A ‘Great Recruiting Year’: Jones Day Nabs 9 Supreme Court Clerks

(Photo by Fred Schilling, Supreme Court Curator’s Office)

It’s definitely still the case that we recruit across the Supreme Court. Any firm would be lucky to have one clerk. So I still consider that good news in the fact that we are still recruiting across the chambers. I can’t speak to what motivated other people to make the decisions that they made. I just think that at some level, the proof is in the numbers. We have nine, including two from what some would consider the more liberal justices.

— Traci Lovitt, leader of Jones Day’s issues and appeals practice, commenting on the number of former Supreme Court clerks that the firm hired from the high court’s 2019-20 term. Included in the firm’s nine SCOTUS clerks are two former clerks from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s chambers.


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Gaetz PR Team Tries To Magic Away Sex Scandal By Threatening Journalists

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

“We are seeking an immediate print and on-air statement of retraction. Failure to comply with this request may result in litigation,” blustered pro-Trump pundit Erin Elmore in an email to Politico on behalf of her client Matt Gaetz.

Elmore, a former “Apprentice” contestant and fixture in the conservative demi-monde, is actually licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania. She has no excuse for not knowing the actual malice standard for reporting about a public figure. Nevertheless, in her capacity as a member of the PR team at Logan Circle Group, Elmore dispatched a similar nastygram to the Daily Beast, warning that a lawyer would be “closely monitoring your coverage” of the embattled congressman.

Both outlets promptly printed excerpts of her emails — once they quit laughing.

Apparently the salacious details about alleged paid sex with teenagers, one of whom may have been a minor at the time, isn’t the primary concern for the Logan Circle Group. These consummate professionals are most exercised about the suggestion that Gaetz is persona non grata in Trumpland these days.

Last Friday, the Daily Beast reported that the former president’s coterie had convinced him to keep quiet about Gaetz, in part because the alleged conduct did not seem at all out of character for the 38-year-old congressman.

“Operatives inside Trump World say the silence is owed to a variety of factors,” Politico reported Tuesday. “Among them is the fact that Gaetz has always been regarded as a grenade whose pin had already been pulled. The congressman had a reputation for a wild personal lifestyle that, associates say, occasionally bordered on reckless.”

In an ironic twist for someone who has been accused of bombarding his colleagues with naked photos of his sexual conquests, the outlet reports that “Some of Gaetz’s own aides would regularly send embarrassing videos of their boss to other GOP operatives, according to two people familiar with the videos.”

“Anyone that has ever spent 10 minutes with the guy would realize he’s an unserious person,” a former Trump campaign aide told Politico.

On Wednesday, after the New York Times reported that Gaetz had solicited the White House for a blanket pardon during the final weeks of Trump’s presidency (i.e., when the investigation into his buddy Joel Greenberg was inching ever closer to him), the president finally issued a tepid statement of defense.

“Congressman Matt Gaetz has never asked me for a pardon,” he said in one of his fake Tweets. “It must also be remembered that he has totally denied the accusations against him.”

And Erin Elmore, who knows as much about linear time as she does the New York Times v. Sullivan standard, leapt into action. If something was true on Tuesday, and it is no longer true on Wednesday, then it means the story on Tuesday was defamatory and must be retracted. Check and mate!

“President Trump issued a statement indicating that Congressman Gaetz has never sought a Presidential Pardon. Such a statement would also indicate that President Donald Trump has not distanced himself from Congressman Gaetz,” she wrote to Politico.

Spoiler Alert: Politico did not retract the story.

Meanwhile, after running his stupid mouth for a week, Rep. Gaetz appears to have finally grokked that he might be in a wee spot of deep shit. CNBC reports that he’s hired defense attorneys Marc Mukasey, who also represents Trump, and Isabelle Kirshner, a partner at New York’s Clayman & Rosenberg. Perhaps they’ll explain that yapping on television about your father wearing a wire for the FBI is not the move when you’re under federal investigation. And that the first rule of criminal investigations is OMG, SHUT THE HELL UP.

Which would put Gaetz’s very professional lawyers on a collision course with his somewhat less professional PR team. The Logan Circle jerks (sorry, not sorry) are led by Harlan Hill, whose main claim to fame appears to be his willingness to say absolutely any ridiculous, indiscrete thing in defense of Donald Trump.

Here he is threatening to go to Philadelphia and f*ck shit up to stop the vote counting.

Oh, no, protect Gritty!

Here’s Hill in happier days, before he got banned from Fox in November for calling Vice President-elect Kamala Harris an “insufferable lying bitch.”

Yeah, he looks like three toddlers in a trench coat. Maybe Mukasey and Kirshner can keep him from blowing up their legal strategy with a package of Fruit Roll-Ups.

Can’t wait to see how this brain trust spins those Venmo payments to the owner of OrlandoSugarDaddy dot com.

Gaetz-tied group threatens to sue reporters writing on his Trump relationship [Politico]
Gaetz Paid Accused Sex Trafficker, Who Then Venmo’d Teen [Daily Beast]


Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

In The Face Of Asian American Hate Crimes, Congressional Tri-Caucus Members Preach Unity – While Other Politicians Sow The Seeds Of Division

“Oh say, can you see – this is the American Dream / Young girl, hustling on the other side of the ocean / You can be anything at all in America / I say if you can’t see / Just close your eyes and breathe” Rihanna

In the past year, Asian Americans have been targeted in almost 3,800 hate incidents, with over two-thirds targeting women of Asian descent.

Inflammatory rhetoric and xenophobia have led to increased attacks and an uptick in hate crimes on the AAPI community across the United States and within Texas. Currently, Texas ranks fourth in the highest number in Asian-American hate-crime incidents.

Last week, in Arlington, Texas, GOP candidate Sery Kim responded to a question about immigration with the following remarks:

I don’t want them here at all. They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, they don’t hold themselves accountable. And quite frankly, I can say that because I’m Korean.

On Saturday, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tweeted:

On Tuesday, Congresswomen Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30), Judy Chu (CA-17), and Grace Weng (NY-6), along with FBI Special Agent Supervisor Matthew DeSarno (Dallas) and police chief Eddie Garcia (Dallas) gathered together for the virtual forum: “Texas30 Strength in Unity — A Discussion on Challenging Hate Against the APPI Community.”

At age 85, Johnson, the elder stateswoman, reminded the audience that we are a nation of nations, and that we must weather this storm together as a unified front. It was why she founded the Congressional Tri-Caucus, which represents over half of the Democratic Caucus and includes the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC). As Johnson recalled:

In 2001 when I was chair of the CBC, I started the Tri-Caucus because I thought it would give us more clout in issues common to the three groups. Our issues have always been pretty much the same, and we go into different phases of experiences with nearly the same statistics.

As covered by The Dallas Morning News writer Elizabeth Thompson, Congresswomen Chu instructed us:

There are many steps we can take, but let me tell you what the most powerful one is, it is to come together, no matter what our backgrounds, united, and speaking out against Asian hate. The Asian American community has been in pain for so long, but we cannot be silent anymore.

And Congresswoman Meng implored:

We simply cannot wait another day. The safety of fellow Americans is on the line.

Both congresswomen brought up the Chinese Exclusion Act, Executive Order 9066 (Japanese internment camps), and the murder of Vincent Chin.

Listening to Johnson, Chu, and Weng call for solidarity reminded me of former NBA Warriors and Knicks player Jeremy Lin’s words last month:

It would be hypocritical of me to say I’m anti-racism if I only stand up for people who look like me. There is definitely power in unification and solidarity. … We as minorities also have to collaborate, unify and use our voices and stand up for each other.

And Jesse Jackson’s words last year:

Like Emmett Till triggered our movement in the South, Vincent Chin was the Emmett Till of the Asian movement. It made us have something concrete to react to. Vincent Chin sort of summed up the notion that walking around Asian is dangerous.

When Trump blames China for unleashing a germ on us, a kind of germ warfare, it affects Asian everywhere. It’s not true. We must defend Asians in that sense. We must defend each other. We have to cover each other’s backs. It’s a relationship and it’s communication.”

Growing up in the late 1980s in Detroit, Michigan, the death of Vincent Chin — during a rise in anti-Asian American sentiment due to the auto war between U.S. and Japanese carmakers — haunted my family. Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat on his bachelor party by two white autoworkers who blamed Chin for being unemployed — and who would end up facing the first federal hate crime charge involving an Asian American victim — but they would never face a day in prison. Because, as Michigan Third Circuit Court Judge Charles Kaufman ruled: “these aren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”

In May of 1984 — while standing next to Vincent Chin’s mom, Lily Chin, in San Francisco’s Chinatown — Jackson proclaimed:

We’ve been drawn together by death, an unplanned family reunion. Our hearts are made heavy by a mother who sits here with us whose son was brutally killed… What can we do in the aftermath? Those who live, we must redefine America so everybody knows everybody fits in the rainbow somewhere.

In 1984, Jackson started the Rainbow Coalition movement, albeit with some controversies.

In 2001, Johnson founded the Congressional Tri-Caucus, which has hit its stride by coalescing around a few critical issues: diversity, health disparities, immigration, and environmental justice.

Now 20 years later, with the historic momentum from the Black Lives Matter movement and recent Stop Asian/AAPI Hate campaigns, communities of color are becoming more and more empowered socially and politically to transform their communities. To rethink what it means to be a part of America’s fabric and agents of change in redefining America.

If you’re interested in this topic and continuing the conversation, then I’d like to invite you to the following event:

Speak Your Truth & Give Voice To Others — COVID-19 One Year Later: Dealing with the Recent Attacks on Asian Americans & Fostering Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in this New Era

Hosted and sponsored by The Diversity Movement, Blue Cross NC, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Pluto Health, Medullan, and ZoomDJs.com.

This virtual event is free and takes place Friday, April 16, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST.

We look forward to your attendance and participation!


T.R. Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact him by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@fnfour), or connect with him on LinkedIn

ATL Bracket Time: One Zoom Fail To Rule Them All

(Image via Getty)

We’ve had quite a journey through this bracket challenge. In the end, we only had two upsets throughout the entire tournament, which is a credit to my brilliant seeding, thank you very much. But all good things must come to an end, and now we’re ready to crown the most epic Zoom fail of the legal pandemic according to our readers.

The meme-worthy “I’m not a cat” guy took on Jeffrey Toobin’s meeting mischief for the highest honor of them all.

Who won?

Yes, despite the fact that I’m fully convinced that the repercussions of Toobin nuking his career far outpaced a 30-second cat filter on the “epic fail” meter, you all disagreed with me. In the end it wasn’t even close, with the cat filter netting 74 percent of the vote. Indeed, the cat filter beat Toobin’s dick harder than… well, Toobin.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

The Top Productivity Hacks For Case Management Software

While the Above the Law Non-Event for Tech-Perplexed Lawyers is an ever-expanding virtual conference, one might ask: How can it be a real conference if there’s no keynote panel in Grand Ballroom A? 

Enter the Non-Eventcast, where renowned legal tech aficionado Jared Correia interviews different experts each episode — providing plain-English guidance for those of us who still have only the vaguest understanding of what Bluetooth really is.  

[Visit the Non-Event’s Practice Management room] 

Non-Eventcast panelists recently offered guidance on getting the biggest productivity boost from your practice management software. Click here and scroll to hear the full podcast. 

Here are some of their tips, lightly edited for length and clarity:

Jared: In 30 seconds or less, what are your best productivity hacks for using case management software? 

Rohit Parekh, Vice President of Customer Success, Matter365: I think the best productivity hack is whatever case management system you’re using or whatever integrations you want to use — whatever apps, even if there are multiple apps that you’re using — make sure they communicate properly, and in a way that it’s a two-way synchronization. 

There are a lot of different systems out there, and as people do their research, you’ll find we could push this data from one system to another, but if it’s not pulling any changes, that means you have to make changes in two places. Or if you make a change of one, it’s not necessarily going to reflect in the other. 

And the second thing, which has nothing to do with technology and is the biggest productivity hack, is training and adoption. Because, the best practice management system in the world is not going to accomplish anything if nobody uses it.

Cain Elliott, VP of Market Expansion, Filevine: Mine is old fashioned, but it works for me every time: I ask my colleagues how they’re using the tool, and find out new ways to use it that I wasn’t expecting or anticipating based on what’s locked in my own head about the best way to do it. 

And then experiment with that process. Try to adapt to see if it’s working better. Continue to learn from colleagues who are using the same tools.

Joshua Lenon, Lawyer in Residence, Clio: Just like the best camera is your phone, because you always have it with you, the best practice management software is the one that you always have with you. 

So make sure it has a mobile app that works in your device. Make sure it has plug-ins for the other software that you use, so that even if you’re not in your practice management software, you’re taking that data and the work product that you’re generating and making sure that it syncs into your practice management. 

Time yourself in Outlook or Gmail using plug-ins. Work on your mobile device when you’re out of the office or working from home. 

I actually track my time using the mobile timer because it’s just easier for me to switch to that screen rather than leave the Word document that I’m working on. And that makes me more consistent. 

Make it ubiquitous, and you’ll get a lot more benefit out of it. 

Click here to hear the full podcast and learn more about practice management tech. 

MoFo Enters The Special Bonus Melee

It’s Friday, so despite our pleas, we fully expect Biglaw firms to go around announcing special bonuses.

Consistent with this trend, Morrison & Foerster has announced their own special bonuses for hardworking associates. As you’d expect from a firm ranked 32nd in the Am Law 100 ranking with $1,147,200,000 in 2019 gross revenue, they’re matching the prevailing market rate set by Davis Polk.

The firm’s bonus payment schedule is as follows:

As you can see, the firm is going with June and December payments that are backloaded. Associates will have to meet the firm’s standard billable hours requirement on an annualized basis to qualify, but if they miss the hours for the June payment they can make it up for the second payment. And, as you’d expect, the firm confirmed these special bonuses are in addition to the typical year-end bonus pool.

You can read the firm’s full memo on the next page.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.


headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Enter your email address to sign up for ATL’s Bonus & Salary Increase Alerts.

Top Law School Will Make Race-Related Coursework Mandatory For Graduation

In response to calls for racial justice, law schools across the country continue to search for ways to offer their students education on racism and systemic inequities in America. Earlier this year, the University of Southern California Gould School of Law announced that it would require students in the class of 2024 and beyond to take a course on racism and the law as a graduation requirement. Now, another California law school will require that a similar course be taken as a graduation requirement, but in this case, the decision is historic.

The UC Irvine School of Law recently announced that it will require all students to take a graded course related to “race and indigeneity, structural inequity, and the historical bases for such inequity” in order to graduate. Irvine will be the first law school in the University of California system to mandate such a course.

Here’s an excerpt from the school’s press release about its new coursework:

The UCI Law faculty already teach a substantial number of courses devoted to race, indigeneity, and the law that will enable students to meet the requirement. The faculty will also develop new courses, including classes taught by faculty joining for the 2021-22 academic year (announcement forthcoming).

Led by UCI Law’s Curriculum Committee and its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, the new graduation requirement supports a larger effort by faculty to integrate considerations of race and indigeneity, particularly in the first-year required courses, but also in required core clinics and other upper-level courses. Students will have pervasive exposure to critical concepts rooted in a range of equity categories, including race and indigeneity, dis/ability, gender and sexuality, socioeconomic background, survivors of family and domestic violence, system-involvement, and veteran status.

UC Irvine faculty will debut a new first-year elective in Spring 2022 that will allow students to meet the race and indigeneity requirement in their first year of law school. “Dismantling centuries of Anti-Blackness and racism will not occur overnight, but we must commit to action and not simply platitudes,” Dean L. Song Richardson said. “For us at UCI Law, change not only begins with asking how we can do better to fight against Anti-Blackness and racism, in all of its manifestations, but also asking how we can use our voices, our power, our scholarship, our teaching, and our influence to make changes in the profession and society.”

Like USC Law before it, Irvine Law is taking an incredibly important step here by making its race coursework mandatory. It ensures that all students at the school will learn the important lessons being taught, not just students who would normally choose to take the class as an elective. Hopefully more law schools will soon begin to make courses that teach these essential lessons a requirement.


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

More Special Bonus Good News For Biglaw Associates!

The Biglaw bonus train continues to gain steam. Yet another Biglaw firm has decided to pony up cold hard cash to tell associates just how much they appreciate their hard work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This time it is Baker Botts giving out the big bucks. The firm, ranked 58th on the Am Law 100 with $751,070,000 in gross revenue in 2019, announced special bonuses. And of course, as you’d expect from such an elite firm, they’re meeting the market rate set last month by David Polk.

The payment schedule is as follows:

Deem Date First Payment Second Payment Total
2020 $4,500 $7,500 $12,000
2019 $6,000 $10,000 $16,000
2018 $12,000 $20,000 $32,000
2017 $16,500 $27,500 $44,000
2016 $19,500 $32,500 $52,000
2015 $22,200 $37,000 $59,200
2014+ $24,000 $40,000 $64,000

Payments will be subject to the firm’s traditional bonus hours requirements. If an associate does not meet the annualized hours requirement by May 31, they’ll be able to make up the hours and receive the full bonus amount with the second.

You can read the firm’s full memo on the next page.

Please help us help you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.


headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Enter your email address to sign up for ATL’s Bonus & Salary Increase Alerts.

The Road To In-House: How Do I Leverage My Contacts?

“I’m ready to move in-house. How do I leverage my contacts to help make that happen?” This is a question I’m asked often. Here is my advice.

Most importantly, as I mentioned in my article on the importance of authentic networking, you should be building relationships all along, not just when you need something! Networking implies a specific goal. Building relationships is a way of life. Make it your way of life.

What is the best way to build relationships? By helping others, even if it’s in little ways. They will remember you, and you’ll allow them to get to know you as a person.

Remember, it’s not a tit-for-tat. You may help Susie and Sally, and they may never reciprocate. But Kelly and Katie help you out, and you may not have the opportunity to pay them back. That’s OK. Don’t be that person who keeps a scorecard.

But do keep track! Not of who does what for whom, but of your contacts: when you last touched base, plus a few notes on what you discussed or what was the nature of your reach-out. It sounds artificial to keep a spreadsheet of everyone you know, but what is important is that your interactions are sincere. Building relationships is less about meeting new people and more about keeping in touch with the people you already know.

Does this sound a bit like business development? Yes! “Business development” can be a scary concept for lawyers, something you’re automatically supposed to know how to do once you make partner. But that’s all wrong! Successful business development is also about building relationships. So why wait until you make partner? Start now!

Now when you are looking for a new job, the first step is to reach out to your existing relationships and let them know you’re open to new opportunities.  And if the search takes time, remind your contacts from time to time that you’re still looking.

Make it easy for people to help you: be as specific as possible in outlining your ask. Do you want them to pass along your resume to someone in particular? To make a warm introduction to a specific contact? To give you the inside scoop on what it’s like to work at their company? To give feedback on your resume or cover letter? Spread out the asks, avoiding asking too much or too often of one person. Even “weak tie” contacts (a term coined by Mark Granovetter in 1973) will find it hard to say “no” to a very specific request that will take only five minutes of their time.

What about working with recruiters to find your in-house job? Lateral Link does significant work in the world of in-house placements through our sister agency, Cadence Counsel. But it works a little differently from law firm recruiting. We work with almost all the law firms out there. We can be proactive in helping you, as a law firm associate or partner, find a new firm job. On the in-house side, clients come to us to help find candidates with very specific skill sets and experiences. The process is more search-driven than candidate-driven.

While we can’t actively help you find an in-house job, we can make a note of your credentials and what you’re looking for and be sure to reach out if something appropriate does come our way. So do be sure to let your trusted recruiter know if you’re open to in-house roles!


Abby Gordon

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. This post is by Abby Gordon, Senior Director at Lateral Link, who works with attorney candidates on law firm and in-house searches, primarily in Boston, New York, and Europe. Prior to joining Lateral Link, Abby spent seven years as a corporate associate with Cleary Gottlieb, focusing on capital markets transactions for Latin American clients in New York and for the last five years for European clients in Paris. A native of Boston, Abby holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in government and romance languages, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. Abby also worked with the International Rescue Committee as a Fulbright Scholar in Madrid, Spain. She is a member of the New York, Massachusetts and Maine Bars and is fluent in French and Spanish (and dabbles in Portuguese and Italian). You can view additional articles by Abby here.


Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices worldwide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.

Joe Biden Announces Supreme Court Reform Commission

The U.S. Supreme Court (Photo by David Lat).

Will we be seeing more Supreme Court justices? Staggered term limits? Mandatory retirement ages? Well, we’ll see soon enough, with Joe Biden making good on his campaign pledge to establish a commission to study various proposals for reforming the increasingly broken institution of the Supreme Court.

In an announcement this morning, the administration outlined a pending Executive Order setting up the reform committee. Zoe Tillman posted a copy of the announcement, included below, but the thrust of the group’s 180-day mission will be:

The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.

NYU School of Law’s Bob Bauer and Yale Law School’s Cristina Rodríguez will chair the effort to be “comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court and Court reform debate.” Before people get too excited, remember that there’s exactly zero chance that anything coming out of this commission will get beyond the unreformed Senate filibuster — assuming anything gets out of this commission at all. The “bipartisan” in the description of the commission all but guarantees a random assortment of FedSoc dweebs will show up and nix any remotely meaningful suggestion based on the unassailable logic that it might have peeved some slaveholder in the 18th century and therefore cannot possibly have merit in a 21st century world power.

It’s not like Court reform proposals are mysteries. Every halfway plausible reform is the subject of mounds of academic debate already. The country doesn’t need a commission, it needs to pick a lane and just do it. Appointing a commission is the pinnacle of politician cop out.

And it’s a curious cop out to boot. Because Mitch McConnell has already successfully pegged any talk of reform as evil court packing and the caricature of reform may well have cost the Democrats key Senate races in November, making the Georgia run-offs a make or break proposition for the Dems. If you’re going to be tagged with a radical proposal either way, just lean into it and then make staggered term limits — a broadly popular proposal in the country — your compromise position.

Instead we’re going to get some lackluster report in six months that will result in nothing.

I guess we’re going to have a national discussion about it, which is something. Maybe it’ll highlight for the country how vapid the arguments against reform really are. I guess I’ll try to be optimistic.

Earlier: Joe Biden Offers The Dumbest Possible Solution To Court Reform


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.