Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer

With all the Biglaw news to cover, we sometimes forget about the high-stakes plaintiffs' side firms out there. So this week, we're checking in with Jay Edelson of Edelson, a "plaintiffs' class action powerhouse," as Law360 puts it, involved in matters as disparate as electronic privacy, college football safety, and the California wildfires. Edelson also talks about one of the all-time law firm pranks he pulled off...

Elie remains missing in action (crying about Game of Thrones) so Joe and Kathryn are left to do another ESPN inspired legal podcast -- do not encourage these two to do 45 minutes of NFL takes as if teams are SCOTUS justices. So this is "Around the Gavel." Some new takes and a different sound effect or two because we've heard the air horn is problematic on a freeway, Sorry.

Elie is out of town, so Joe and guest host Kathryn Rubino take a page out of ESPN's playbook and offer a PTI-inspired roundup of the week's legal news items in short, two-minute bursts. There's even an air horn.

Joe and Elie continue to offer their answers on questions they've received from prospective law students asking “where should I go to school?” Balancing regional offers? Trying to decide what market to practice in? Choosing between the murky world of "just below T14"? Tune in and hear our advice on how to properly manage the law school adventure.

We finally set aside some time to discuss the questions we've received from prospective law students asking "where should I go to school?" Choosing between T14 heavies? We can handle that. Weighing different scholarship packages? We've got that too. Tune in and hear our advice on how to properly manage the law school adventure.

Kathryn Rubino joins Joe to discuss the recent lowlights in Biglaw gender equity. From MoFo's curious strategic response to allegations that it maintains a "mommy track" for female career advancement to Jones Day... doing Jones Day stuff, women are still struggling to get an even shake when it comes to major law firms.

After George Conway's most recent salvo against Donald Trump, Joe and Elie discuss the curious relationship of the senior Wachtell lawyer and Trump's senior aide. Is it possible that lawyers make for more harmonious relationships? The gang also discusses the Mueller Report one day before its release. See how the predictions match up with reality!

Let’s just talk about this college admissions scandal shall we? While everyone else is talking about Aunt Becky, Willkie Farr’s co-Managing Partner (and former Thinking Like A Lawyer guest) Gordon Caplan is also caught up in this whole scandal.

Jerry Buting and former Jefferson Parish prosecutor Jackie Maloney square off for a heated debate about the prosecution versus defense and how the portrayals on FOX TV’s ‘Proven Innocent’ compare to reality.

The US News and World Report law school rankings have been leaked, and the gang breaks down who's on top and who's making big moves -- both good and bad -- in this year's rankings. Joe and Elie also have an extended discussion about racist cars, specifically what to make of a new report suggesting that self-driving cars are more likely to strike African-American pedestrians.

As a special bonus, Joe and Elie are doing a series of podcasts about FOX’s new legal drama “Proven Innocent”. In this second installment, we speak with show creator and Stanford Law graduate David Elliot, California Innocence Project lawyer Michael Semanchik, and exoneree Jason Strong, who spent 15 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. “Proven Innocent” airs Fridays at 9/8c on FOX.

Joe and Elie chat with Ian Bassin, the Executive Director of Protect Democracy about the unfortunately pressing task of defending democratic institutions from creeping authoritarianism. Protect Democracy is on the front lines challenging both federal and state governments as they chip away at participatory democracy and constitutional limits. As a special bonus -- in the middle of the episode breaking news results in the guest beginning the process of filing suit on the spot. So that's cool.

As a special bonus, Joe and Elie will be doing a series of podcasts about “FOX’s new legal drama “Proven Innocent” premiering tonight at 9/8 Central. In this episode we speak with executive producer Danny Strong about the show and what drew him to the subject of wrongful convictions.

It's hard to say any attorney owned 2018 like Michael Avenatti who stormed (see what I did there?) onto the scene challenging Michael Cohen and Donald Trump over their treatment of his client. In a wide-ranging interview, Avenatti tells Joe and Elie (with a cameo appearance by ATL editor Staci Zaretsky) about his career, his assessment of the 2020 presidential race he thought about joining and of course his marquee 2018 matter and the strategy that went into it.

Joe and Elie come to you from the Legaltech NY conference musing about the future of law, the future of law conferences, and the future of weather where Elie is constantly unhappy.

Elie is deeply concerned about the media's willingness to cave to every request of a public relations firm, mostly because some people never get to hire one. And the gang talks about other legal stuff o' the week.

After Elie complains about toxic masculinity and razors, he and Joe discuss whether or not Rudy Giuliani's bizarre turn from respected former prosecutor to a talking head lunatic that seems to make his client's case worse at every turn. Did something happen to Rudy along the way... or was he maybe not that great at his job to begin with? Also, stealth layoffs may be appearing in the Biglaw world again. Is it time to start panicking?

Just when you thought the legal profession couldn't get weirder, we've got an extended treatment on the acceptability of emojis in workplace communication and the slow death of the Department of Justice under the weight of the shutdown. Moral of the story? If you have a civil claim against the government, now is the time to bring it.

Joe and Kathryn take a deep dive into some Above the Law stories from the last couple of weeks. Kathryn focuses on what ticks her off about a superficially light-hearted story about a Supreme Court advocate appearing for oral argument while his baby was busy being born and Joe talks about what reasonable accommodations for disabilities and the unconscious rhetorical choices he's made.

Joe and Elie discuss the major headlines in law firm news. Paul Weiss found itself in hot water after putting out a picture promoting its new partnership class of predominantly white dudes. It's a lesson in the damage visuals can wreck... and how to address incidents like this. Jones Day inserted itself... again... into the war on workers by entering the Slate labor dispute. And does your firm give the staff Christmas Eve off? Shouldn't everyone be doing this?

Elie and Joe talk to Ralph Baxter, former head of Orrick and current board member of Intapp, about the future of the legal industry. Baxter has long been an evangelist for legal industry change, willing to rethink Biglaw's long-standing practices to deliver better and more cost-effective services to clients.

Many folks become lawyers so they don't have to deal with math anymore. It's one of those weaknesses that holds back the profession as a business. Yet, cutting-edge tech is bringing number crunching to the fingertips of lawyers everywhere in the form of easy to use data analytics. Joe and Elie talk to Josh Becker of LexisNexis about the release of Context, a new tool that delivers deep insights into judicial idiosyncracies by analyzing the language of their body of work.

As everyone departed for the holiday, Joe was left solo to make a few announcements about upcoming opportunities to see the Above the Law team, including an invite to our upcoming holiday party for all the loyal readers and listeners.

Joe and Elie share their tips on how law students should prepare for final exams. They suggest getting into the mindset of mentioning concepts in the right place, organizing your notes before test week and even choosing the perfect song to get you hyped for studying. They top it off with their dislikes for final papers!

Joe and Elie check in on the legal academy and boy was it a mess this week. One law school is closing. A T14 school claims it's in financial distress. And another school made all its students attend a racist propaganda rally. Just another day in the law school world.

With work flowing away from mid-sized firms with high overhead to either the established elite or small shops, the shape of the legal labor market was bound to change as well. That's where Lawclerk's solution comes in at the intersection of technology and human capital. Joe chats with Greg Garman and Talitha Gray about their platform and how they help efficiently match freelancers with small shops needing a dose of expertise.

Joe and Elie catch their breath by recapping the top legal stories of last week. At the annual meeting of the Association of Corporate Counsel, Elie describes an in-house community deeply concerned with navigating the #MeToo era, the gang discusses the abrupt decision of Baker McKenzie's managing partner to step down for "exhaustion," and the pair argue over a new set of law school rankings.

You've seen all the mainstream media reports of student walk-outs and protests, but what are law school campuses really like these days. Joe and Elie are joined by Melissa Murray, a professor at NYU Law and former interim dean of Berkeley, to discuss the reaction from an insider's perspective and to delve into the overall mood on law school campuses these days. Are law students really desperate for "safe spaces" or is it more nuanced?

Joe and Elie take a serious turn, talking to University of Cincinnati Law Professor Mark Godsey, director of the Ohio Innocence Project, and author of Blind Injustice about the scourge of wrongful convictions, prosecutorial misconduct, and the trouble with local elections. Professor Godsey, a former prosecutor himself, discusses his conversion to an advocate for the wrongfully convicted and his grasp of the psychology that consistently lands the wrong people in prison.

Joe attended this year's Clio Cloud Conference and sat down with Sarah Schaff of Headnote to discuss her legal career and how she's shifted to become an entrepreneur with a product that helps attorneys collect on their bills within hours instead of months.

Joe and Above the Law's Kathryn Rubino react in real-time to the Kavanaugh hearings, recapping the morning testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and watching the Kavanaugh opening statement in all its ripe-for-SNL-parody glory. Since this recording, the vote's been delayed pending an investigation but it's worth taking a step back and ruminating on what we saw.

The legal workplace would be almost unrecognizable to a lawyer of the past. The typewriters are gone, WordPerfect is gone, the fax machines are going, and a whole host of new platforms providing services that those older lawyers could never have imagined. Joe and Elie chat with Casepoint CEO Haresh Bhungalia and Casepoint Chief Strategy Officer David Carns about the legal technology landscape generally and Casepoint specifically and how each are changing the legal workflow.

Before the Kavanaugh nomination took its decidedly darker turn, the nominee spoke tentatively but positively of opening up the courts to cameras and same-day audio. The House has also put forward a bill to expand this transparency. Joe and Elie talk to Andrew Eisbrouch and Jesse Weber of the Guys Who Law podcast and the Law & Crime network. Law & Crime is dedicated to broadcasting live courtroom telecasts to inform the public about the judicial system, so we wanted to know their thoughts on transparency.

Joe and Elie review the week that was in the Kavanaugh confirmation fight. Procedural fights! Threatened explusion! Giving false testimony to the Senate! Mysterious Kasowitz connections! After a wild week, will Brett Kavanaugh still have the votes to narrowly get confirmed to the Supreme Court? We'll just have to wait and find out. But the answer is yes.

Joe and Elie talk to Jason Cruz, a Seattle attorney and writer for MMA Payout covering the law and business side of MMA fighting. We discuss just how someone gets from a law degree to this world and walk through the lawsuit against Conor McGregor for throwing cans into the crowd. Elie also shares his theory for the unwritten social contract all sports fans should agree to and it's safe to say Elie wants us all to live in a dystopian nightmare.

Joe and Elie hit the road, coming to DC to ask some bar trivia questions to benefit the DC Bar Pro Bono Project. The winning score was 19/30... can you do better?

The Washington Post's Style section isn't normally where you'd go for your lawyerly insights, but last week they graced us with not one, but two legal stories. Joe Patrice and guest host Kathryn Rubino dive into Tiffany Trump's alleged law school woes and the hilariously grumpy life of Wachtell's George Conway as he navigates his days married to Kellyanne. There's also some Brett Kavanaugh talk, because why not?

As on-campus interviewing season begins, Joe and Elie welcome Vanderbilt Law School's Associate Director of Career Services Nick Alexiou to discuss the on-campus interviewing process. Learn to master the arcane art of speed dating with law firms and answering the difficult question, "why do you want to work here?". And the event details are here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/trivia-challenge-at-iltacon-tickets-46580583780

THE Ohio State University, as they prefer to be called, has commissioned a Biglaw firm to look into its head coach's handling of domestic abuse allegations against his staff. But what is an internal investigation? What exactly is it going to mean when Mary Jo White gets mentioned on ESPN? Joe and Elie give a quick, high-level rundown on the internal investigation process and Ohio State's situation. Sorry, I mean "The Ohio State's situation."

Elie can't make it to today's podcast, so Joe goes on an extended rant about movies with legal mistakes in them that drive him crazy. If you've ever watched Jaws and thought the movie should have really followed a string of lawsuits to put Amity out of business, this is the episode for you.

After years of giving them a pass, the ABA is cracking down on flagging for-profit law schools that consistently produce few graduates with legal jobs while raking in huge bucks. But how did these schools manage to make it this far? Social anthropologist Dr. Riaz Tejani spent three years working at a for-profit law school and has compiled his research in LawMart: Justice, Access, And For-Profit Law Schools. He joins Joe and Elie this week to talk about his work.

Barring some unforeseen parliamentary math, Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the DC Circuit will be the next associate justice of the Supreme Court. But as we come to the end of a whirlwind couple of weeks leading up to this announcement... did anything in we talked about matter? We all thought Kavanaugh was going to be the pick and after a ton of wild coverage Kavanaugh was still the pick. Joe and Elie discuss how the media got duped into following a horse race that never existed.

Police accused a Vinson & Elkins partner of fleeing the scene after swimming away from a boat crash — ostensibly to get help — that left a number of V&E partners injured and then disappearing for five hours. Is this a good use of prosecutorial resources?

Joe and Elie chat with Above the Law Founder David Lat about Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announced retirement. What is Kennedy’s legacy? Where will the Court go from here? And handicapping Kennedy’s potential successors.

Elie and Joe sit down to discuss one of the truly stupid law school final exams in history. Did it cover material that could reasonably come up in future practice? No. Did it require reasoning through currently controlling precedent? No. Was it wildly offensive? Oh, you better believe it was.

Joe and Elie discuss Above the Law's annual ranking of the top law schools in America with ATL Research Director Brian Dalton. There were some major shifts at the top of this year's ranking, and Elie isn't happy about any of them.

Joe and Elie talk to Ellen Trachman, an attorney specializing in all things baby, about artificial insemination, custody conundrums, and how twins can be citizens of different countries.

Milbank surprised everyone this week by boosting associate salaries over their 2016 levels. While we wait to see if others will follow suit, Joe and Elie break down what's happened and what this might mean for the industry at large.

Elie and Joe talk to author and analyst Lisa Green about Trump family nuptials, and some common pitfalls in the asset protection game.

Last time, Elie and Joe tackled a number of audience emails asking for counsel on where they should attend law school. That episode triggered a deluge of follow-up emails from listeners with their own questions, so the guys put their "Decision" hats back on and talked through even more law school scenarios. Can you get to Biglaw from a second-tier school? Have you spread your applications too thin? Are you deciding between Harvard and Stanford? We address all these questions and more.