Above the Law - Thinking Like a Lawyer
Thinking Like A Lawyer is a podcast featuring Above the Law's Joe Patrice, Kathryn Rubino, and Chris Williams. Each episode, the hosts will take a topic experienced and enjoyed by regular people, and shine it through the prism of a legal framework. This will either reveal an awesome rainbow of thought, or a disorienting kaleidoscope of issues. Either way, it should be fun.
Episodes
September 9, 2026 • 23 mins
No generative AI required!
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With AI hallucinations dominating the legal ethics headlines for years now, it's nice to see lawyers landing in hot water without having to rely on technology. For example, Holland & Knight got itself removed from a case in Rhode Island after accidentally putting opposing counsel on their internal emails about "dumb" Rhode Island judges. Meanwhile, Skadden and Kirkland caught a $2 mi...
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September 3, 2026 • 38 mins
This episode is sponsored by Smith.ai.
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Discussing what we learned about legal technology in Nashville.
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The International Legal Technology Association conference broke its own attendance records as the legal world flocked to Nashville to figure out what's going on with the technology that promises to revolutionize the practice of law... and can't quite stop producing fake cases. Maddy Martin, Senior VP of Growth at&n...
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August 26, 2026 • 26 mins
The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her three young children, has spawned a courtroom subplot with real legal stakes: prosecutor Shanan Buckingham has spent weeks in Plymouth Superior Court in a rotating collection of hair bows, widely read as a tribute to five-year-old Cora, who loved them. But even a well-meant gesture is a gamble, handing the defense a ready-made argument ...
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August 19, 2026 • 32 mins
Also, Yale Law School grads have a side chat to discuss their infamous classmates.
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Luigi Mangione's lawyers say their client can't be tried for murder now that he's pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges. At issue is a voluntary admission that his stalking led to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which is not an element of stalking but can be a sentencing enhancement. And his team hope this is ...
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August 12, 2026 • 31 mins
Remember when Trump lost the birthright citizenship case? Because he doesn't.
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Despite protestations that its deal with the Trump administration didn't forfeit the firm's independence, Paul Weiss reportedly seriously debated letting Stephen Miller review the firm's webpage edits according to the New York Times. The same reporting turned up the $3.5 million the firm spent to make its first openly transgender pa...
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August 5, 2026 • 34 mins
And summer bonuses have arrived.
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The profession yet again forced law school graduates to take a closed-book doctrinal memory test to earn the right to perform a job where answering questions from memory constitutes malpractice. And, yet again, the ritual came with a series of catastrophes and a fully canceled test. In Maryland, the test faced delays. Missouri's delays were even worse, reminding us that the NCBE do...
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July 29, 2026 • 31 mins
And Todd Blanche keeps trying to get over the Judiciary speedbump.
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The biggest story in legal last week was an unfortunate guerrilla antagonizing of a couple making out on a park bench... who just happened to be a Wachtell partner and associate. And now an internal HR problem is suddenly national news. Say what you will about the person who filmed it, but "get a room" was good advice. Meanwhile, Todd Blanche's con...
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July 22, 2026 • 37 mins
Maybe in several years, we can get it back.
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A Vault 50 law firm announced deep staff layoffs -- upward of 10 percent -- last week. Is this a sign of things to come -- a byproduct of AI pressure and a precarious economy -- or a unique problem for that firm? Controversy erupted after the Trump administration swiftly fired a legally appointed U.S. Attorney to replace him with an illegally named imposter. Th...
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July 15, 2026 • 33 mins
From firms to law schools, innocent bystanders take heat.
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Everyone talks about conflicts and redundancies, but the saddest merger collateral damage is forcing legacy lawyers to go back through the last six months of their time. That's what's happening to the Cadwalader associates as their timekeeping system merges with Hogan Lovells. On the law school side, the University of Chicago unveiled its new AI policy to keep ...
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July 8, 2026 • 29 mins
But Sam Alito still has a job.
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The Fourteenth Amendment lays out birthright citizenship in clear terms. Every subsequent legal challenge and all the scholarly work on the subject -- until about a year ago -- agreed on how to read it. Yet, the Supreme Court still managed to split on the question, with a 6-3 decision knocking down Donald Trump's executive order purporting to overturn the key constitutional provision -- that w...
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July 1, 2026 • 32 mins
And a farewell look back as co-host Chris Williams departs the show.
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Supreme Court action gets spicy as Sam Alito threw a fit from the bench. After Justice Sotomayor took the opportunity to systematically dismantle his reasoning in the asylum case, Alito spoke up out of turn to explain that he'd have brought better arguments if he'd known she planned to dogwalk him. And Biglaw isn't the collegial environment it u...
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June 24, 2026 • 36 mins
Supreme Court ignores Judge Newman's rights.
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All the news that's fit to print agrees that Todd Blanche isn't fit to head the Department of Justice. Something about the whole transforming the DOJ into a weaponized arm of Donald Trump's political grievances thing. The Supreme Court dodged the ongoing Judge Pauline Newman debacle in the Federal Circuit. Her fellow judges have performed an end run around the Con...
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June 17, 2026 • 30 mins
And a new ranking of top law schools.
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Above the Law's Top 50 Law School rankings are out and a new school tops the list. But a number of other high prestige law schools have slipped out of the top 10... and it's mostly a matter of cost. Meanwhile, we have two federal judges out of control. Judge Ryan Nelson faces misdemeanor criminal charges over a parking lot altercation, which would be a bad look for a fed...
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June 3, 2026 • 33 mins
A federal judge carried on a two-year affair with a high-ranking law enforcement officer by having sex in chambers and lying about it to investigators. The Eleventh Circuit responded with a private reprimand, concealing the judge's identity. But the judges didn't think through their anonymization strategy nearly well enough and AI cracked the case in minutes, revealing Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgi...
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May 27, 2026 • 29 mins
And the Federal Circuit's Schoolhouse Rock moment is as damning as it is embarrassing.
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Quinn Emanuel earned $3 million in sanctions from Judge Edward Chen, who described a "deeply disturbing" culture of lawyering. But worse, the judge ordered the team involved to complete an 8-hour ethics course that the firm itself must design. The Federal Circuit decided to put together a bizarre theme song and music video for t...
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May 20, 2026 • 29 mins
More on Biglaw's insider trading scandal and a rare feel good story.
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We keep learning more from Biglaw's insider trading scandal, with the identity of the Wachtell co-conspirator revealed. How did this scheme succeed for so long? The Department of Justice continued its battle to allow Trump to unilaterally rip up national monuments with another barely coherent brief. They may say "the customer is always right," bu...
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May 13, 2026 • 33 mins
Also a major insider trading case strikes Biglaw.
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The legal industry as a whole continues to rake in cash, but a few firms have shown signs of trouble. Reports out of Paul Weiss bear all the hallmarks of a stealth layoff, with litigation associates being let go for "performance" issues that never came up before. Meanwhile, a recent megamerger firm found itself cutting back on supposed redundancies. The Supreme Cou...
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May 6, 2026 • 29 mins
Comey snaps sea shells by the sea shore.
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A once-venerable institution, the Department of Justice is in disarray these days. The Attorney General got fired, multiple U.S. Attorneys have been booted as illegally appointed, judges have started doling out contempt charges, and Kash Patel is being openly branded J. Edgar Boozer. It got worse last week, as government lawyers filed a brief that -- it seemed -- they handed ove...
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April 29, 2026 • 34 mins
The Atlantic published an article based on multiple insider accounts describing low morale at the FBI, citing current director Kash Patel's drinking and frequent absences. Patel promised swift legal retaliation and made good with an underwhelming $250 million defamation complaint. Amidst this scandal, Patel took to the stage with Acting AG Todd Blanche to announce criminal charges against the Southern Pover...
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April 22, 2026 • 32 mins
And is Alito really going to retire?
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The 2026 Super Rich list has 37 firms clearing $1.45M RPL and $625K PPL thresholds after Am Law had to raise because last year's bar was too easy. Then Kirkland proved what super rich really means by dropping a guaranteed $80M over three years to snatch a star lawyer from Wachtell. The PAC Trump uses to pay lawyers is nearly $500K in the red and owes roughly $1.6...
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