Forum shopping is the art of selecting a specific court in which to file a suit, and lawyers have been doing it since time immemorial. But a Bloomberg Law data analysis shows that the practice has changed in recent years.

Republican Attorneys General who are suing the Biden administration have gravitated toward a handful of small, rural courthouses run by Trump-appointed judges. And those judges have been keen to issue nationwide injunctions halting administration policies.

Bloomberg Law reporters Lydia Wheeler and Madison Alder join our weekly podcast, On The Merits, to discuss their findings, explain who these judges are, and what this means for the future of administrative law.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

News of the demise of law school rankings has been greatly exaggerated, according to the guests on our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits.

You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Around a dozen of the top law schools in the country have said they'll no longer provide data to US News & World Report for its annual rankings. The schools say the rankings over-emphasize metrics that benefit already privileged and wealthy applications, and give short shrift to lawyers interested in public service or who need financial aid.

However, Bloomberg Law's Vivia Chen and Kaustuv Basu say that even without these schools' participation, the rankings will likely continue on with no interruption. And, they say, the move to boycott the rankings will likely not improve legal industry diversity in the way the schools hope.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

After the Bernie Madoff scandal, the SEC created a whistleblower program that encouraged people to provide information by promising them a cut of the recovered funds.

At first, the agency was inundated with tips. But now, the number of people reporting financial fraud is dwindling. The guests on this week's episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits, say they know why.

One problem: it's unclear how or why the SEC pays rewards to some whistleblowers but not others. And, even if you're entitled to a reward, it can take years of waiting for the agency to pay out. Bloomberg Law's John Holland speaks with whistleblower Janice Shell and whistleblower attorney Bill Singer about the problems with this program and how they can be fixed.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Elections are typically decided at the ballot box. But in the past few years, the judicial system has been getting more and more involved.

Spending on election-related litigation has ballooned during this time, according to George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton. This is one of many indications that political fights aren't ending when the results are announced but are instead migrating to courthouses across the country, he says.

Overton joins our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to talk about why this trend is happening and to run down the most significant election law cases that were filed after this month's midterm contests.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

If you're an attorney who lived through the dark days of the Great Recession, you could be forgiven for having flashbacks after reading a recent story by Bloomberg Law's Roy Strom and Meghan Tribe.

They reported that several heavy hitters in Big Law, including Cooley LLP and Kirkland & Ellis, have laid off attorneys in recent months. Other firms are expected to follow suit next year. But they also spoke to several industry watchers who say this isn't Great Recession 2.0.

For one, global economic conditions aren't as bad—at least not yet. And demand for legal services is still robust, even if not at the frenzied levels it was earlier this year and last year.

Tribe joins our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to talk about why firms are following a mega-profitable 2021 with layoffs in 2022. We also hear from Bloomberg Law video producer Macarena Carrizosa about one of the main drivers of legal industry volatility—the billable hour—and whether moving to a new compensation system is advisable or even possible.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

It's common for attorneys to do pro bono work monitoring elections. But this year feels different to many of the lawyers who are volunteering.

That's one of the takeaways from a recent story by Bloomberg Law's Sam Skolnik about the urgency lawyers feel about today's midterm elections. However, that urgency is not showing up in campaign finance data. Bloomberg Law columnist Roy Strom dug into the numbers and found that lawyers are donating to candidates at much lower rates than previous midterms.

Skolnik and Strom join this week's episode of On The Merits, Bloomberg Law's weekly legal news podcast, to talk about the roles that attorneys are—and are not—playing in today's elections.

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One thing we have learned over the years about Elon Musk is that the tech billionaire likes to surround himself with people who have personality traits similar to his own: confidence, boldness, and a total lack of fear when it comes to mass communication.

So it shouldn't be surprising that Musk, who famously has little patience for attorneys, is gravitating toward lawyers who possess these traits in abundance like Quinn Emanuel's Alex Spiro. However, Musk is also known to hold grudges, and that's bad news for Twitter firms Cooley and Perkins Coie, whom Musk has previously slammed (on Twitter, naturally).

To sort out what all this means, and why Quinn's culture may be a better fit for Musk-world than that of other Big Law firms, we heard from Bloomberg Law's Chris Opfer and Justin Wise. They join our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to discuss the fallout from the consummated Twitter deal and what it says about the Big Law ecosystem.

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The crypto world is known for, among other things, exotic legal structures and an extreme level of anonymity. But both of those attributes can make it a challenging place for plaintiffs' attorneys.

The constitution requires plaintiffs to prove they've served their defendants with a notice of their lawsuit. Failure to do so properly can tank an otherwise promising case. But process serving is tricky when the only thing you know about the target of your lawsuit is a username on a decentralized crypto exchange.

On this episode of our weekly legal new podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporter Matt Bultman talks about the curious case of Ooki. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said Ooki, a decentralized crypto organization, violated registration rules. The agency thought it devised a clever way to serve the shadowy group with a suit—only to find that its unorthodox efforts might have compromised its case.

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Judge James Ho said his new policy of refusing to hire clerks who attended Yale University was about combating cancel culture. But it may also be a sign that the Trump appointee is angling for a promotion.

Of course, since Ho is currently serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, that means there's only one final rung to climb on the judicial career ladder: the Supreme Court.

On this episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law columnists Lydia Wheeler and Vivia Chen speculate on what motivated Ho's decision. They say Ho's headline-grabbing move is likely an attempt to ensure that his name is at or near the top of a future Republican President's Supreme Court nominee shortlist.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Since 2015, Jones Day has embraced Donald Trump more than any other firm within Big Law. Many of the firm's lawyers joined the administration in high profile positions across the government, helped pick candidates for federal judgeships and the Supreme Court, and some were even appointed as judges themselves. But with Trump now out of office and his reputation tarnished by the Jan. 6 riot, where does that leave the 129-year old legal industry behemoth?

New York Times editor David Enrich has written a book about how and why Jones Day became so enmeshed with the Trump administration. He joins our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to talk about where Jones Day goes from here.

"I think there will be some clients, and certainly some potential employees, who will hesitate to work with Jones Day," Enrich says, "but I think there are a lot of other clients who are probably eager for this kind of no-holds-barred, smash mouth defense that Jones Day is better at providing than just about anyone else."

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.