scholarship Jackpot: A $4.5 million donation from alumni Eric and Dana Marie Knapp will fund full-ride scholarships for ten UNM law students over 30 years, up from one every three years.

DLA Piper Makes A Verein Important Decision: The massive law firm is ditching its Swiss verein structure in favor of a unified profit pool.

Change Change Change — See Generally

But If We Changed The Rules...: Department of Justice proposes new rule that allows Pam Bondi to decide if any of her lawyers violated state ethics rules. This should work out great!

Trump Over Grades: Law school tells students that prestigious jobs are open if they're loyal to Trump, and that GPA isn't much of a factor.

Bye Bye Piece Of The Equity Pie: Arnold & Porter creates income tier.

What If We Just Get Rid Of The Author?: Federal Circuit dissents drop once they invent a new exception to life tenure to get rid of Judge Newman.

DOJ Gives Up Unconstitutional Nonsense Case... OR DO THEY?!?: Trump's attempt to ruin Biglaw firms who wouldn't pay him off dies a quiet death in court. Then, within 24 hours, the DOJ tells the court that it's reversing itself and would like to continue illegally harassing law firms.

Speaking Of Reversals: The Florida Bar opened an investigation into ethically challenged government lawyer Lindsey Halligan. And then immediately announced that it didn't know anything about that.

AI Could Mess Up The Outside Counsel Relationship: This tech may not replace lawyers, but it might replace which lawyers do the work.

Chief Justice Roberts Stares Into The Abyss — See Generally

Chief Justice Roberts Relishes Role As President's Favorite Doormat: John Roberts traded his credibility so Trump could hold press conferences calling the Chief "very unpatriotic."

But Don't Call It A Comeback: And don't mistake his tariffs opinion -- or those of Barrett and Gorsuch either -- as a redemption arc. They only put their foot down when Trump's actions started hurting their buddies.

New York Bar Examiners Tell Blizzard-Stranded Applicants To Show Up Or Else: Over 10,000 flights canceled? Travel bans across multiple states? Bar examiners remained unmoved.

Judge Cannon Sides With Trump, And In Other News, Water Is Wet: Judge buries report detailing the evidence of Trump's criminal charges because she knows where her bread is buttered.

Ninth Circuit Says Size Doesn't Matter: Appeals court smacks down fee-shaming of small law firms.

Your AI Prompts May... Or May Not... Be Privileged: Competing decisions over AI and privilege mean your legal brainstorming sessions with a chatbot might end up in discovery. Welcome to the future.

Maurene Comey Lands Partner Gig: James Comey's daughter makes partner at a law firm after being unceremoniously drummed out of the DOJ by a vindictive administration.

Supreme Court Justices Spend Opinion Sniping At Each Other — See Generally

SCOTUS Justices Spend 170 Pages Airing Office Drama: Supreme Court nukes Trump's tariffs and treat us to all their petty grievances. Except for Thomas who just wrote some ramblings about the powers of the crown.

Another Biglaw Firm Decides Two's Company When It Comes To Partnership Tiers: Global giant unveils shiny nonequity track and tweaked lockstep, pushing the single-tier partnership model doomsday clock closer to midnight.

Trump Judge Admits The Constitutional House Is On Fire: If it's not yet a “constitutional crisis,” it's rounding third with a head of steam.

DOJ Plays 'Name The Crime' And Loses: Trump administration wanted to prosecute Democratic lawmakers but never bothered to figure out a single statute that got broken.

No Facts, Pound The Law. No Law, Pound The Table. No Table, Pound The... Uh Oh: Texas prosecutors argue that a defendant masturbating during testimony wasn't "inappropriate" if the judge and jury didn't notice.

Another Am Law 100 Firm Discovers AI Is Not A Lawyer: Major firm accused of filing a hallucination-laced brief. When will this end?

Pentagon Decide Its Lawyers Need To Be Dumber: Defense Department tells future military lawyers that they can no longer attend the best law schools in the country.

Deposition Advice Of The Year Goes To “I’ll F---ing Kill You”: Brevity is the soul of wit and depostion responses.

Judge Declares Mistrial Over Shirt: Lawyer's civil rights celebration shirt causes judge to cry bias.

Law Professor Arrested On 50 Counts Of Child Sexual Abuse Material: Barry University law professor and interim associate dean arrested in Florida; prosecutors say hundreds of thousands of images were found.

Layoffs, And Mergers, And Epstein, Oh My! — See Generally

Top 10 Biglaw Firm Decides The Future Is Smaller: Hundreds of support staff are out, and leadership cites AI as a key factor. Should lawyers be worried? If AI comes for the attorneys, it's going to be a matter of the firm's business model.

You'll Never Guess Who Ken Starr Called “My Friend, My Brother”: Oh, of course you will... it was Jeffrey Epstein.

Those Kathryn Ruemmler Emails Deserve A Closer Look: The soon-to-be-former Goldman Sachs legal chief tried to downplay her Epstein connections. Here's why they still mattered.

Biglaw Pumps The Brakes On Early Recruiting: For once, law students may get to finish a semester before firms start treating them like draft picks.

The World’s Richest Law Firm Goes Country: Biglaw’s financial juggernaut joins Nashville market.

Jeanine Pirro's Office Not Ready For Its Closeup: The latest epic fail from Pirro's tenure as U.S. Attorney involved bringing one of her old assistants out of retirement to pursue a case while running his dance photography studio.

Perkins Coie Eyes Retention Bonuses As Merger Nerves Set In: Nothing says “we’re excited about this tie-up” like quietly calculating how much it costs to keep partners from bolting.

HBCU Law School Told “Black” Is Off-Limits For Black History Month: In latest culture-war absurdity, administrators thought the safest word is no word at all.

DOJ Lawyer Delivers Moment Of Pure Honesty, Promptly Fired — See Generally

DOJ Lawyer Invites Judge To Hold Her In Contempt Just To Get Some Rest: Government attorney called out the challenges preventing her from complying with court orders and begs for rest. The DOJ immediately fired her.

Brad Karp Era Ends At Paul Weiss: Paul Weiss undergoes impromptu leadership shuffle after Epstein files reveal conversations with Epstein.

Republicans Get Huffy About Justice Jackson Attending The Grammys: GOP decides the real scandal is a Supreme Court justice hearing musicians as mad about ICE as the rest of the country.

Biglaw Epstein Victim Drafted Own Sex Contract: Clifford Chance alum went on to law school at Berkeley, paid for by Epstein.

Anthropic Enters Legal Tech, Creates Immediate Freakout: New twist in AI arms race as one of the big players enters the fray directly.

DOJ Hiring Prosecutors Based On Sliding Into DMs: Federal hiring hits new low.

Whole New Meaning To Judicial Restraint — See Generally

Judge Learns Handcuffing Lawyers Is Frowned Upon: Texas judge charged after allegedly cuffing an attorney mid-hearing.

Disbar Them All: Lawyers have to come together as a profession and make sure the Trump administration's lawyers never practice again.

Judge Skeptical That Trump Can Unilaterally Blow Up Historic Buildings: The East Wing is gone, but the legal fight continues.

Tip For Professor Richard Epstein... Shutting Up Is Still Free: Law professor who faceplanted on COVID insists now declares he’s figured out that everyone has been wrong about the Fourteenth Amendment for a century or so. He is incorrect.

Law School Merger Mania: Regional institution is exploring long-distance merger.

Stroock Calls It After 150 Years: The storied firm dissolves, reminding everyone that nothing is forever.

Law Firm Jet Crash Leaves No Survivors: Tragically, a firm-owned plane went down with no survivors.

Partnerships, Legal Education, Marriages… Lawyers Were Destroying Everything Last Week — See Generally

Another Biglaw Single-Tier Partnership Falls: The path to upward mobility got a little narrower.

Florida And Texas Take Over Legal Education From The ABA: Both states have made abundantly clear that their schools are headed for a dumpster fire.

Supreme Court Hacked, Which Tracks: America’s highest court might want to consider changing its password to something harder than "12345."

Former Senator Turned Biglaw Lawyer Sued For Ruining A Marriage: The complaint reads less like a legal dispute and more like a prestige HBO drama. Well... STARZ drama anyway..

Former Biglaw Associate Who Refused To Bend The Knee Earns Top Honor: Above the Law readers select lawyer who chose principle over prestige as 2025 Lawyer of the Year.

Lindsey Halligan Responds To Illegal Appointment Allegations By Doubling Down: Trump’s most loyal lawyer insists the problem isn’t the law -- it’s everyone insisting on following it.

New Law School Rises From The Ashes Of A Prior Disaster: Hopefully this time is different.

Former Biglaw Partner Charged With Murder: The profession confronts a grim reminder that elite credentials are not character references.

Law School Arms Students With Anti-ICE Hotline: As federal enforcement escalates, one institution decides protecting students matters more than staying quiet.

The New Year Is A Time For Endings — See Generally

Midsize Law Firm Begins New Year By Closing: Firm's resolution appears to have been to shed all its offices.

Judge Ho Trades Common Decency For Chance To Suck Up To Trump: The president's fans are sending violent threats to federal judges. Judge Ho wants to make clear to anyone who might choose a future Supreme Court justice that he doesn't think those threats should be that big of a deal.

ICE Kills Minneapolis Woman And Will Probably Evade Justice: Prosecuting the ICE agent who killed Renee Good presents an uphill battle. Unfortunately, civil relief could prove just as elusive.

The Third Amendment Doomsday Clock Ticks Closer To Midnight: Hilton cut off a franchisee after the Department of Homeland Security attacked the global chain over social media because the local management did not want to deal with the protests related to housing ICE agents.

See Ya!: Judge placed on leave after video of racist and homophobic remarks went viral has now lost her job.

Fake U.S. Attorney Can't Take A Hint: Judge losing patience with Lindsey Halligan pretending to be a prosecutor.

Chief Justice's Annual Report Cites Founding Father Who Would Have Zero Tolerance For This Nonsense: The man who gave Donald Trump absolute immunity framed his latest report around Thomas Paine.

Mega Merger Just In Time For The Holidays — See Generally

Cadwalader Joining Up With Hogan Lovells: After a few months of merger chatter, we have a new home for America's oldest firm.

ICE Accidentally Publishes Enemies List: The agency briefly posted what looked an awful lot like a watch list of immigration lawyers, in case you're wondering what stage of dystopia we're at.

Lindsey Halligan Gets Taken To The Woodshed Again: Trump’s favorite lawyer continues her tour of adverse rulings and judicial side-eye.

Biglaw Firm Faces Serious Allegations: Former associate accuses former partner of rape and asserts hostile work environment claims against the firm.

Prepare Yourself For Rankings Season Discourse: U.S. News is back to reshuffling law schools, ensuring everyone is furious for reasons no one can fully explain.

Dershowitz Spins Wheel Of Nonsense Legal Theories... Lands On 'What If The 22nd Amendment Isn't Real?': Trump wants a third term and his favorite legal scholar is there to muddy up the constitutional waters .

Man Arrested Over Meme Takes His Case To Court: A civil rights lawsuit asks whether free speech still applies.