Above The Law

Above The Law

@abovethelaw.com

Covering the legal industry from law school to the Supreme Court. Sign up for our newsletters: https://abovethelaw.com/subscribe. Send your tips to tips@abovethelaw.com.

4.7K followers532 following4K posts

Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Morning Docket: 10.27.26 https://abovethelaw.com/2026/10/morning-docket-10-27-26/

abovethelaw.comMorning Docket: 10.27.26* Weil spent the weekend trying desperately to save itself. [WSJ] * Court says Maurene Comey fired illegally. [AP News] * Meanwhile, the DOJ has come up with yet a third effort to prosecute James Comey. [NBC News] * Judicial financial disclosures “reveal too little.” [Bloomberg Law News] * Making sense of Justice Kagan saying the quiet part. [Slate] * LSAT changing its format. [National Jurist] * Clio unveils rebrand. [ABA Journal]
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Morning Docket: 10.26.26 https://abovethelaw.com/2026/10/morning-docket-10-26-26/

abovethelaw.comMorning Docket: 10.26.26* Weil's incoming executive partner abruptly tells firm she's not taking the job. [Bloomberg Law] * SEC plans to start testing financial firm vulnerability to cyberattack. †[Law360] * Supervisor ordered immigration judge to reverse four rulings at the direction of "higher-ups," before she was removed from court. [Washington Post] * Canada carveouts still don't make Trump's latest tariffs legal. [Volokh Conspiracy] * Appellate court confirms that attempt to federalize the California National Guard was illegal. [NY Times] * Analyzing the DOJ's “preemptive election interference.” [One First] * What's happening to Ilhan Omar is just the beginning of the administration effort to strip Americans of citizenship. [Balls and Strikes] * NYC ban on horse-drawn carriages becoming a federal takings fight. [Courthouse News Service]
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Law Firm Leaks — See Generally https://abovethelaw.com/2026/10/law-firm-leaks-see-generally/

abovethelaw.comLaw Firm Leaks — See GenerallyForwarding Fail: Freshfields global managing partner accidentally forwarded a thread about spinning off the firm's AI unit. AI keeps exposing cyber vulnerabilities... even when they're between the keyboard and the chair. Weil They Ever Find Someone?: About a month after insisting it was "not engaged in merger discussions with any firm," Weil Gotshal it came out that the firm was hammering out a memorandum of understanding with a merger partner.... And then that deal with Willkie Farr collapsed. Department Of Health And Hallucination Services: The Federal Labor Relations Authority found that 35 of the 42 legal and record citations in HHS's brief were fictitious, erroneous, or irrelevant. Whataboutism: Defenders of former White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia keep pointing out that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris also failed bar exams, which would be relevant if her problem was failing the bar. No Kidding: Speaking at Catholic University's law school, Justice Elena Kagan said the Court "has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effect of their rulings" on the political system, from partisan gerrymandering to campaign finance. Judge Not, Lest Ye Notice: Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward moved to disqualify Judge Ana Reyes after she pointed out the government blatantly violating the law.... then the DC Preservation League alerted the judge that the president had called her "a crazed lunatic" hours before the hearing. Yale Law School, Folks!: Yale Law grads Vivek Ramaswamy and JD Vance are defending a campaign ad starring Amy Acton's mother, who lost custody of her kids after her husband sexually abused the candidate as a child. Please Govern Yourself Accordingly: We asked readers for the four words most likely to terrify an attorney, and the contenders run the gamut from "Your draft didn't save" to "Per my prior correspondence." Law Student Says Game Day Pressure Is Nothing Compared To Law School, Which Tracks: This kid's got a lot on his plate.
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Morning Docket: 10.23.26 https://abovethelaw.com/2026/10/morning-docket-10-23-26/

abovethelaw.comMorning Docket: 10.23.26* Trump ordered to testify under oath in his lawsuit against the BBC. So... that's probably going to be the end of that lawsuit. [BBC] * Dutch spies flipping a Russian agent, giving them access to Jared Kushner's phone that Russian spies had hacked to reveal payments from Middle East leaders sounds like the plot of a Bond movie. Hey, remember how Hillary Clinton had some soup recipes on a private email server? [Vanity Fair] * Circuit removes judge over AI errors. [Law360] * Skadden & Gibson Dunn helped Mark Zuckerberg keep his house. [Bloomberg Law News] * Trump pardoned man after his company signed Alina Habba to a $50 million deal. [ABA Journal] * Legora valued at $8.8B. [Legal Cheek] * Google's AI summary function strikes again! This time inventing a fake law review article and forcing users to read about it before the actual search results that would prove it doesn't exist. [Volokh Conspiracy]
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Is there an ethical distinction between a "lawyer" and an "attorney," or does it come down to passing the bar and completing admission paperwork? We break down misconceptions around legal titles, ethical rules, and why law grads sign as "law clerk." For the full episode: https://ow.ly/5xWJ5100eBo

Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

FDA Official Believes GenAI-Enabled Tools Will Need To Be Assessed Like A Physician https://medcitynews.com/2026/10/fda-official-believes-genai-enabled-tools-will-need-to-be-assessed-like-a-physician/

medcitynews.comFDA Official Believes GenAI-Enabled Tools Will Need To Be Assessed Like A PhysicianRick Abramson, a radiologist by training and the director of FDA's Digital Health Center of Excellence said, "We ended up putting out this idea that maybe these devices are starting to behave a little bit more like me as a physician than a heart valve or a defibrillator."
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Morning Docket: 10.22.26 https://abovethelaw.com/2026/10/morning-docket-10-22-26/

abovethelaw.comMorning Docket: 10.22.26* Justice Department Inspector General refuses to investigate handling of Reflecting Pool matter... you know, the one where the administration ruined the pool and tried to send an innocent Olympian to jail as part of the cover up. [AP News] * Administration attacks voting rolls with election around the corner. [Slate] * Former career DOJ attorney offers candid, on-the-record account of representing the government in court under the current Trump administration. [Bloomberg Law News] * Anthropic tried to enter the legal tech market directly and it's... not going well. [Bloomberg Law News] * Judge decimates Meta's data privacy verdict. [CNBC] * Alex Berenson sued Twitter over the company banning him during the pandemic while he posted goofy stuff about vaccines. The court pointed to the terms of service and kicked the suit into the sun. [Volokh Conspiracy] * DOJ asks Eighth Circuit to ban trial judges from imposing fines upon government lawyers in contempt. [Courthouse News Service]
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Report: Health System M&A Activity Remains Steady In Third Quarter https://medcitynews.com/2026/10/health-system-ma-activity-remains-steady-in-q3-2026-vizient-report-shows/

medcitynews.comReport: Health System M&A Activity Remains Steady In Third QuarterA new report on third quarter M&A activity in the healthcare sector found that this quarter’s hospital and health system transactions remained steady, with 2026 potentially set to be a top year for total annual transactions since pre-pandemic times.
Above The Law
@abovethelaw.com

Morning Docket: 10.21.26 https://abovethelaw.com/2026/10/morning-docket-10-21-26/

abovethelaw.comMorning Docket: 10.21.26* Judge Ada Brown saga gets more bizarre as she emails sealed court papers to 140 people. [Bloomberg Law News] * The fight over the Hastings name ends, as Supreme Court refuses to take up challenge to law school's name change. [Reuters] * Court imposes bounty system to stop AI hallucinations -- attorney fined $38,877 payable to opposing counsel who found the errors. [National Law Review] * D.C. Circuit revives churches' challenge to ICE using houses of worship to hunt people. Neomi Rao dissented, as conservatives continue anti-religious turn now that Jesus is inconvenient to policy goals. [Courthouse News Service] * Court finds that DOGE illegally accessed OPM data, with Judge Cote observing, "The defendants barely defend its legality." [Bloomberg Law News] * Since we're talking about clerkship bonuses, Robins Kaplan upped the stakes to $150K and $175K. [Robins Kaplan] * Law firm receptionist allegedly convinced clients to pay her instead of the firm. [ABA Journal] * Ric Grenell -- whose non-profit Katie Zacharia claimed to be the GC of -- "allegedly outlined a stunning pay-for-influence offer to a Turkish billionaire last year." Maybe he should've checked with his non-lawyer first. [Axios]