* Trump claims that the new arch he’s been planning is necessary for national security now that he knows courts are dumb enough to rubberstamp that. [NY Times] * Law schools continue to struggle with AI. How much do professors hate in-person exams that they’re still...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. We spend as a nation five cents on civics education and $50 on STEM education per student. That difference is dramatic, and the lack of quality in our teaching of civics education has been proven by every...

Everyone in Missouri understands that this game of election map tractor chicken is over. The Supreme Court has told elected officials twice to quit screwing around and run the midterms with the old maps. But the Eighth Circuit is still trying to copulate with that...

Young lawyers are apparently a disaster. They have to be coddled. They can’t think. They are lazy and don’t want to work. They need constant feedback. We’ve all heard it: if they’re left alone for more than 20 minutes, they will wander into traffic while staring at...

Here’s a compliance issue almost nobody in legal marketing is talking about: Your AI app may not reflect your state bar’s advertising rules. In this episode of “Adventures in Legal Tech,” David Arato, founder of Lexicon Legal Content, joins host Jared Correia to...

Ed. Note: A weekly roundup of just a few items from Howard Bashman’s How Appealing blog, the Web’s first blog devoted to appellate litigation. Check out these stories and more at How Appealing. “Montana Ban Would Strike at Political Spending, and the Supreme Court; A...

In a recent conversation with consultant and author Cheryl Donaldson, I explored a challenge that is becoming impossible for law firms to ignore: young, talented lawyers are more willing than ever to walk out the door if the culture doesn’t work for them. What Cheryl...

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! Which prominent 19th-century lawyer — and one of the most notorious politicians of the Civil War era — was defending a man accused of murder, arguing that the victim had actually shot himself by...

Cravath Says Mike Aiello Shares Its ‘Values.’ About That: Not where I would have gone with the press release, but OK. The G In GPT Stands For Geaux: LSU’s football coach used ChatGPT for legal advice and somehow this explains AI, doomerism, antitrust, Ted Cruz, the...

Politicians started chipping away at the American Bar Association’s law school accreditation authority over the last several months. First, a number of states — including, importantly, Texas — announced that they would stop respecting the ABA’s century of experience...

Jeff Clark informed the masses that he’s starting up a new law firm. Like any firm boasting the level of seriousness Jeff Clark brings, the announcement and a call for applications went up on X, America’s premier source for racial slurs. Though if recruiting lawyers...

Many actors have won Academy Awards for portraying lawyers over the years including Tom Hanks and Tilda Swinton. But in the early days of Hollywood, attorney roles struggled to gain recognition. Who was the first actor to win an Oscar for portraying a lawyer? Hint: It...

Justice Keggerator Goes To School: Brett Kavanaugh just casually hanging out in college dorms as one does as a 61-year-old man with a history of sexual misconduct allegations. Ken Paxton Is Now Material For The Blue Collar Comedy Tour: Ron White would like Ken Paxton...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. I said, ‘I think I am, because I’m a lawyer, and all lawyers are assholes on some level.’ — Lisa Solbakken, co-founder and managing partner of Arkin Solbakken, recalling the answer she gave when famously...

For those of us who have memories of events past, this has been a difficult couple of weeks (ignoring the dreadful weather that most of us have faced recently). First, the death of Gloria Steinem, a vocal and visible symbol of equal rights, not just for women. And...

In previous columns, I have covered the “Montana Loophole,” where car owners would deliberately register their car outside of the state they reside in. People did this to avoid their home state’s sales taxes, annual registration fees, regular smog checks in some...

It’s a match! With an asterisk… or two. Troutman Pepper Locke is the latest firm to get on board with the salary scale Milbank set back in June, telling associates it will pay market — effective January 1, 2027. The firm is matching lockstep for associates in their...

If you want to become the associate partners ask for by name, start with this: make it easier for them to serve their clients. Finish what you start. Tell them what they need to know. Give them work they can use. And please, don’t make them chase you for an assignment...

Apparently no one around Brett Kavanaugh has even the slightest sense of optics. Shouldn’t there be someone in his orbit that scores high enough on a basic pattern recognition test to advise a guy best known to the country for sexual misconduct allegations — including...

The post AI Native Law Firms Aren’t Just For Biglaw Lawyers appeared first on Above the Law.The post AI Native Law Firms Aren’t Just For Biglaw Lawyers appeared first on Above the Law.

Start spreading the news: Michael Best has made its way to New York, and it brought a merger announcement along for the ride. The Am Law 200 firm has completed a combination with Kane Kessler⁠, a Manhattan firm with approximately 40 attorneys that’s been in business...

The post One Plus One Equals More Than Two: Clio Lands McCormack To Join Arredondo In Judiciary Expansion appeared first on Above the Law.The mystery of Bridget M. McCormack’s destination has been solved.Last week, I reported that McCormack, current president and CEO...

The president is a reality TV star (so’s the transportation secretary), so of course in the year of our lord 2026 the sharpest commentary on the Texas Senate race came from a comedian on a podcast. This week, Ron White, the scotch-in-hand veteran of the Blue Collar...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. The staffing really matches the mission [to] dismantle civil rights enforcement as we’ve known it for 60 years. This is the demolition crew that they’ve hired. —  Regan Rush, a longtime career lawyer in the...

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)Another day, another round of tech company CEOs proclaiming we have a greater than 10% chance of artificial intelligence causing the extinction of humanity. Though that dire of an outlook seems a little alarmist to me, it’s hard to...

Nearly a year after a federal judge ruled that Lindsey Halligan was never lawfully the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and threw out the political prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James along...

The Federal Circuit issued a one-year suspension barring Judge Pauline Newman from hearing cases back in 2023. That order was renewed in 2024…. and again in 2025. The window for a fourth renewal is open right now. How can federal judges functionally strip a colleague...

The post Iran War Costs: $38 Billion, Plus $2 Billion-$3 Billion Per Month Going Forward appeared first on Above the Law.WASHINGTON — According to a Congressional Budget Office report published today, combat operations in Iran have cost the Defense Department around...

* How law firms became complicit actors in Epstein’s web. [Bloomberg] * Supreme Court maintains order barring states from banning telehealth mifepristone after Louisiana attempted to defy the last Supreme Court order. [ABC News] * Second Amendment scholar previews the...

You Miss 100 Percent Of The Shots You Don’t Take: Trump administration argues that insurance lawyer Lindsey Halligan really was a legally appointed U.S. Attorney despite all the facts and law. Fixing The Court: New law might finally end the Judge Newman stealth...

CLE Webinar (Register below)September 30, 2026 10 a.m. ET Facing increasing demands to do more with less, corporate law departments are exploring the promise of agentic AI.  With good reason: Even the most helpful tools for tasks like document review or clause...

New Hampshire’s top judge is out, and he’s taking an ethics confession with him on the way out the door. On Tuesday, Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s office released a one-paragraph resignation letter from Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, effective immediately. The letter says, “I...

Threats against federal judges have become an increasingly grim feature of the Trump II era, with jurists facing everything from swatting attempts to death threats for the apparent offense of doing their jobs. Now, one man accused of threatening to murder a federal...

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! In 1807, a former vice president stood trial for treason, accused of plotting to carve his own empire out of the western frontier, with the sitting president driving the prosecution and openly...

Law firm partners are supposed to share profits, not treat the firm’s operating account like a personal piggy bank. Unfortunately, one former managing partner in Illinois is accused of having missed that particular lesson in law firm management. According to a...

Amy Wax and John Eastman are teaming up! It’s the buddy comedy you never knew you didn’t need at all. Wax continues her fight against the University of Pennsylvania for imposing the barest of minimum sanctions against the professor after years of embarrassing the...

A Texas-based commercial litigation boutique law firm is seeking a talented litigation Partner with 8-10 years of sophisticated litigation experience to join its nationally recognized Houston office. This role will be a “hands-on” role, with depositions, motion...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. The rules are just flying out the window. —  Naomi Kaplan, a Los Angeles-based recruiter, in comments given to Reuters, concerning the eye-popping compensation packages Biglaw firms are using to lure star...

Every few weeks another AI company announces expanded indemnification. One vendor broadens its copyright protections, another updates its enterprise terms, and a third promises to stand behind customers facing intellectual property claims. The headlines practically...

Donald Trump’s white whale got away again Monday night. In U.S. Postal Service v. California, the Supreme Court denied the administration’s application to stay Judge Indira Talwani’s injunction — the one blocking the USPS rule that would have routed every mail-in...