Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

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.

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

Three trends dominated this year's coverage. ----- We've 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's ire. But some firms did fight back and achieved consistent success in court, while the dealmakers got heckled and derided by young lawyers. And, as anyone who has ever watched Star Wars knows, deals with authoritarians just get worse all the time. The New York Times even wrote a feature on a certain publication covering this story. We also ran headlong into a constitutional crisis marked by DOJ lawyers lying to courts -- when the DOJ even bothers to field lawyers legally -- senior government officials declaring "war" on federal judges, and judges being arrested. As right-wing threats against federal judges escalated, the Supreme Court responded with disinterest, preferring to fan the flames with nakedly partisan shadow docket rulings to grease the wheels of Trump's assault on the structure of government. And, finally, we look at the year of AI in legal. Hallucinations dominated the conversation -- from law firms and judges alike -- but this was also the year legal tech made huge bets on AI and folks started to realize that the profession can't avoid the technology. The billable hour may finally be on the decline, but does AI risk making lawyers dumber?

If you want 2025 in a nutshell, it doesn't get much better than a blundering Secretary of Defense bragging that the Pentagon bought an expensive, bespoke AI bot and it immediately started calling out the Trump administration for committing war crimes. As the legal industry ventures into a hallucinatory AI frontier, it's worth remembering that sometimes the bots outperform the human lawyers. At the Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor tries to convince her colleagues not to blow up the federal government over a theory concocted in the 1970s. Sadly, she's fighting the wrong fight. And in a world of mergers -- especially cross-border mergers -- we have a reminder that sometimes it doesn't work out.

And a shorter summer associate program. ----- While most of us celebrated Thanksgiving, some of Trump's phony U.S. Attorneys were the real turkeys. First, a conservative leaning panel of the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the million dollar sanctions against Donald Trump and the parking garage lawyer he claims to have running the District of New Jersey. Then his Eastern District cosplaying prosecutor managed to lose not one, but two of the high profile revenge cases she brought. In other news, a major firm announced a new look summer associate program as it tries to deal with the law school recruiting free-for-all that everyone hates, yet no one seems able to do anything about.

But seriously, what would be a good legal dominatrix name? ------ Biglaw recruiting director out after racist rant goes public. A squabble between lawyers and their former firm presents important lessons on document management, but we spend most of the time wondering about the best legally themed dominatrix names. And we talk about Paul Weiss getting heckled at the New York Bar Foundation awards gala, providing one more embarrassing story to a rough year.

DOJ punishing lawyers, the future of the billable hour, and dark times for public interest work. ----- We talk about the DOJ lawyers suspended by the White House for calling January 6 a riot in a sentencing memo. and the conversation veers down a rabbit hole about the proper role of pardons. For years, the billable hour seemed like the cockroach of law firm management, but after surviving numerous brushes with death, AI might finally force firms to look into alternative fee structures. And if you're in law school and thinking about serving the public interest, expect it to be a lot more expensive unless your future employer is blessed by the Trump administration.