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The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are living children for the purposes of Alabama law. And while there are a lot of serious implications for the future of family fertility efforts, let's take a second to consider how much this absolutely breaks the state's rule against perpetuities. An attorney in the YSL case faces gang charges herself. She's made some... marketing decisions. Hogan Lovells must ponder whether invoking the wrath of ancient Roman poltergeists are worth a prime office location. Has anyone considered just working from home?

Even-keeled professionalism may pay off over time, but being a mercurial lunatic always pays off now. ______________________________ Former Trump aide Stephen Miller used Super Bowl week to launch a stunt employment discrimination complaint against the NFL. The rule in question is the subject of a much better legal challenge that it doesn't do ENOUGH to address anti-Black discrimination, but nothing about Miller's legal moves have much connection to reality -- up to and including the fact that he IS NOT A LAWYER. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the insurrection case and Chief John Roberts hasn't shown his complete ignorance of basic facts about American elections since Shelby County. Finally, Judge Aileen Cannon receives motion to reconsider, the boldest litigation move of all since it requires counsel so confident in their eventual success that they're willing to call the trial judge a moron.

We're reaching peak Alina saturation. ___________ Last week may have officially been "Legalweek" but it was bad lawyer week at Above the Law, where Alina Habba dominated traffic with her ongoing futility. Her rapid retreat from the very phony "it's actually bias that so many prominent lawyers all worked at Paul Weiss" motion after being informed of the very real sanctions that could result. Robbie Kaplan, one of the Paul Weiss alumni in question, also shared her story of Donald Trump pulling out the half-clever schoolyard insults. We also discuss a firm that announced it would lay off 1/3 of the first years... but not say which ones! And we talk a little about Legalweek and how AI isn't quite ready for primetime... even as lawyers keep getting in trouble for trying.

Sometimes you can't actually fake being smart. _________________________________________________ Alina Habba may soon be replaced in the Trump legal team constellation, but we'll always have memories of her crackerjack legal analysis and the stupid swimsuit debate. There are four justices who don't seem to care about the Supremacy Clause. And Davis Polk faced -- and successfully beat -- a discrimination suit.

'The only rules are there are no rules' apparently doesn't fly in Judge Kaplan's courtroom. ____________________________________ We don't even talk about Alina Habba's weird swimsuit thing on the show because it broke after we wrapped recording (next week, I guess!), but we have more than enough material discussing Trump's lawyer bumble through basic courtroom procedure and lodge motions for bad court thingies in the proud tradition of the Simpsons' greatest character. We also discuss a racial discrimination lawsuit against Troutman Pepper and whether "the partner is always a jerk" is a defense. And it looks like the federal courts have opened an investigation into Clarence Thomas... which will probably go nowhere.

Who needs a judge's approval to start ranting in court? Every other person ever, you say? ___________________________________________________ Donald Trump's legal team informed Justice Arthur Engoron that their client would deliver closing remarks in violation of basic New York rules, setting off a series of decreasingly coherent emails with the judge over Trump's willingness to abide by the constraints of a closing argument. He was not willing to... but he went ahead and did it anyway. Meanwhile, Slaughter & May joined the ranks of firms trying to crack down on lawyers ducking the office using all its surveillance powers and another firm that announced matching bonuses has instituted a retroactive hours requirement to bait and switch its attorneys.

Maybe GPT-5 will want a free RV? _______________________________________________ The Chief spent his entire annual report on the federal judiciary on the rise of artificial intelligence and how AI cannot possibly replace judges because the judge is so much harder and more nuanced than, say, calling balls and strikes. Not that anyone would be stupid enough to describe being a judge like that. Steven Calabresi has either lost his mind or is engaged in an epic troll with a series of pieces arguing that Clarence Thomas is the bestest and most incorruptible justice ever! Finally, plagiarism is all over the news for mostly bad faith reasons, but it highlights again that the law isn't easily governed by rules of plagiarism and copying by design.

The highs and mostly lows from the year that was. __________________________________________ As we turn the page to 2024, we reminisce over the top stories at Above the Law over the past year. Layoffs, salary hikes, ethical quagmires at the Supreme Court, Donald Trump's criminal cases... the legal industry provided a lot of fodder for Above the Law this past year. Join Thinking Like A Lawyer as we discuss all the big stories of the year and ask the question: can it get any worse than this year? (Hint: it can).

Law firms may hem and haw about raises, but they're still doing more than all right for themselves. Rudy's defamation trial did not go well. Before the latest development in the case, we talked about Michael Cohen's fake case brief and the implications of legal technology on criminal justice.

No one wants to admit weakness, but K&L Gates trying to put a smiling face on layoffs left a lot of observers cold. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is mongering about a conspiracy to make Taylor Swift famous that somehow doesn't revolve around her talent. And Joshua Wright has brought a lawsuit against ASS Law despite still failing to understand that his problems are all in the mirror.

Payable sometime in 2024... of course. ________________________ Milbank got the ball rolling several weeks ago with a round of raises. Cravath has now upped the ante for more senior associates and the Biglaw landscape has finally decided to pile on. Where is all this going and what does it all mean? We've got thoughts. Meanwhile Amy Wax went ahead and invited a white nationalist back to campus and one of her students is disappointed that people weren't nicer about it. Finally, a new lawsuit presents an ethics issue spotter involving Trump lawyer Alina Habba.

Elon Musk files a facially ludicrous lawsuit and Trump argues that sexual assault doesn't count on airplanes _____________ After promising a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters, Elon Musk showed up to court with a string of claims that would fail under his own recitation of facts. Meanwhile, Donald Trump takes aim at the Federal Rules of Evidence in a bid to undermine the E. Jean Carroll case and Stephen Miller goes after Macy's in a cheap publicity stunt.