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.
Latest episodes
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29 min
The Trump Administration Struggled With The Bar Exam And Its Inbox
It was a rough week for the Trump administration’s relationship with credentials… and email. New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia spent years on cable news billed as a “l…
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36 min
Iron Curtain Descends On Biglaw Financials
Supreme Court auditions are just down the hall and to the extreme right. ----- That headline is a tad overdramatic, but Kirkland & Ellis did announce that it would no longer help j…
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33 min
Bird Watching: Hawks vs. Hawkeyes
And the inevitable -- if stupid -- return of Richard Nixon ----- In a display that could only be described as cartoonish, Senator Eric Schmitt thought he had Jack Smith dead to rig…
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29 min
All The Court's A Stage And Trump Judges Merely Players
And the fashion police have too much time on their hands. ----- The Supreme Court finally put down the dead horse that the Eighth Circuit kept beating, ruling for the third time th…
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35 min
Weil Get You And... Then Maybe You'll Go To Cravath
And how AI and college sports are basically running the same terrible playbook. ----- More fallout from the big Weil departures. Joe and Kathryn talk about balancing business and w…
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35 min
Law Firm Passive Aggressiveness On Parade
When you think of this firm, do you think 'smaller platform'? ----- Weil labels Cravath a "smaller platform" following partner departure, vaulting to the top of the leaderboard as…
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23 min
Legal Catastrophes The Old-Fashioned Way
No generative AI required! ----- 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…
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39 min
The ILTACON Wrap-Up
This episode is sponsored by Smith.ai. ----- Discussing what we learned about legal technology in Nashville. ----- The International Legal Technology Association conference broke i…
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27 min
A Tribute, A Tactic, Or An Appellate Issue?
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 Shan…
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32 min
Luigi's Double Jeopardy Gamble And The DOJ's Complicity
Also, Yale Law School grads have a side chat to discuss their infamous classmates. ----- Luigi Mangione's lawyers say their client can't be tried for murder now that he's pleaded g…
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31 min
Biglaw Surrenders Were Worse Than We Thought
Remember when Trump lost the birthright citizenship case? Because he doesn't. ----- Despite protestations that its deal with the Trump administration didn't forfeit the firm's inde…
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35 min
Will We Never Learn Our Lesson About The Bar Exam?
And summer bonuses have arrived. ----- 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 ans…
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32 min
Park Benches And Supreme Court Benches
And Todd Blanche keeps trying to get over the Judiciary speedbump. ----- The biggest story in legal last week was an unfortunate guerrilla antagonizing of a couple making out on a…
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38 min
2026: A Rule Of Law Odyssey
Maybe in several years, we can get it back. ----- A Vault 50 law firm announced deep staff layoffs -- upward of 10 percent -- last week. Is this a sign of things to come -- a bypro…
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33 min
Collateral Damage Across The Legal Industry
From firms to law schools, innocent bystanders take heat. ----- Everyone talks about conflicts and redundancies, but the saddest merger collateral damage is forcing legacy lawyers…
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30 min
Supreme Court Narrowly Passes Reading Comprehension Section
But Sam Alito still has a job. ----- The Fourteenth Amendment lays out birthright citizenship in clear terms. Every subsequent legal challenge and all the scholarly work on the sub…
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32 min
Alito's Outburst And Tough Times For Partners
And a farewell look back as co-host Chris Williams departs the show. ------ Supreme Court action gets spicy as Sam Alito threw a fit from the bench. After Justice Sotomayor took th…
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36 min
Todd Blanche Disgrace Train Rolls On
Supreme Court ignores Judge Newman's rights. ----- 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…
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30 min
Federal Judges Gone Wild
And a new ranking of top law schools. ------ 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…
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33 min
Sex In Chambers Met With Slap On Wrist
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 respond…