{"id":140450,"date":"2025-12-31T15:53:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/12\/31\/a-look-back-at-the-2025-dumpster-fire\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:53:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:53:05","slug":"a-look-back-at-the-2025-dumpster-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/12\/31\/a-look-back-at-the-2025-dumpster-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look Back At The 2025 Dumpster Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve made it to the end of the year! And what do we have to show for it as a profession? Our most elite law firms signed deals<\/a> rather than stand up for themselves<\/a> in the face of illegal Trump bullying efforts. Others quietly tried to erase their history<\/a> to avoid the administration\u2019s ire. But some firms did fight back and achieved consistent success in court<\/a>, while the dealmakers got heckled<\/a> and derided by young lawyers<\/a>. And, as anyone who has ever watched Star Wars knows, deals with authoritarians just get worse all the time<\/a>. The New York Times even wrote a feature on a certain publication covering this story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also ran headlong into a constitutional crisis marked by DOJ lawyers lying to courts<\/a> \u2014 when the DOJ even bothers to field lawyers legally<\/a> \u2014 senior government officials declaring \u201cwar\u201d on federal judges<\/a>, and judges being arrested<\/a>. As right-wing threats against federal judges escalated<\/a>, the Supreme Court responded with disinterest<\/a>, preferring to fan the flames with nakedly partisan shadow docket rulings<\/a> to grease the wheels of Trump\u2019s assault on the structure of government<\/a>. And, finally, we look at the year of AI in legal. Hallucinations dominated the conversation \u2014 from law firms<\/a> and judges<\/a> alike \u2014 but this was also the year legal tech made huge bets on AI<\/a> and folks started to realize that the profession can\u2019t avoid the technology<\/a>. The billable hour may finally be on the decline<\/a>, but does AI risk making lawyers dumber?<\/a><\/p>\n

The post A Look Back At The 2025 Dumpster Fire<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve made it to the end of the year! And what do we have to show for it as a profession? Our most elite law firms signed deals<\/a> rather than stand up for themselves<\/a> in the face of illegal Trump bullying efforts. Others quietly tried to erase their history<\/a> to avoid the administration\u2019s ire. But some firms did fight back and achieved consistent success in court<\/a>, while the dealmakers got heckled<\/a> and derided by young lawyers<\/a>. And, as anyone who has ever watched Star Wars knows, deals with authoritarians just get worse all the time<\/a>. The New York Times even wrote a feature on a certain publication covering this story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also ran headlong into a constitutional crisis marked by DOJ lawyers lying to courts<\/a> \u2014 when the DOJ even bothers to field lawyers legally<\/a> \u2014 senior government officials declaring \u201cwar\u201d on federal judges<\/a>, and judges being arrested<\/a>. As right-wing threats against federal judges escalated<\/a>, the Supreme Court responded with disinterest<\/a>, preferring to fan the flames with nakedly partisan shadow docket rulings<\/a> to grease the wheels of Trump\u2019s assault on the structure of government<\/a>. And, finally, we look at the year of AI in legal. Hallucinations dominated the conversation \u2014 from law firms<\/a> and judges<\/a> alike \u2014 but this was also the year legal tech made huge bets on AI<\/a> and folks started to realize that the profession can\u2019t avoid the technology<\/a>. The billable hour may finally be on the decline<\/a>, but does AI risk making lawyers dumber?<\/a><\/p>\n

The post A Look Back At The 2025 Dumpster Fire<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve made it to the end of the year! And what do we have to show for it as a profession? Our most elite law firms signed deals rather than stand up for themselves in the face of illegal Trump bullying efforts. Others quietly tried to erase their history to avoid the administration\u2019s ire. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}