Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

This is likely only the beginning of the reckoning.

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As predicted on last week's episode, Brad Karp left the top post at Paul Weiss following the disclosure of friendly correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein. But Karp wasn't the only Biglaw lawyer in the files, nor were his conversations the most troubling. A former Clifford Chance trainee drafted a sex contract with Epstein, Goldman Sachs GC Kathy Ruemmler made a joke with Epstein that normally you wouldn't make with someone who already pleaded guilty to child prostitution charges, and Alan Dershowitz managed to drag Paul Weiss into the case again when people found sex tourism legal analysis in the files from a now-Paul Weiss partner... passing along Dershowitz's thoughts.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, a DOJ lawyer called out the broken immigration system before literally asking to be held in contempt so she could get some sleep. which is what happens when an administration breaks the legal system so thoroughly that even its own lawyers can't keep up with the chaos. And legal tech took a financial jolt as Anthropic announced its entry into the legal tech space.

Between Epstein files and ethical breaches, a reckoning seems so close yet so far.

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A flurry of stories hit the legal world all at once last week, with the government responding to another ICE killing in Minnesota by... arresting journalists and dumping Epstein files. And while the Epstein files don't represent the entire universe -- or, perhaps, even the most relevant -- files about Epstein's dealings, they have set off downstream shockwaves in the legal industry. Meanwhile, another judge learns that we frown upon judges arbitrarily handcuffing lawyers. Finally, it's time for the profession to come together behind helping our self-regulators hold Trump administration lawyers accountable. The ethical breaches keep adding up and while there's never going to be the warranted criminal law reckoning, we can at least make sure our profession is protected by disbarring all these administration lawyers getting caught affirmatively lying to courts... and worse.

After taking a hacksaw to nearly a century's worth of congressionally approved independent agencies, the Supreme Court appeared to hit a wall during oral argument over Trump's attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The Unitary Executive Theory is all fun and games until the justices start worrying about their personal finances. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice now takes the position that the text of the Alien Enemies Act would have authorized the unilateral deportation of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for being part of the "British Invasion." Finally, Willkie Farr hit with massive lawsuit alleging the firm helped out a former client's fraud.

Supreme Court hacking and the end of a Biglaw era.

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The Biglaw world continues to watch single-tier partnerships slip away with Sullivan & Cromwell joining the income partner trend. Will the industry have any single-tier firms left by the end of the year? Also former Senator and current Hogan Lovells lawyer Kyrsten Sinema tagged with an alienation of affection tort from her former bodyguard's soon-to-be ex-wife. Come for the bad soap opera plot, stay for the MDMA-inspired psychedelic trip allegations. Finally, the Supreme Court got hacked, but federal law enforcement managed, a couple years after the fact, to track down the culprit whose social media handle was "ihackedthegovernment." Cracker jack work all around.

And Judge Ho's auditioning for MAGA favor takes a disgusting turn.

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With polls showing more Americans now favor abolishing ICE than keeping it, a lot of people will be disappointed to learn that the law is set up to make it almost impossible to hold anyone accountable for killing Renee Good. From sovereign immunity, to the Federal Officer Removal Statute, to the decline of Bivens, to qualified immunity, the whole system is arrayed to shield federal agents from legal redress. Speaking of the Minnesota ICE surge, we moved a step closer to a genuine Third Amendment case after the Department of Homeland Security pressured Hilton Hotels into dropping a franchisee that had refused to rent rooms to DHS. And finally, Judge James Ho published a broadside against fellow judges in his bid to reach the top of the Trump administration's Supreme Court wishlist. And all he had to do was mock judges receiving violent threats and dishonor a judge's murdered son.