Cleary Gottlieb makes its money billing clients for legal tasks. Cleary Gottlieb also owns a subsidiary, ClearyX, building tools to help clients handle those tasks on their own — and to do them cheaper and faster. In ordinary times, firms don’t cannibalize their own...

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! According to ALM data for the latest Am Law 200 ranking, which Biglaw firm’s profits per equity partner (PEP) decreased the most last year? Hint: PEP fell 13.43% at this firm. See the answer on the...

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, helmed by Harmeet Dhillon, just filed a 14-page joint motion to terminate the consent decree with the Springfield, Massachusetts Police Department with a giant gray “DRAFT” watermark plastered diagonally across every...

(Natursports / Shutterstock.com)If you are a regular reader of Above the Law, chances are good that you own an expensive, limited-edition Porsche like the 911 GT3RS, 911 GT2, 959, Carrera GT, or a 918 Spyder (to name just a few). You’d love to drive it hard, the way...

Surprise, surprise, another ABA diversity loss. Right after SFFA v. Harvard, the timer started ticking against structural attempts to correct racial disparities in the legal profession. Rules like “Hey, we should make sure that underserved communities are aware of the...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. I feel terrible for those lawyers and firms that have found themselves on the wrong side of this issue in court—it must be very frustrating and concerning. But I’m determined that we put in place every measure...

Todd Blanche is having a week. He couldn’t find the bullet. He filed what may be the most unhinged document ever submitted to a federal court. And, per Politico’s Daniel Lippman, he can’t get into the Metropolitan Club. Cue the sad trombone. Around February, Blanche...

Chicago is brimming with business opportunities for Biglaw firms, and it continues to be quite attractive for lateral moves and office openings alike. It’s definitely a winning city for the legal profession. But which firm is right for you? Thanks to Vault’s recently...

Do you like prestige? Of course you do. Is there really a law student who doesn’t? That being said, if you’re like the majority of your colleagues and you’d like to embark upon one of the most prestigious career paths available to recent law school graduates, then...

Winning a gold medal is hard. Repeating as gold medalists is even harder. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the eight women rowing for the United States, as well as their coxswain, were heavy favorites to reprise their winning ways from Beijing four years...

James Comey (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)It’s said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. When it comes to indictments, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice has streamlined the process by skipping straight to farce and then...

Last week I happened to be strolling through the Upper West Side when I found myself next to the Trump International Hotel’s Manhattan location. While I had some vague idea of where the ones in my vicinity were, a Trump-branded property was not something I’d...

* Taylor Swift attempts to register her voice and likeness as trademarks to combat deep fakes that copyright law can’t address. [ABA Journal] * This morning, the Supreme Court will hear the government’s argument that it can arbitrarily strip Haitians over temporary...

(Photo via Getty Images)For decades, the legal industry has operated on a pricing model protected by a comfortable buffer: the gap between what legal work actually costs to produce and what the market has been willing to pay for it. That gap has been sustained by...

For many law students, having a cold call on unexpected topics broadcasted to millions would be a nightmare. But Jamie Ding has been answering with style — he showed off his knowledge and recall for 31 straight games of “Jeopardy!.” While he was dethroned on his 32nd...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. Their enrollment going up is surprising. It’s just been going down, down, down for the last several years. —  Tiffane Cochran, vice president of research at the AccessLex Institute, in comments given to the ABA...

The post 8am Now Guarantees Next-Day Payments To Its LawPay Customers appeared first on Above the Law.8am, the parent company of a suite of practice and business management products for lawyers and accountants, is now guaranteeing next-day payments for customers of...

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! According to data collected by ALM, what percentage of partners in the Am Law 100 are of the nonequity variety? Hint: Nonequity partnership is increasingly popular in Biglaw, with just 10 firms in the...

No Room For Thoughts And Prayers This Time: Bad White House Correspondents’ Dinner optics fan false flag flames. Did They Forget Other People Would Read This Email?: What’s worse? That a Perkins Coie partner said this or HR’s response time? Inclusion Matters: Vault...

Over the course of the past month, Vault has rolled out a variety of law firm rankings — from the firms that are the most prestigious to the firms that offer the best quality of life to the firms with the top-ranked practice areas in their region — and there’s yet...

(Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)Donald Trump has met his match. Twice. First, Trump has probably learned that one should not pick online fights with the Vicar of Christ. Those fights are hard to win — maybe because the Pope’s got a...

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. It opens more doors and more opportunities when you have that [income] tier. Firms, I believe, are also looking to protect their equity partnership and ensure it’s healthy and economically viable. So, finding a...

It is easy to think about Judge Pauline Newman’s ongoing shadow impeachment as a one-off event. In many ways it is — thankfully, there is no long string of courts fabricating heart attacks and diminished brain capacity claims to boot a colleague off the court — but if...

You almost have to admire the speed. Less than 24 hours after a gunman was tackled outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the Department of Justice had already drafted a letter addressed to Greg Craig of Foley Hoag...

You almost have to admire the speed. Less than 24 hours after a gunman was tackled outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the Department of Justice had already drafted a letter addressed to Greg Craig of Foley Hoag...

Trump’s plan to fleece American taxpayers ran into a tiny speed bump on Friday thanks to Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida. Williams is saddled with Trump’s preposterous trollsuit against the IRS for the wrongful disclosure of his tax returns...

For lawyers, understanding AI is not just about the latest technology; it’s about remaining relevant in a rapidly evolving legal landscape. Legal professionals need to be aware of the ethical ramifications of AI, so they can confidently leverage AI tools to improve...

Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, here. Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics. Happy Monday! Last week I...

* Public confidence in the Supreme Court falls, which is significant because it didn’t seem like it could go lower. [ABA Journal] * Losing key appellate lawyers unlikely to impact firm profits. [American Lawyer] * DOJ asks plaintiffs to drop the ballroom construction...

There’s a lot of nuance to the practice of criminal law, but all those fuzzy, creative, ingenious aspects rest atop a straightforward foundation. A lot goes down over the course of a prosecution, but from jump, the government takes the elements of a crime and engages...

Well, readers, the Paul, Weiss litigation exodus just claimed a major name. Kannon Shanmugam — one of the most prominent Supreme Court litigators in private practice, a man who has argued 39 cases before the High Court — is leaving Paul, Weiss for Davis Polk &...

On Wednesday, Jeanine Pirro defiantly insisted that her investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was ongoing. “This investigation continues,” the US Attorney for DC huffed at a press conference. “I am in the legal lane. There are others who are in the...

Politeness is a one-way street. You can openly mock some of the most prominent jurists in the nation if you’re on the right team, but playing for the other side opens you up to all sorts of nitpicking about the proper way to do things. It is a nonsense rule that...

The Biglaw executive order saga has a new twist, and it’s a good one, or at least as good as things can get when you’re heading into an appellate court knowing one of three judges is going to vote against you no matter what argument you make, because she has a Supreme...

Boston is brimming with business opportunities, which is just one of the reasons that Biglaw firms are flocking there to throw open their doors. If you’re a lawyer who runs on Dunkin’, Beantown is the place to be. But which firm is right for you? Thanks to Vault’s...

I am old enough to remember when many courts did not have electronic systems to accept documents for filing. During this time, filing motion papers, pleadings, and other documents was an arduous process that either involved going to court or using a service to file...

So, you want to clerk? How will you avoid judges who harass their clerks? For two years, I posed this question at dozens of The Legal Accountability Project’s (LAP) law school events across the country. Then, in April 2024 — two years ago this month — that answer...

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! According to data collected by ALM, which firm had the largest increase in its Am Law 100 ranking? Hint: The firm rose 13 places, from 75 to 62. See the answer on the next page. The post The Biglaw...

Kannon Shanmugam Is Headed To Davis Polk & Wardwell: Best of luck to the firm’s new Supreme Court and appellate practice! Wave Goodbye To The ICE/IRS Firewall: One small step toward losing billions in taxable income at a time. The Government’s Poor Case Against...