Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

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  2026: A Rule Of Law Odyssey 22.07.2026 37min

  Maybe in several years, we can get it back. ----- A Vault 50 law firm announced deep staff layoffs -- upward of 10 percent -- last week. Is this a sign of things to come -- a byproduct of AI pressure and a precarious economy -- or a unique problem for that firm? Controversy erupted after the Trump administration swiftly fired a legally appointed U.S. Attorney to replace him with an illegally named imposter. The statute authorizes the dismissal, but the replacement undermines law and order, rendering the district functionally incapable of prosecuting anyone legally. And the law firms that settled with the Trump administration to avoid getting dragged into court have... been dragged into court. If only there had been a podcast warning those firms that this was the natural and logical consequence of those deals. Also, spoiler alert for this episode if you aren't familiar with Homer's 3000-year-old poem.
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  Collateral Damage Across The Legal Industry 15.07.2026 33min

  From firms to law schools, innocent bystanders take heat. ----- Everyone talks about conflicts and redundancies, but the saddest merger collateral damage is forcing legacy lawyers to go back through the last six months of their time. That's what's happening to the Cadwalader associates as their timekeeping system merges with Hogan Lovells. On the law school side, the University of Chicago unveiled its new AI policy to keep students genuinely learning while still tackling the reality of a future AI-enhanced workflow. But laptops became the collateral damage there, as the new policy bans students from bringing their computers to class at all. And we have a deep dive into Moana. 
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  Supreme Court Narrowly Passes Reading Comprehension Section 08.07.2026 29min

  But Sam Alito still has a job. ----- The Fourteenth Amendment lays out birthright citizenship in clear terms. Every subsequent legal challenge and all the scholarly work on the subject -- until about a year ago -- agreed on how to read it. Yet, the Supreme Court still managed to split on the question, with a 6-3 decision knocking down Donald Trump's executive order purporting to overturn the key constitutional provision -- that was more accurately 5-4, with Kavanaugh agreeing with the result on other grounds, but joining the dissent in erasing the Fourteenth Amendment. Or maybe it was 6-3 with an asterisk, because Neil Gorsuch went rogue, mostly agreeing with birthright citizenship in the only scenario the Trump administration really wanted to snuff out. Chief Justice Roberts also took his burning desire to be seen as the middle of the Court comically too far, authoring contradictory opinions back-to-back. And Sam Alito did not retire, despite reports. And in Biglaw, we continue to wonder where all the raises are.
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  Alito's Outburst And Tough Times For Partners 01.07.2026 32min

  And a farewell look back as co-host Chris Williams departs the show. ------ Supreme Court action gets spicy as Sam Alito threw a fit from the bench. After Justice Sotomayor took the opportunity to systematically dismantle his reasoning in the asylum case, Alito spoke up out of turn to explain that he'd have brought better arguments if he'd known she planned to dogwalk him. And Biglaw isn't the collegial environment it used to be, with partners being given haircuts by leadership. And we say goodbye to Chris Williams, who is leaving us as a co-host after this.
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  Todd Blanche Disgrace Train Rolls On 24.06.2026 36min

  Supreme Court ignores Judge Newman's rights. ----- All the news that's fit to print agrees that Todd Blanche isn't fit to head the Department of Justice. Something about the whole transforming the DOJ into a weaponized arm of Donald Trump's political grievances thing. The Supreme Court dodged the ongoing Judge Pauline Newman debacle in the Federal Circuit. Her fellow judges have performed an end run around the Constitution, and the rest of the judiciary seems content to just look the other way. And as more folks use AI to brush up their resumes, its biases keep coming out. But does it really produce different legal resumes for men and women?
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  Federal Judges Gone Wild 17.06.2026 30min

  And a new ranking of top law schools. ------ Above the Law's Top 50 Law School rankings are out and a new school tops the list. But a number of other high prestige law schools have slipped out of the top 10... and it's mostly a matter of cost. Meanwhile, we have two federal judges out of control. Judge Ryan Nelson faces misdemeanor criminal charges over a parking lot altercation, which would be a bad look for a federal judge, but not nearly as egregious as his parking job. And we have more on the Eleanor Ross drama, after her initial "apology letters" went public and prompted the Eleventh Circuit to find a new opportunity to look the other way.
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  Sex In Chambers Met With Slap On Wrist 03.06.2026 33min

  A federal judge carried on a two-year affair with a high-ranking law enforcement officer by having sex in chambers and lying about it to investigators. The Eleventh Circuit responded with a private reprimand, concealing the judge's identity. But the judges didn't think through their anonymization strategy nearly well enough and AI cracked the case in minutes, revealing Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia. Meanwhile, in lawyer ethics, a bar complaint in New York focuses on Todd Blanche, citing the ruling out of Tennessee finding a presumptively vindictive prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And down in Florida, the scores of former judges and other professionals behind the complaint against Pam Bondi -- that Florida previously punted, claiming that it couldn't investigate a sitting Attorney General -- renewed the call, noting that Bondi may be many things, but she's definitely not the Attorney General anymore.
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  Judge Orders Law Firm To Write Lesson On How Not To Be Naughty Lawyers 27.05.2026 29min

  And the Federal Circuit's Schoolhouse Rock moment is as damning as it is embarrassing. ----- Quinn Emanuel earned $3 million in sanctions from Judge Edward Chen, who described a "deeply disturbing" culture of lawyering. But worse, the judge ordered the team involved to complete an 8-hour ethics course that the firm itself must design. The Federal Circuit decided to put together a bizarre theme song and music video for themselves. Along the way, they managed to double down on their shadow impeachment of Judge Pauline Newman by erasing the still active judge from the video. New York has a long history of abusing pregnant women in custody and now we've learned that the courts arraigned a woman while she gave birth in the courtroom -- while she may or may not have been handcuffed.
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  Don't Let The Client Write The Brief As A Treat 20.05.2026 29min

  More on Biglaw's insider trading scandal and a rare feel good story. ----- We keep learning more from Biglaw's insider trading scandal, with the identity of the Wachtell co-conspirator revealed. How did this scheme succeed for so long? The Department of Justice continued its battle to allow Trump to unilaterally rip up national monuments with another barely coherent brief. They may say "the customer is always right," but when it comes to litigation, turning over the briefing to the client can present serious ethical issues. Which might be why this DOJ is fighting so hard to punish disciplinary authorities for seeking to enforce ethical rules against government lawyers. And one prestigious litigation firm earns praise from the judge for allowing a young associate to take on key responsibility. 
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  Stealth Layoffs And Sam Alito On Tilt 13.05.2026 33min

  Also a major insider trading case strikes Biglaw. ----- The legal industry as a whole continues to rake in cash, but a few firms have shown signs of trouble. Reports out of Paul Weiss bear all the hallmarks of a stealth layoff, with litigation associates being let go for "performance" issues that never came up before. Meanwhile, a recent megamerger firm found itself cutting back on supposed redundancies. The Supreme Court set out to obliterate what’s left of voting rights, and along the way Sam Alito managed to cite fake facts and throw a temper tantrum at Justice Jackson. Also, the DOJ announced breaking up a major insider trading scheme involving multiple Biglaw firms.
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  Are There Any Adults Left At The Department Of Justice? 06.05.2026 29min

  Comey snaps sea shells by the sea shore. ----- A once-venerable institution, the Department of Justice is in disarray these days. The Attorney General got fired, multiple U.S. Attorneys have been booted as illegally appointed, judges have started doling out contempt charges, and Kash Patel is being openly branded J. Edgar Boozer. It got worse last week, as government lawyers filed a brief that -- it seemed -- they handed over to Donald Trump to write in the form of a Truth Social post. With rampant grammatical errors, irrelevant tangents, and all caps tirades, it read more pro se than DOJ. Meanwhile, over in the ironically named Civil Rights Division, they're filing briefs with "DRAFT" watermarks because apparently quality control is woke. This is all before we deal with the government filing federal criminal charges against Jim Comey over a picture of sea shells. At least one corner of legal still does work they can be proud of, as a Skadden partner leaves to become GC of OnlyFans. 
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  Kash Patel's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week 29.04.2026 34min

  The Atlantic published an article based on multiple insider accounts describing low morale at the FBI, citing current director Kash Patel's drinking and frequent absences. Patel promised swift legal retaliation and made good with an underwhelming $250 million defamation complaint. Amidst this scandal, Patel took to the stage with Acting AG Todd Blanche to announce criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center and, by extension, tell hate groups that the Trump administration has their backs. As a distraction tactic, the announcement flopped because Patel spent the press conference undermining his own defamation case. On top of this, the no one at the DOJ bothered to double-check the charging documents, because the indictment fails to allege a whole element. In non-DOJ news, Sullivan & Cromwell sent a letter to the court apologizing for filing a number of documents with AI hallucinations.
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  Law Firms Are Drowning In Cash. Trump's PAC Is Drowning In Legal Bills. 22.04.2026 32min

  And is Alito really going to retire? ----- The 2026 Super Rich list has 37 firms clearing $1.45M RPL and $625K PPL thresholds after Am Law had to raise because last year's bar was too easy. Then Kirkland proved what super rich really means by dropping a guaranteed $80M over three years to snatch a star lawyer from Wachtell. The PAC Trump uses to pay lawyers is nearly $500K in the red and owes roughly $1.6M to 12 firms. When will lawyers learn that he's never going to pay his bills... at least with money. Will Sam Alito retire to cheer on insurrections as a private citizen? If he does, Senate Republicans are ready to embrace the hypocrisy and ram through a replacement. Could it be Ted Cruz?
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  Rankings Drama Hits Law Schools, Law Firms 15.04.2026 34min

  And a crazy billing story. ----- It's that time of year where publications look deep into the souls of complex, nuanced legal institutions and assign them a fixed ranking. U.S. News and World Report issued its latest law school rankings and for the first time ever, Yale has lost its death grip on first place. The rest of the T14 -- which isn't really a thing at this point, since its whole argument for being was that the same 14 schools never fell out of the top 14 -- is also topsy-turvy, with the HYS-CCN model scrambled by the likes of Penn, Duke, and UVA. Are the rankings just busted, or are they catching up with a new reality? At the same time, Vault put out its rankings of law firms based on prestige and while the list looks familiar, the firms that made deals with Donald Trump took a hit. And none more than Paul Weiss, which seems to be taking much more reputational heat for these deals than the other capitulators. Finally, we talk about billing and the time-space continuum.
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  Trump's Awful No Good Day At The Supreme Court 08.04.2026 31min

  And Pam Bondi earned a pink slip. ----- The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Trump's effort to erase birthright citizenship from the Constitution via executive order, and it went as poorly for the administration as expected. But that didn't deter Trump from taking the unprecedented step of attending the argument personally. The president didn't last the whole time though, heading for the exit mid-proceeding as it became clear that his Solicitor General was getting boatraced by the competition. Afterward, the graduates of the Twitter School of Law ran to their computers to complain about Justice Jackson because... racism. Meanwhile, a Texas judge earns viral infamy for sniping at an IT worker and then doubled down on arrogance. And the Attorney General got canned.
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  Afroman And Elon Had Very Different Trial Experiences 25.03.2026 30min

  And the DOJ had an atrocious week. ------ Rapper turned First Amendment hero Afroman took his frustration over a heavy-handed police raid on his Ohio home and turned it into music. When the officers sued him for millions for hurting their feelings, a jury told them to take their $3.9 million demand and pound it like lemon pound cake. Unfortunately, what happened to Afroman happens all the time in America and there's not a lot being done to stop it. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice had a rough week, catching headlines for lowering hiring standards and running interference to protect Jeffrey Epstein's accomplices. That's before a judge literally tossed a DOJ lawyer from the courtroom over the U.S. Attorney's Office operating without any legal oversight. And Elon Musk went into court to argue that he wasn't fraudulent, he's just stupid. Jurors decided it's possible to be both. 
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  AI Hallucinations And Judicial Derangements 18.03.2026 37min

  And Legalweek talk. ------ It was Legalweek last week, and we discuss the big happenings from the show -- which is pretty much all AI talk -- but while we saw splashy product announcements about the future of working as a lawyer within an AI-enhanced workflow, an assistant U.S. Attorney got bounced from the job for letting AI run too much of the workflow. But the most imaginative large language models wouldn't have predicted opening a federal judicial opinion with the phrase "swinging dicks." That takes a special level of deranged that's pure Judge Lawrence VanDyke. The certified non-qualified occupant of a Ninth Circuit seat kicked off an official taxpayer funded rant about wokeness framed as vulgar trolling to appeal to the White House. His colleagues -- most of them anyway -- issued a plea for decorum, that went basically nowhere.
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  John Roberts Suffers The Slings And Arrows Of Pure Rage Trump 04.03.2026 31min

  And the bar examiners prove once again that they don't care about anyone but themselves. ----- After striking down the Trump administration's tariffs, Chief Justice Roberts has earned nothing but disrespect and abuse from the president he put in power. From a hearty handshake and Trump telling him, "Thank you, won't forget it" last year to getting bypassed in the handshake line at this year's State of the Union, it's been a long strange trip for Roberts. And yet he wouldn't have it any other way because for Roberts, ritualistic humiliation is a small price to pay for dismantling the Voting Rights Act. A blizzard took out the Northeast right before the bar exam and examiners... did not care. And another wrinkle in the AI legal advice discussion, with a different court ruling that chat prompts used in preparing a legal defense are shielded from discovery.
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  Supreme Court Airs Dirty Laundry 25.02.2026 35min

  Things get testy down at the courthouse. ----- The Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's effort to use IEEPA to impose arbitrary tariffs across the world and in the process delivered around 170 pages of epic shade. Meanwhile, the administration informed prospective military lawyers that they're no longer allowed to attend the top law schools in the country, presumably because the Pentagon is getting tired of lawyers who can actually identify a war crime when they see one. Finally, the public got another look at how lawyers do their job and predictably overreacted. Les Wexner's attorney got caught on a hot mic giving his client... blunt advice and a court ruled that "wings" don't mean "wings."
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  AI Takes The Blame, Epstein Takes The Careers 18.02.2026 31min

  And law students finally get some good news. With a Biglaw firm officially blaming staff layoffs on AI, what is it going to look like if and when layoffs come for lawyers? It's unlikely to look the same for every Biglaw business model. And it could look even more different for boutiques. Embattled Goldman Sachs chief legal officer Kathryn Ruemmler announced that she'd be leaving her role after her Jeffrey Epstein connections came out in the last file dump. And we found out that the late Ken Starr thought of Epstein as a brother, which tracks. We also saw the first majr firm strike a blow against the expedited law school recruiting cycle.