We know where some of those pro bono payola hours are going. ----- Be prepared to be on the clock a lot longer at King & Spalding, where the firm has introduced a 2400 hour “productive” time target. In other words, attorneys will have to figure out how to describe 2400 hours worth of work to the firm’s billing software every year. This seems to follow the overarching retreat from the work from home era, which also made news this week with a firm announcing a new office mandate… but just for some associates. Justice Jackson drew upon a generational touchstone to succinctly describe the Supreme Court majority’s jurisprudence. And a pair of the spineless firms are providing free legal services to the Commerce Department.

Law firms get some worrying numbers from last quarter. ----- The new D.C. folk hero who threw a sandwich at Trump's surge publicity stunt turned out to be a DOJ attorney. He's been fired because this administration will not stand for disrespecting law enforcement... unless they're trying to kill Capitol police officers on January 6. Meanwhile, the legal industry enjoyed a muted quarter. Are they preparing to batten down the hatches for a recession? Supreme Court begins moving the pieces into place to tear down Obergefell.

Milbank delighted with special summer bonuses, ranging from $6-25 thousand, for associates. And that's great for them! But where are all the matches? We have a theory on when associates at other firms will be able to cash in. There was some fishiness (now resolved) with the constitution on congress's website. Which, honestly, should be more shocking than it is. Biglaw partner lateral moves are all the rage, with some major moves this summer. But not everyone is benefitting from the hotness of the lateral market -- all because of a little thing called due diligence.

And Coldplay and pierogis. ----- A woman went into cardiac arrest during the New York bar exam. Thankfully, the administrators responded swiftly. JUST KIDDING! They yelled at other examinees to be quiet and keep working on the test while they deliberated about calling for emergency assistance, according to multiple witnesses. The woman survived, but the bar exam's unwillingness to admit its mistakes expose the rotten incentives of this stupid, unnecessary test. The Coldplay jumbotron affair sparks litigation rumors... which might be the only idea worse than taking your affair to a concert. And Alan Dershowitz is very angry that no one will sell him a pierogi.

Get it together, people! ----- It was a very bad week for lawyers and hallucinations. A federal judge had to withdraw an opinion with fake cites. One Biglaw firm fired a partner over an invented case, while another firm got tossed off a case over AI shenanigans. And the scribe of Ashurbanipal got mercilessly trolled by a judge pointing out that his fake AI cite apology included... another fake cite. Why does it seem like this is all getting worse? A Biglaw firm pushes its start date leaving incoming associates in the lurch and Alina Habba might be the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Or maybe not. Or maybe yes.

Lots to chew on this week. ----- Biglaw summer associate let go after biting upwards of 15 people at the firm. Now that sounds crazy, but that's because it is. We also discuss a lawyer's biting response to a demand letter. A lot of the professional decorum advocates objected to the tone, but at a certain point how does the profession pushback against aggressive and unfounded demands without public shaming? There's not another readily accessible disincentive. Finally, we address the gnashing of teeth in conservative media ecosphere over Superman being an immigrant and the knots they're willing to tie themselves into in order to avoid the obvious.

Law firm mergers and John Roberts brags for the crowd. ----- Has the era of the mid-sized firm come to an end? Probably not, but with increasing nationalization and the financial pressures that go along with it, mid-sized firms are consolidating and a valuable segment (and price point!) may be lost. Lawyers have faced a steady stream of sanctions for citing fake cases generated by AI, but now a judge officially blessed an order based on AI-hallucinated cases as a critical firewall in the war against machine slop is breached. While AI holds out promise for access to justice, the risk of a lawless free-for-all looms. Speaking of lawless free-for-alls, the Chief Justice explains that he doesn't care about substantive criticism of the Court because he has votes and the critics don't.

The Term ended with a whole lot of nonsense. ----- Taking a sledgehammer where a chisel -- or better yet nothing -- would do, the Supreme Court nixed injunctions it didn't like by striking down the power to issue universal injunctions totally and addressed schools teaching that gay people exist by expanding strict scrutiny to parents lodging religious complaints. But at least they whined and took swipes at each other over it! Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor figured out that if the majority wants to hide their rulings, the dissent can characterize them on their own. Also, the University of Florida Law School gave a top prize to a paper advocating a Whites-Only Constitution. The professor? Trump-appointed federal judge. The school's effort to explain itself left a lot to be desired.

And the Supreme Court has a wild one. ----- Except those judges aren't going to like it when you catch them. Like the poor lawyer here who called a judge "honey" during oral argument and entered a spiral of no return. We also had a dramatic week at the Supreme Court, with Justice Gorsuch trying to start something with Justice Jackson and Justice Jackson shutting it right down, and Sam Alito using his concurrence to complain that the transgender care ban is an act of discrimination... and the he wants the Court to be more proud of it. And Vault put out its law firm prestige rankings. Hopefully nothing went down immediately after their survey that radically changed how people perceive the firms!

Also, the role of bar associations in 2025. ----- According to a new survey, lawyers think their law firms are really tolerant of jerks. Are they right about that, or just overly sensitive? The DC Bar election ended in a blowout, but why? For all the complaining about some wild theories on social media, the simpler reason is that leading a bar association in 2025 means standing up to the administration and Pam Bondi's brother never convinced the members that he'd be able to do that. In fact, the right-wing fear of strong bar associations has gotten so serious that the Florida supreme court actively kneecapped their state bar. And we talk about attending David Lat's Original Jurisdiction party, which you should also be reading.