Caving law firms experience exodus.

-----

Paul Weiss fancied itself clever when it offered Trump pro bono payola in exchange for dropping an illegal executive order. Instead it keeps hemorrhaging senior lawyers with more departing to join the recent rainmaker spinoff and associates reportedly high on the new firm's wish list. While litigators are largely driving defections from surrender firms, at what point does a hollowed out litigation department start to impact the firm as a whole? Harvard Law Review found itself harassed by the government and it looks like the reason might be a snitch burrowed into the White House. And the one-track partnership model took more hits with Ropes & Gray and Debevoise agreeing to add non-equity tiers.

Quite the combination of words.

-----

Lawsuit against former Texas SG alleges bizarre cosmic sex fetish. The administration made two significant changes to the judicial nomination process, firing the ABA from its neutral evaluator role and kicking the Federalist Society to the curb. The latter move came with an epic rant declaring Leonard Leo a sleazebag. Broken clocks and all. And Kash Patel lays out the FBI's priorities and child predators and terrorists are now lower on the most wanted list than, "your neighbor who posted an 8647 joke."

From the administrative state to voting rights, they're just sort of winging it trying to reverse engineer results.

-----

As Supreme Court season hits fever pitch, we're joined by Professor Leah Litman, author of Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes, to discuss the nightmare we're facing. Elena Kagan took the opportunity to humiliate her colleagues last week calling out an arbitrary carve out created to protect their investments. Kagan's frustration seems to be growing down the stretch, having just eviscerated the government in the birthright citizenship case. Meanwhile, Kristi Noem failed introductory constitutional law in front of the Senate, flailing as she tried to define habeas corpus.

Seashellgate meets Surrendergate.

-----

Since we're cursed to act as keepers of the flame to remind the legal community that several large law firms really did willingly sell out to the Trump administration, this week we discuss our columnist Vivia Chen's exploration of the unique impact of these moves on young lawyers learning early that Biglaw is more than happy to throw them under the bus.

We also discuss how James Comey's Instagram pic triggered a tragicomic meltdown of some of the most deranged people on the internet ranting about seashells as a subliminal assassination threat worthy of John Wilkes Squarepants. Unfortunately, some of those internet denizens are also running federal law enforcement. And we conduct a lightning round of quirky Am Law 100 financial facts that will make you appreciate that you took some time off last year.

What if we just act like nothing happened?

-----

Biglaw firms who gave in to Trump suffered a scathing 60 Minutes piece and key talent defections, so they've decided upon a new tactic: pretending they never made a deal at all! It does not appear to be working. Meanwhile, Justice David Souter died reminding everyone of an era when the federal judiciary cared more about the right answer than appeasing political patrons. Unfortunately, Souter's nomination inadvertently triggered that change. And we have a Biglaw merging in the offing that hopes to create a new $2B firm.

It was a bad week to compromise your values.

-----

Perkins Coie secured a permanent injunction against the Trump administration's retaliatory executive order. Meanwhile, firms that balked at putting up a fight against the illegal attacks have seen the White House drag them into police brutality cases and law schools start openly talking about students taking their talents elsewhere. And then the harshest cut of all -- a deep pocketed client bailed on a collaborator firm to give business to a firm standing up to Trump. Who could've predicted except anyone who ever watched Star Wars. Also we talk about California's latest bar exam debacle and the White House's threat against Amal Clooney.

The arrest of Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan is straight outta dystopian fiction. But at least retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer still has faith in the system, which makes one of us. Speaking of the High Court, Justice Sam Alito's dissent would be laughable if he weren't so powerful.

And the world continues to melt.

-----

We've got key financial data from the top law firms and the takeaway is that it's good to be a big firm. The Am Law 100 this year revealed that more and more firms have joined the super rich and things look bright for Biglaw. Unless someone triggers a global depression or something. We also discuss what it means to be "bipartisan" in an environment where the intellectual stars of the conservative legal movement are ALSO lining up to call out the Trump administration as a threat to the rule of law. Finally, we flag a troubling law school story about scholarships getting cut when admissions gets blindsided by applications.

US News and World Report released its most recent law school rankings with a side of chaos, but the big takeaway is the scrambling and erosion of the "T14" as an organizing concept. Is it time to dismiss the rankings as arbitrary? At least until law schools agree to cooperate again. Also, Surrendergate continues and the "we'll do some pro bono for veterans" deal has turned dramatically, with the White House now claiming the authority to "assign" Biglaw firms to work on administration projects. Sound familiar? Along the way, firms are starting to lose senior lawyers fulfilling critical firm roles while the most recent defectors alienate the overwhelming majority of their team. Finally, the Supreme Court has issued some unanimous rebukes in defense of due process and the administration does not seem to care.

And now we have a tracker for that!

-----

After a few weeks of watching some law firms stand up to facially illegal demands from the Trump administration... and more law firms rapidly cave to those same demands, we put together a helpful tracker to keep clients, potential laterals, and law students fully aware of where firms currently stand. But we depend on you out there to keep us up-to-date! Meanwhile, more associates have taken a stand against their surrendering firms and some law students have already told the firm recruiting events that they aren't interested in firms that can't stand up for themselves. Also the February bar exam numbers were terrible.