Judicial Notice (05.12.24): How To Survive Cross Like A Porn Star
Paul Weiss’s big hire from Cleary Gottlieb, TikTok’s suit against the feds, more takes on the Columbia clerk boycott, and other legal news from the week that was.
Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks!
For my more youthful readers, the title of this post is a reference to adult-film icon Jenna Jameson’s bestselling memoir, How To Make Love Like A Porn Star (2004).
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! Especially my own mom (who’s traveling right now) and my husband Zach’s mom (with whom we just celebrated).
Last week started off well for me. I enjoyed speaking at the Practising Law Institute’s Ethics in Social Media program and the AAPI Heritage Month celebration of the Philadelphia office of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But over the past few days, I’ve been feeling fatigued and plagued by headaches. I’m also suffering from eye strain—not great, considering the nature of my work. I welcome suggestions for how to avoid eye strain if you stare at screens all day.
Despite my exhaustion, I did manage to connect with my co-host Zach Sandberg to record a new episode of Movers, Shakers & Rainmakers. We broke down the 2024 Am Law 100 ranking, which came out last month, and the 2024 Am Law 200 ranking, which was published last week (and I’ll be writing about both rankings for these pages soon).
The latest testimonial for Original Jurisdiction is quite timely, with Memorial Day and summer vacations fast approaching. It’s from Elizabeth Kelley, a criminal defense lawyer specializing in representing people with mental disabilities (a subject on which she literally wrote the book): “Original Jurisdiction is essential to your ability to take a vacation. When you return from your vacation and open Original Jurisdiction, it’s as if you were never gone. You’ll catch up on substantive legal news, receive insightful analysis and a bit of well-placed humor, plus links to relevant articles and podcasts. So go ahead, take your vacation, and capture that elusive work/life balance.”
Now, on to the news.
Lawyer of the Week: Susan Necheles.
Donald Trump’s lawyers run the gamut, from impressive to incompetent. Susan Necheles (pronounced “necklace”), who with Todd Blanche and Emil Bove is defending the ex-president in the Manhattan hush-money case, falls into the first camp. A graduate of Yale Law School and former assistant district attorney in Kings County (Brooklyn), she’s both cerebral and street smart—reflected in her “Band 1” ranking in Chambers for white-collar crime and government investigations, where clients praise her for “rabbit-out-of-the-hat results.”
Necheles was all over the news last week, thanks to her aggressive cross-examination of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. And despite Necheles’s reputation as a strong cross-examiner, Daniels weathered it well, with a combination of defiance, disarming humor, and distracting TMI (apparently Trump wears boxer shorts). It didn’t help that Necheles flubbed some names and played the wrong recording of a conversation she wanted to question Daniels about.
And Necheles wound up taking flak from Justice Juan Merchan. After Trump moved for a mistrial, complaining that the jury was allowed to hear prejudicial and irrelevant testimony from Daniels about the underlying sexual counter, Justice Merchan denied the motion—and tossed in what the Washington Post described as “a biting review of Necheles’s performance.” If the jury heard prejudicial testimony about Trump, the judge said, Necheles was partly to blame, since there were “many times when Ms. Necheles could have objected but didn’t.” For example, Justice Merchan noted that Necheles could have objected to Daniels’s claim that Trump didn’t use a condom: “Why on earth she wouldn’t object to a mention of a condom, I don’t understand.”
But the trial is far from over, and it’s unlikely that any minor missteps by Necheles will make a difference in the end. As former Trump attorney Ty Cobb told Politico, while Trump’s lawyers “should have definitely objected more.… one or two sustained objections wouldn’t have changed the trajectory of this case.”
If Trump’s lawyers can secure an acquittal or even a hung jury, their reputations as trial lawyers will be greatly enhanced. And Necheles could use the boost, since Trump foes have taken over her online reviews. For example: “Awesome lawyer. I attempted a coup in my South American island nation, and she helped me avoid prison. She was savvy enough to get me an escape plane in which I could load in my gold bars so I could be safe in Miami. Would recommend to any would-be dictator.”
In memoriam:
Jack Quinn—who served as White House Counsel under President Bill Clinton, then subsequently helped fugitive financier Marc Rich obtain a highly controversial pardon from Clinton—passed away at 74.
Jeffrey Limmer, a litigation associate in the Houston office of Lewis Brisbois, was shot and killed outside a McDonald’s restaurant on May 4. Another customer was arguing with McDonald’s employees, demanding a refund, when Limmer intervened to try to de-escalate the situation—but instead, the customer turned on Limmer. A suspect has been arrested and charged in the case.
[UPDATE (8/10/2024, 10:21 a.m.): Prominent litigator Bruce McLean, who served as chair of Akin Gump from 1993 until 2013, passed away at 77.]
May they rest in peace.
Judges of the Week: Judges Elizabeth “Lisa” Branch, James Ho, and Matthew Solomson.
The most talked-about judicial activity of last week did not involve a judicial opinion—but it definitely involved judges with opinions. A group of 13 federal judges appointed by former president Trump, led by Judges Elizabeth “Lisa” Branch (11th Cir.), James Ho (5th Cir.), and Matthew Solomson (Fed. Cl.), announced a clerk-hiring boycott affecting Columbia University.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Original Jurisdiction to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.