Judicial Notice (08.11.24): Don’t Be Evil

Biglaw summer bonuses, Justice Gorsuch’s revelations, the year’s largest IPO, and Paul Weiss’s latest lateral hires.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, speaking at the Reagan Library about his new book, Over Ruled (photo by Apu Gomes via Getty Images).

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I enjoyed speaking to the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates on Monday about current issues facing the legal profession, including AI (of course), work-life balance (or your preferred term for this topic), mental health and wellness, and more. And being in Chicago gave me the chance to have dinner at Kasama, the world’s first (and only?) Filipino restaurant to win a Michelin star, which was amazing.

I wish I could have stayed for longer, but it’s hard to take extended trips when you have two young kids at home. Speaking of which, Zach and I took Chase to the pediatrician for his one-year physical—or “well visit,” as they call them these days—and he’s doing great. He’s in the 95th percentile in terms of weight and the 97th percentile in terms of length, so he’s a big boy.

As I mentioned last week, I see August as a time for trying out new ideas, so here’s one: Original Jurisdiction “office hours.” For paid subscribers, I’m going to hop online for an hour and talk to whoever wants to join me (which might be nobody, but I hope not). I’ll field any questions people might have—think of it as a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA)—or we can just gab and gossip if nobody has questions.

The first session will take place this coming Wednesday, August 14, at 8 p.m. (ET), and the Zoom link and passcode appear at the end of this post. Because of the level of my Zoom subscription, no more than 100 participants can join, and it will be first come, first served (but I’d be shocked if we come anywhere close to 100).

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: Jonathan Kanter and the United States v. Google trial team.

Right out of the gate, the Biden administration took an aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement—initially with mixed results. In the first two years or so, it suffered some high-profile losses at trial, especially in criminal cases involving so-called “no poach” agreements.

But these losses will perhaps be overshadowed by the latest developments: on Monday, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice secured a landmark victory in United States v. Google. Judge Amit Mehta issued a 277-page opinion concluding that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” It’s arguably the biggest government win in an antitrust enforcement action since the Microsoft case 20 years ago.

So I’m bestowing Lawyer of the Week honors upon Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who leads the Antitrust Division, and the more than two dozen DOJ lawyers on the Google trial team. Over the course of a ten-week trial, they went up against Google—one of the world’s richest and most powerful companies, represented by three formidable firms: Williams & Connolly, Wilson Sonsini, and Ropes & Gray. And the Justice Department lawyers came out on top.

The next stage is litigating over the proper remedy, which could be tricky. The most obvious remedy, preventing Google from paying smartphone makers like Apple to make Google their phones’ default search engine, seems insufficient to address Google’s market power. But the second most obvious fix, breaking up Google into several smaller companies, might be excessive. So Judge Mehta faces a “Goldilocks” challenge of finding a remedy that’s “just right.”

Given how much still lies ahead—not just the remedial proceedings, but inevitable appeals and (possible) settlement talks—it’s far too early to figure out the broader, long-term implications of the case for Big Tech, antitrust law, and the intersection of the two. But for now, Kanter and his DOJ colleagues are entitled to a victory lap, over a win that Kanter described as sitting “on the Mount Rushmore of antitrust cases.”

Other lawyers in the news:

• Roberta “Robbie” Kaplan, a recent Lawyer of the Week for her noisy withdrawal from the firm formerly known as Kaplan Hecker & Fink, issued a response to Law.com to allegations that she’s a tough boss: “Am I a competitive perfectionist who obsesses about my cases? Absolutely. Do I sometimes yell when under stress? For sure. But my job is not fighting parking tickets. I have taken on some of the world’s biggest bullies in the most complex matters and have won.”

• Uber’s chief legal officer, Tony West, is taking an unpaid leave from the company to work on the campaign of Kamala Harris—who happens to be his sister-in-law. West is married to Kamala’s sister Maya, and he has served as an adviser to Kamala for more than two decades, going all the way back to her 2003 campaign for San Francisco district attorney.

• Those of you who have been following the life and crimes of South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh might appreciate “The Dark Secrets of the Murdaugh Family Dynasty,” by Valerie Bauerlein for The Wall Street Journal (gift link).

• Good luck to Sidley Austin associate Matt Simpson, off to Paris to compete in the Paralympic games, which start on August 28. Simpson, who is blind, plays for the U.S. in goalball, a team sport designed for people with visual impairments. This will be Simpson’s third Paralympics, after Tokyo in 2021 and Rio in 2016 (where he took home a team silver medal).

In memoriam: Pete Winstead—a founding shareholder of Winstead, the Dallas-based, Am Law 200 firm—passed away at 84. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Justice Neil Gorsuch.

According to an old Capitol Hill joke, “The most dangerous place in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera.” But maybe a close second is between a TV camera and a Supreme Court justice with a book to sell.

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s latest book, Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, was published on August 6. So it should come as no surprise that in the past week, Justice Gorsuch has been giving plenty of interviews. And as justices often do when in book-selling mode, he’s been doling out newsworthy nuggets unrelated to the topic of his book.