{"id":166376,"date":"2026-10-29T07:55:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T15:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/29\/legal-horror-stories-to-keep-you-up-at-night\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T07:55:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T15:55:37","slug":"legal-horror-stories-to-keep-you-up-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/29\/legal-horror-stories-to-keep-you-up-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Horror Stories To Keep You Up At Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Halloween week, so we\u2019re turning off the lights and telling scary stories. But twist! These aren\u2019t about ghosts, they\u2019re about the legal industry in 2026. First up: how the Supreme Court let Alabama bring back a\u00a0congressional map a federal court found intentionally discriminatory<\/a>, without offering a word of explanation. Then there\u2019s the Justice Department\u2019s plan to let the Attorney General\u00a0freeze state bar ethics investigations into DOJ lawyers<\/a>. And no firm is too elite to get burned: Sullivan & Cromwell had to\u00a0apologize to a bankruptcy judge for AI hallucinations<\/a>, and Skadden and Kirkland got hit with a\u00a0$2 million benchslap for hiding evidence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also look at what happens when a law firm starts to unravel. Cadwalader\u2019s merger with Hogan Lovells was supposed to stop the bleeding, but it\u00a0sent even more partners running for the exits<\/a>. And Freshfields\u2019 global managing partner lived every lawyer\u2019s nightmare when he\u00a0accidentally sent the firm\u2019s secret AI spinoff plans to the entire firm<\/a>, along with a bonus insult to some very important clients. <\/p>\n

Listen in, then tell us which story scared you most by emailing\u00a0tips@abovethelaw.com<\/a>\u00a0with your pick for the scariest story of the year.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Legal Horror Stories To Keep You Up At Night<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Halloween week, so we\u2019re turning off the lights and telling scary stories. But twist! These aren\u2019t about ghosts, they\u2019re about the legal industry in 2026. First up: how the Supreme Court let Alabama bring back a\u00a0congressional map a federal court found intentionally discriminatory<\/a>, without offering a word of explanation. Then there\u2019s the Justice Department\u2019s plan to let the Attorney General\u00a0freeze state bar ethics investigations into DOJ lawyers<\/a>. And no firm is too elite to get burned: Sullivan & Cromwell had to\u00a0apologize to a bankruptcy judge for AI hallucinations<\/a>, and Skadden and Kirkland got hit with a\u00a0$2 million benchslap for hiding evidence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also look at what happens when a law firm starts to unravel. Cadwalader\u2019s merger with Hogan Lovells was supposed to stop the bleeding, but it\u00a0sent even more partners running for the exits<\/a>. And Freshfields\u2019 global managing partner lived every lawyer\u2019s nightmare when he\u00a0accidentally sent the firm\u2019s secret AI spinoff plans to the entire firm<\/a>, along with a bonus insult to some very important clients. <\/p>\n

Listen in, then tell us which story scared you most by emailing\u00a0tips@abovethelaw.com<\/a>\u00a0with your pick for the scariest story of the year.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Legal Horror Stories To Keep You Up At Night<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Halloween week, so we\u2019re turning off the lights and telling scary stories. But twist! These aren\u2019t about ghosts, they\u2019re about the legal industry in 2026. First up: how the Supreme Court let Alabama bring back a\u00a0congressional map a federal court found intentionally discriminatory, without offering a word of explanation. Then there\u2019s the Justice Department\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":166315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166376","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=166376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}