The Top 10 Stories Of 2024
Familiar topics—law-clerk controversies, free-speech fracases, and the future of FedSoc—dominated these pages in the past year.
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Before we bid farewell to 2024, let’s review the year’s top ten posts. It’s an annual tradition—conducted in 2023, 2022, and 2021—and it offers a nice way of looking back on the year in legal news. The relatively slow holiday period is an ideal time to go back and check out any stories you might have missed when they were first published.
According to Substack, these are 2024’s top stories on Original Jurisdiction.1 I’ve listed them from #10 to #1—but as you’ll see, there are actually 15 separate stories, because I’ve grouped some related posts.
10. Meet The 5 Finalists For Federalist Society President
In October, I reported on the five finalists to serve as the next president and CEO of the Federalist Society, the powerful network of conservative and libertarian lawyers and law students. In December, FedSoc announced its next leader, Sheldon Gilbert—who was not one of the original finalists. What happened? In a wide-ranging, in-depth interview of two of the Society’s longtime leaders, Gene Meyer and Leonard Leo, I gleaned the fascinating backstory—along with insights about the future of the conservative legal movement.
9. Congratulations To The 2024 Bristow Fellows
Every fall, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) at the U.S. Department of Justice announces the new class of Bristow Fellows—recipients of prestigious one-year fellowships at OSG that allow attorneys to work on Supreme Court cases just a few years out of law school. Two of 2024’s most-read posts were my reports on the 2024 and 2025 Bristow Fellow classes (which I’ve combined into one entry on this list).
8. A Rising Star Of The Supreme Court Bar: Easha Anand
In the Original Jurisdiction podcast, which I’ve been hosting for more than two years, I interview a mix of established leaders and emerging talents in the legal profession. One of the most exciting new voices at the podium of One First Street is Easha Anand, co-director of Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic—who had three oral arguments during her first Term arguing before the justices.
7. An Open Letter To Crystal Clanton
Speaking of SCOTUS, currently clerking for Justice Thomas is the controversial Crystal Clanton—who stands accused of having sent racist messages years ago, including a text to a former colleague stating, among other things, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE.” In this open letter, I offered my advice to Crystal about how to address the situation—if she sent such messages, and if she didn’t. (For a counterpoint offering precisely the opposite counsel, see Libby Locke, a leading libel lawyer and co-founder of Clare Locke.)
6. ‘Integrity’: An Interview With Judge Pauline Newman
Many of you have been following the battle between Judge Pauline Newman, the nation’s oldest active-status federal judge, and her colleagues on the Federal Circuit—who have kept her off the bench, unable to hear cases, since September 2023. Her opponents, led by Chief Judge Kimberly Moore, claimed that Judge Newman, who is 97, could no longer perform the duties of her office because of “cognitive decline.” But is that true? Is Judge Newman truly out of it—or is she being sidelined by colleagues who have professional or personal disagreements with her? Listen to our almost hour-long podcast conversation—or watch video clips—and judge for yourself.
(NexFirm, which sponsors the Original Jurisdiction podcast, is currently listing its top-five favorite episodes from 2024—and it awarded the #5 spot to my conversation with Judge Newman. For their other four favorites, follow NexFirm on LinkedIn.)
5. Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Is October Term 2024 Full Up?
My periodic reports on the hiring of Supreme Court law clerks are some of the most popular stories here at Original Jurisdiction, making my lists of top posts for every year that I’ve done them. This roundup, published in February, was the most popular SCOTUS clerk hiring report of 2024. Two other roundups—Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Meet The October Term 2024 SCOTUS Clerks and SCOTUS Clerk Hiring Watch: Retirement Clues?—also would have made the top 10 as independent posts, had I decided not to consolidate them with this one.
4. The 20 Most Prestigious Law Firms In America (2024)
Lawyers love prestige—reflected in the aforementioned popularity of my stories about SCOTUS clerkships and Bristow Fellowships—and lawyers love rankings. So it’s no surprise that my analysis of the nation’s 20 most prestigious law firms, based on the annual Vault 100 ranking, was a top story for the year.2
3. Prominent Litigator Feared Dead After Superyacht Sinks Off Sicilian Coast
Our profession lost some distinguished members this year—including former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson (1940-2024), a conservative legal luminary turned leading advocate for marriage equality. We also mourned Christopher Morvillo (1964-2024), one of the nation’s top white-collar defense lawyers. His passing drew attention because of both his prominence as a practitioner and its shocking circumstances: he perished in the sinking of the Bayesian, a $40 million, 184-foot superyacht owned by the family of British tech tycoon Michael Lynch, for whom Morvillo won an epic, hard-fought victory at trial. (For more about Chris Morvillo, Mike Lynch, and the case that brought and kept them together—in life and, ultimately, in death—see Michael de la Merced’s detailed piece for The New York Times (gift link).)
2. A Tale Of Two Protests: UVA v. Berkeley Law
Controversies over free expression and academic freedom at law schools have been a staple of these pages for the past few years, including disruptive protests at Yale Law School (March 2022) and Stanford Law School (March 2023). Nothing in 2024 rose (or sank) to those levels—but pro-Palestine protesters’ attempt to derail a dinner, a celebration for graduating students in the backyard of Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, was the most notorious in the world of legal education.
1. Cannon Fodder: Law Clerks Quit On Judge Aileen Cannon and Clerking For Judge Cannon: A Behind-The-Scenes Look
These two stories, published on back-to-back days in March, are now the two most-read posts in the four-plus years of Original Jurisdiction’s history. In the original piece, I reported on law clerks leaving the chambers of Judge Aileen Cannon (S.D. Fla.), who at the time was in the news for her handling of the classified-documents prosecution of Donald Trump. In the follow-up story, I dove into the reasons why clerks left her employ, including the challenging work environment in chambers.
Four months later, Judge Cannon dismissed the classified-docs case in its entirety, holding that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution. And the rest is history: Trump won the 2024 presidential election; the government asked the Eleventh Circuit to dismiss its appeal of Judge Cannon’s decision, which the court promptly did; and Judge Cannon is talked about in some quarters as a possible Supreme Court nominee. (My sources tell me that she’s a strong candidate for elevation to the Eleventh Circuit, but not a top SCOTUS contender in the second Trump administration; a stronger contender is a fellow Floridian trial-court judge, Judge Kathryn Mizelle (M.D. Fla.).)
And there you have it: the top 10 stories of 2024. It was another interesting and eventful year for the law and the legal profession—and I can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store. (It will be a big year for me personally: I’ll turn 50 in June 2025, and Zach and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in September 2025.)
As previously mentioned, Judicial Notice is on hiatus until the weekend of January 4-5, and the Original Jurisdiction podcast will return on January 8. If we’re not in touch before then, I wish you and your families a very happy new year.
This year, I’ve decided to exclude installments of Judicial Notice, my weekly legal news roundup, from this list. Although it’s one of the most popular and useful features of this newsletter, Judicial Notice is really meant to be read at or near the time of its first publication.
Many commentators write about the courts; a few writers focus on law firms. But I believe I’m unusual in my knowledge of the legal profession writ large, including the courts, federal and state; law firms, from Biglaw to boutiques; law schools and legal education; multiple areas of substantive law; and various other law-related fields, such as litigation finance, legal recruiting, and legal technology (including but not limited to AI).
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