Judicial Notice (05.06.23): A Hot Mess

130 lawyers leave a Biglaw firm, the feds lose a high-profile prosecution, and other legal news from the week that was.

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, speaking outside the S.D.N.Y. courthouse after prevailing in copyright litigation (photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld via Getty Images).

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 on the button below. Thanks!

The most exciting event of my week was unfortunately not good: Zach and I had to take Harlan to the local emergency room. While bouncing around on the couch, as he is wont to do, Harlan lost his footing and banged his mouth on the coffee table, cutting the inside of his gum rather badly. He started screaming his head off and there was lots of blood, so we took him to the ER, just to be on the safe side. Fortunately he didn’t need stitches, just antibiotics, but hospital visits are never fun.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: David Markus and Margot Moss.

Former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum went from being a rising star in the Democratic Party, who lost the Florida governorship to Ron DeSantis by only 32,000 votes, to a criminal defendant. But on Thursday, in what the Tallahassee Democrat called “a stunning defeat for the government,” a federal jury acquitted Gillum of lying to the FBI about various gifts he accepted from undercover FBI agents—including, most (in)famously, Hamilton tickets—and deadlocked on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud, related to alleged misuse of campaign funds. This left federal prosecutors with zero convictions to show for themselves, after two weeks of trial and another week or so of deliberations.

Congratulations to Gillum’s lawyers, prominent South Florida defense lawyers David Markus and Margot Moss, whom the Tallahassee Democrat praised as “capable and charismatic.” If their names sound familiar, it might be because Markus previously represented Charlie Adelson, the Miami-area dentist who will go to trial this October on charges that he murdered his former brother-in-law, the late law professor Dan Markel. Last year, however, Markus and Adelson parted ways. (It would have been interesting to see what Markus, an incredibly talented trial lawyer, would have done when faced with the mountain of evidence against Adelson.)

Runner-up for Lawyer of the Week: Kannon Shanmugam, who set #appellatetwitter aflame with a brief that dismissed an opposing brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar as a “hot mess.” Shanmugam’s critics condemned his brief as disrespectful, even sexist; I’m not sure I’d go that far (although I should mention that Shanmugam is a friend, as well as an early interviewee here at Original Jurisdiction). But there’s an argument to be made—if you’ll forgive another colloquialism, especially since this is a chatty newsletter, not a fancy SCOTUS brief—that Shanmugam might have stepped in it this time around. He’s a very polite and respectful person, so I doubt he would have used the phrase “hot mess” had he known it would have generated such blowback.

Lawyer of the Week honors go to folks for their work as lawyers. But at the request of one reader, I’d like to give a shout-out to Alan Barinholtz, a litigator for decades who always wanted to act. For years he had to live vicariously through his sons, actors Ike and Jon Barinholtz—until this year, when he landed the role of Judge Alan Rosen on Jury Duty, a popular new Amazon mockumentary about a fake jury trial. So congrats to Alan Barinholtz, who shows that it’s never too late to pursue your dreams.

In memoriam: Newton Minow. After graduating first in his class from Northwestern Law, serving as editor-in-chief of the law review, and clerking for Chief Justice Fred Vinson, Minow became famous for condemning American television as “a vast wasteland” during his tenure as FCC chairman. Last Saturday, he passed away at 97, according to his daughter Nell Minow, a Chicago Law grad and leading figure in the worlds of corporate governance and film criticism. His two other daughters are also lawyers: Martha Minow, a Yale Law grad who served as dean of Harvard Law School, and Mary Minow, a Stanford Law grad and distinguished librarian who served on the National Museum and Library Services Board. May he rest in peace.