Judicial Notice (02.01.26): The $4,000-An-Hour Club

Tom Goldstein’s trial, Brad Karp and Kathy Ruemmler’s Epstein emails, brutal benchslaps for ICE, and another Biglaw firm launches in Charlotte.

Kathryn ‘Kathy’ Ruemmler, ‘Uncle’ Jeffrey Epstein, and Brad Karp (image generated with ChatGPT—and substituted in place of a prior ChatGPT image that wasn’t very good).

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Have I mentioned how tired I am of the cold? My ancestors hail from the sunny islands of the Philippines, so I’m not genetically equipped to deal with single-digit temperatures. Alas, as a parent of a two-year-old and an eight-year-old who are both in school, I’m sticking it out here in frigid New Jersey. But once I’m an empty nester, I hope to write this newsletter from warmer climes, assuming I still have the privilege and pleasure of writing for you in 15 years—and don’t get replaced by LatBot 5000.

The possibility of being replaced by AI occurred to me when I read about Carolyn Elefant’s project of “building a Paul Clement bot to help lawyers prepare for oral argument” (which was inspired by my recent column, 3 Tips For Appellate Advocates—From Paul Clement). Yes, an AI bot might be able to help lawyers prepare for argument, but don’t expect to see bots actually arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court anytime soon. Even assuming an AI assistant could present a decent argument, judges won’t stand for it (as one pro se litigant learned last March—the hard way).

At least for now, human beings still want fellow human beings to argue appeals, participate in webinars, and serve as dinner speakers. So ChatGPT didn’t deprive me of the opportunities to moderate a great webinar last Wednesday on Supreme Court reform, sponsored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPAA), or to speak last Thursday at the global offsite of Burford Capital, the world’s leading legal-finance firm (and a longtime sponsor of Original Jurisdiction).

And, I hope, human beings still want fellow human beings writing their newsletters. That’s certainly the view of the good folks over at SCOTUSblog (now part of The Dispatch), who are seeking an editor for their forthcoming business-docket newsletter. If you’re a commercial litigator in Biglaw interested in trying something new, check out the job and apply through LinkedIn.

Now, on to the news—with apologies for how I’m sending out his edition of Judicial notice on Monday morning. Unfortunately, the current news cycle, which slows down but no longer stops over the weekend, makes it increasingly difficult to file on Sunday afternoon or evening (as is my preference). Sigh.

Lawyers of the Week: Bill Carmody and Neal Manne.

Growing adoption of AI is not yet affecting Biglaw hiring levels in a big way, but I predict that it eventually will. And when it does, we could see some loss of jobs, at least in the short term (although there’s an argument, which legal-tech guru Joe Borstein made in our podcast conversation, that over the long term, legal will be fine).

I’m guessing that the jobs for lawyers that remain after the AI revolution will be very appealing: they’ll have little drudgery, which can be done by AI, and they’ll be highly paid—because any work that can’t be done by AI will be extremely important and therefore valuable. So maybe we shouldn’t be shocked to learn that at one of Ari Kaplan’s Legal Tech Mafia® breakfasts last year, the answers to when we’ll see the $10,000 billable hour ranged from 2028 to 2035.

I think 2028 is too early—one thing I’ve learned from watching the legal profession for the past 30 years is that it usually changes more slowly than you think—but on the other hand, rates are rising faster than I expected. And if the target is $10,000 an hour, we’re already 40 percent of the way there—having gone from $3,000 an hour to $4,000 an hour in less than a year.

The two most expensive partners at Susman Godfrey, renowned trial lawyers Bill Carmody and Neal Manne, now charge $4,000 an hour. As Manne told Reuters, “If there’s someone out there who bills at a higher rate than we do on hourly cases, please let us know so we may raise our rates.” (And please let me know, so I can report it; other partners known to bill $3,000 an hour or more include two of my past podcast guests, Neal Katyal and Alex Spiro—so feel free to listen to their episodes, around 40 to 45 minutes each, and consider it my $2,000 gift to you.)

As Manne’s quip reflects, $4,000 an hour is a bit of a publicity stunt for Susman—a way of telling the market that they have, pound for pound, the best trial lawyers in America. Why? Because as noted by Reuters, most of the firm’s work is handled on a contingency or fixed-fee basis—such as Dominion v. Fox News, in which they earned more than $100 million (after securing a $787.5 million settlement for their client).

How did Susman come up with $4,000 an hour? Manne, a former managing partner of the firm, emailed me this: “The process by which Bill’s and my billing rates are set each year is as mysterious as a Papal conclave, as secretive as the Federal Reserve Board’s interest rate deliberations, and as impenetrable as an MLB umpire’s balk call.”

Manne’s response was part of a three-line message to me—so if it took him one minute to compose, that was a $70 email. Your OJ subscription just paid for itself!

Other lawyers in the news:

• In response to the dramatic ramp-up in federal immigration enforcement, nine local prosecutors from cities across the country are coming together to address perceived federal overreach and unconstitutional behavior. They’ve formed an organization, Fight Against Federal Overreach or “FAFO.” Geddit?

• After the killing of Alex Pretti by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California (aka Los Angeles), tweeted that “[i]f you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!” This did not go over well with pro-Second Amendment groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, who roundly criticized Essayli for his comments (which he later tried to clarify, tweeting that he “never said it’s legally justified to shoot law-abiding concealed carriers”).

• In other news involving U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, the Trump administration announced the nomination of former federal prosecutor Colin McDonald to lead a new DOJ division that will focus on fraud—part of Donald Trump’s justification for the crackdown in Minneapolis, where immigrants from Somalia played major roles in a fraud scheme that stole hundreds of millions of dollars from Covid-19 benefits programs.

• On Friday, the DOJ released nearly three million pages of previously undisclosed documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier/sex offender. We learned that former White House counsel and current Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler received lavish gifts, such as a $9,400 handbag from Hermes, from the man she affectionately addressed as “Uncle Jeffrey” (ick).

• [UPDATE (2/3/2026, 9:53 p.m.): For more about Ruemmler-related correspondence in the Epstein files, see this article from The New York Post, “Goldman Sachs’ Kathy Ruemmler accused of ‘misery’ affair with Epstein attorney [Reid Weingarten], according to his wife’s [Cheryl Gould’s] emails.”]

• [UPDATE (2/3/2026, 10:23 p.m.): In response to questions from Bloomberg, Ruemmler said in a statement that questions about her alleged affair with Reid Weingarten and her emails about it with Epstein were “gratuitous and offensive.”]

• Brad Karp, chair of Paul Weiss, had more extensive correspondence with Epstein than has been previously reported. Karp asked for Epstein’s help in obtaining a job for his son on a Woody Allen film production, and Karp attended dinners at Epstein’s home. After one such event, he emailed Epstein, “I can’t thank you enough for including me in an evening I’ll never forget. It was truly ‘once in a lifetime’ in every way, though I hope to be invited again. You are an extraordinary host—and your home . . .!!!” Based on reporting about the Epstein mansion, such as this Times article (gift link), “!!!” sounds about right.

• [UPDATE (10:05 a.m.): The preceding bullet was revised to remove a reference to Karp asking for Epstein’s assistance in getting into the exclusive Augusta Golf Club. Although The Financial Times reported on a text in which Epstein appears to seek help from former White House strategist Steve Bannon in getting Karp into the club, there’s no indication that Karp requested this—and Karp told me that he did not.]

• [UPDATE (7:41 p.m.): For more about Brad Karp’s interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, see The New York Times, Bloomberg Law, and Law.com. In a statement, Paul Weiss said, “Mr. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets.”]

• [UPDATE (2/5/2026, 12:10 a.m.): On Wednesday night, Brad Karp resigned as chair of Paul Weiss, as reported by, well, everyone—including The New York Times (gift link), The Wall Street Journal (gift link), Bloomberg, Reuters, The American Lawyer, and Law360. I’ll have more on this shortly.]

• [UPDATE (2/6/2026, 10:26 a.m.): For more, see my new post, Brad Karp Steps Down As Chairman Of Paul Weiss.]

• Andrea Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was profiled in The New York Times—which noted that it’s “clear that she has given a lot of thought to issues of fairness and justice.”

• Catherine Dargan, head of the corporate practice and co-chair of the M&A practice at Covington & Burling, was profiled in Bloomberg Law—which called Dargan the firm’s “secret weapon” in landing billion-dollar deals.

• Congratulations to the three former law school deans who have been chosen as the next presidents of three major American universities: former UCLA Law dean Jennifer Mnookin, who will lead Columbia University; former Wash U Law dean Kent Syverud, who will lead the University of Michigan; and former Cornell Law dean Eduardo Peñalver, who will lead Georgetown University.

In memoriam: Tara Arnold—an attorney at Arnold & Itkin, the Houston firm co-founded by her husband, prominent personal-injury lawyer Kurt Arnold—died when the firm’s private jet crashed, shortly after taking off during a snowstorm from Bangor International Airport in Maine. Please keep Tara Arnold’s family, as well as her former colleagues at Arnold & Itkin, in your thoughts and prayers.

Judge of the Week: Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz and Judge Fred Biery.

Apologies, dear readers: as of now, it’s basically impossible to keep track of and cover all the fast-moving litigation, playing out in district courts across the country, over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. At some point, the cases will percolate up to the circuit courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, and covering them at that point will be more manageable; but at the current time, it’s all just too chaotic.

Instead of a laundry list of status updates that will be quickly overtaken by subsequent events—a preliminary injunction denied here, a temporary restraining order issued there—I’m going to tell you about two judges who have found themselves caught up in controversy. Their stories offer a useful window into some of the broader issues raised by immigration-enforcement litigation.

First up: Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz (D. Minn.). As noted in profiles appearing in The Times (gift link), Politico, and Bloomberg Law, the 65-year-old jurist boasts impressive conservative credentials. Before he was appointed to the federal bench in 2006 by George W. Bush, Schiltz clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia—twice, on both the D.C. Circuit and SCOTUS—and served on the faculty of Notre Dame Law, where he was a mentor to Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Ed Whelan called Chief Judge Schiltz a “conservative stalwart,” while Professor Rick Garnett described him as “an excellent judge and the farthest thing from an ‘activist’ (a ludicrous charge).”

Why are prominent conservatives like Whelan and Garnett having to come to Chief Judge Schiltz’s defense? Over the past two weeks, Judge Schiltz has repeatedly benchslapped the Trump administration—specifically, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and then been attacked by Trump supporters as a judicial activist. See, e.g., this Fox News piece by Will Chamberlain of the Article III Project, titled “Fix is in in Minnesota, where anti-ICE federal judge leaves his lane to side with mob.”

Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the space to catalog Chief Judge Schiltz’s issues with ICE—this roundup is already too late and too long—but I urge you to read Zach Montague’s Times piece, which summarizes them nicely. And if you have the time, read the primary documents: (1) Judge Schiltz’s January 23 letter to the Eighth Circuit, responding to the government’s petition for a writ of mandamus; (2) his January 26 order, noting that ICE has failed to comply with “dozens of court orders” and stating that “[t]he Court’s patience is at an end”; (3) his January 28 order, declaring that ICE “is not a law unto itself” and “has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence”; and (4) the appendix to his January 28 order, a list of “96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases.”

As you can see, Chief Judge Schiltz is no wallflower: he has strong opinions, and he’s not afraid to share them. As some of you might recall, he was Judge of the Week once before, back in November 2024. Why? After the Federal Circuit vacated a decision of his in a patent case, he recused from the case on remand—and issued what I described as a “reverse benchslap” of the Federal Circuit:

Having carefully reviewed the Federal Circuit’s opinion, the Court finds itself at the same impasse that led it to find the asserted claims indefinite. The Court is at a loss, for example, to understand [the Federal Circuit’s analysis]….

This Court struggled for years to [resolve the issues in this case]. The Federal Circuit’s opinion does not persuade the Court otherwise, and the Court has no idea how to reconcile the Federal Circuit’s varying instructions with each other or with the facts of this case. At this point, the Court does not believe that it can impartially resolve the parties’ dispute. The Court therefore concludes that it must recuse….

Next up: Judge Fred Biery (W.D. Tex.). On Saturday, Judge Biery ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from immigration custody—nothing unusual about that—but did so in a three-page order that raised eyebrows. Here’s how it ends:

Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.

Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation. But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.

Philadelphia, September 17, 1787: “Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?” “A republic, if you can keep it.”

With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike,

It is so ORDERED.

SIGNED this 31st day of February [sic], 2026.

And then below his signature block, Judge Biery included a photograph of the boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a Spider-Man backpack and big blue winter hat, and citations to two passages from the Bible: Matthew 19:14 and John 11:35. Like Chief Judge Schiltz, Judge Biery was lauded by the left and criticized by conservatives for his benchslap of an order. [UPDATE (2/8/2026, 7:48 a.m.): Since I noted this for Chief Judge Schiltz, I should mention it for Judge Biery as well: he was appointed in 1994 by Bill Clinton. Oh, and his last name is pronounced BEER-ee, rhyming with “teary”—not BY-ree, rhyming with “fiery.”]

The rulings of Chief Judge Schiltz and Judge Biery raise broader questions about how judges are responding to the Trump administration. Readers, what do you think? Please take my poll and discuss in the comments.

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Chief Judge Schiltz and Judge Biery weren’t the only judges with harsh words for the administration. See also Judge Roy Dalton, Jr. (M.D. Fla.)—who put the DOJ’s lawyers on blast, per Kathryn Rubino of Above the Law. In an order resolving a case “in which the Government unlawfully detained a noncitizen who has been present in this country for years,” Judge Dalton reminded the Justice Department that “its lawyers must make [its] arguments in a way that comports with their professional obligations as lawyers have done since time immemorial: Cite the contrary binding authority and argue why it’s wrong. Don’t hide the ball. Don’t ignore the overwhelming weight of persuasive authority as if it won’t be found. And don’t send a sacrificial lamb to stand before this Court with a fistful of cases that don’t apply and no cogent argument for why they should.” Ouch.

• Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton (6th Cir.) dismissed the complaint of judicial misconduct filed by the DOJ against Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg (D.D.C.). To read Chief Judge Sutton’s seven-page opinion and news coverage thereof, check out How Appealing by Howard Bashman. My take: Chief Judge Sutton is being diplomatic and restrained in his opinion—but reading between the lines, he sees the DOJ’s ethics complaint as pretty frivolous.

• I didn’t know that “super drunk” was a legal term of art—at least not until I read about Judge Thomas Ludington (E.D. Mich.) getting hit with drunken-driving charges, after crashing his wife’s 2019 black Cadillac on a rural road.

• Still on the theme of Michigan judges in trouble, 36th District Court Judge Andrea Bradley Baskin of the 36th District Court was indicted on federal fraud charges, for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to embezzle money from incapacitated adults (prior to taking the bench in 2024).

• Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga came to the defense of his former boss, Justice Samuel Alito. Pushing back against a CNN piece in which Joan Biskupic described the justice as “easily irritated,” “aggrieve[d],” and growing “testier” over time, Aguiñaga praised Alito as “kind, humble, thoughtful, and selfless,” in a piece for Fox News.

• Speaking of former SCOTUS clerks, I have almost a dozen new hires to report—so I’ll probably publish a fresh roundup in the next week or two, as soon as I have the names of all four of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s October Term 2026 clerks. I’m already aware of N.B., J.C., and I.M.; if you know the identity of the missing fourth clerk, please email me at davidlat@substack.com or text me at 917-397-2751 (texts only, since I don’t use this Google Voice number for phone calls).

In memoriam: Judge Robert Pratt (S.D. Iowa) passed away at 78, after experiencing a heart attack at the gym. May he rest in peace.

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Ruling of the Week: Polk v. Montgomery County Public Schools.

Over at SCOTUSblog, Amy Howe tackles the question so many of us have been wondering: “When will we get the tariffs ruling?” Her bottom line (with which I agree): “So far, [the justices] have not signaled that they regard this dispute as the kind of emergency that many in the outside world do, suggesting that they may not release the opinion at least until they take the bench again on February 20.”

The Supreme Court issued only one opinion last week, in Klein v. Martin. As noted by Professor Jonathan Adler on The Volokh Conspiracy, Martin represents “the second time this Term the justices have summarily reversed a habeas decision from the Fourth Circuit” (after Clark v. Sweeney). Combined with the Fourth Circuit’s 0-8 record before SCOTUS last Term, the two summary reversals lend support for Adler’s hypothesis that the Fourth Circuit is “the new Ninth Circuit,” i.e., the latest left-leaning circuit to be repeatedly reversed by a more conservative Supreme Court.

Speaking of the Fourth Circuit and turning to the Ruling of the Week, might it get reversed in Polk v. Montgomery County Public Schools? In an opinion by Judge Robert King, a divided panel rejected a Maryland substitute teacher’s First Amendment challenge to a school board’s requirement that she “affirm that she would refer to students by their preferred pronouns, and to also affirm that she would not discuss any student’s gender identity with the student’s parents.”

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, the noted conservative jurist who’s often vindicated when SCOTUS reverses the Fourth, dissented. While he agreed with the majority’s rejection of Kimberly Ann Polk’s Free Exercise challenge to the pronoun policy, he disagreed “vigorously” with the majority’s interpretation of the Free Speech Clause. In his view, Polk “is, without question, about compelled speech—a detail to which the majority gives short shrift.”

In the majority’s view, the pronoun policy “does not concern the speech of a private citizen,” but merely “establishes the official duties of a public-school teacher.” This can’t be the law, according to Judge Wilkinson:

If the majority’s reasoning is correct, then there is no limit to the words the state can put in teachers’ mouths—teachers become, for all intents and purposes, the state’s anointed messengers. Are we now to allow states to mandate that teachers voice opinions contrary to their own without any First Amendment protection whatsoever? Can the state force an Israeli teacher to wear a pro-Palestine pin? …. Under the majority’s view, the only logical conclusion is yes.

Pronoun policies in public educational institutions have led to litigation across the country, and some courts have taken a different view than the Fourth Circuit in Polk. For example, in Meriwether v. Hartop, the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of a professor who challenged his public university’s pronoun policy. So I wouldn’t be shocked if SCOTUS—which has been hearing plenty of transgender-related cases lately, after seeming to avoid them for a while—eventually wades into this disagreement as well.

Other noteworthy decisions and dispositions:

• South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. From John Ross of Short Circuit: “Do civil-rights advocacy organizations have standing to challenge allegedly grievous defects in South Carolina’s juvenile-detention system? Fourth Circuit [by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson]: No. ‘We do not doubt the sincerity of plaintiffs’ desire to ameliorate the harm that may befall juveniles… [We question] only the wisdom of their decision to sue in place of those whose interests they seek to advance.’ Dissent [by Judge James Wynn]: One of the organizations is required by federal statute to protect the constitutional rights of people with mental illnesses. Of course it has standing.”

• Northwest Association of Independent Schools v. Community Library Association, Inc. A nonprofit association of independent private schools, joined by some of its members, filed a First Amendment challenge to Idaho’s Children’s School and Library Protection Act, which prohibits schools and public libraries from making certain “harmful” content available to minors. In an opinion by Judge Milan Smith, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court should have issued a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the law.

• Knife Rights, Inc. v. Bonta. In an opinion by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, the Ninth Circuit rejected a facial challenge, based on the Second Amendment, to various California regulations and restrictions covering switchblade knives.

• United States v. Mangione. Judge Margaret Garnett (S.D.N.Y.) dismissed two of the four federal counts faced by Luigi Mangione, who stands accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson—and “the chief practical effect” of her ruling is to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment” (unless the government appeals, which it hasn’t made a decision about, and prevails). In a separate opinion on Friday, Judge Garnett denied Mangione’s motion to suppress evidence that Pennsylvania police obtained from searching his backpack.

Litigation of the Week: United States v. Goldstein.

Last week involved a number of newsworthy developments in United States v. Goldstein—the federal criminal trial of Tom Goldstein, the veteran Supreme Court advocate and founder of SCOTUSblog (which he stepped away from a few years ago, well before its acquisition by The Dispatch in 2025). A year ago, Goldstein was hit with a 22-count indictment—but the government has since dropped some charges and the judge has dismissed others, leaving Goldstein facing 16 counts: one count of tax evasion, eight counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns, four counts of willful failure to pay taxes, and three counts of making a false statement on a loan application.

Trial is now underway, before Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby (D. Md.), and last week was full of drama:

• On Tuesday, Jeffrey Toobin, the well-known legal journalist, filed a motion to quash the subpoena he received from federal prosecutors. They want Toobin to testify about the in-depth Times story (gift link) that he wrote about Goldstein—in which, the feds claim, Goldstein made incriminating statements that they’d like to use against him at trial. The government filed its opposition on Wednesday, and Judge Griggsby should rule on the motion soon (since the government expects to conclude its case in the next week or so).

• On Wednesday, actor Tobey Maguire testified. The Spider-Man star testified about hiring Goldstein—and paying him a legal fee of $500,000—to collect $7 million in gambling winnings that a Texas businessman owed to Maguire (which Goldstein did successfully; personal failings aside, he was a talented lawyer).

• On Thursday, Rick Salomon—a professional poker player who was once married to Pamela Anderson, and who also filmed a sex tape with Paris Hilton (which he then leaked)—took the stand. His testimony covered Goldstein’s heads-up poker matches in Asia against “whales,” i.e., gamblers who lose large sums of money.

• Also on Thursday, Judge Griggsby issued a written order concluding that prosecutors violated their disclosure duties under Brady v. Maryland, by failing to provide the defense with an email between their lead case agent and one of Goldstein’s accountants. Because of that violation, Judge Griggsby will give the defense a long leash in cross-examining the accountant, and they can also use the email in their closing argument.

If the government rests around Friday, February 6, and Goldstein puts on a fairly brief case (or none at all), the jury could have the case by the week of February 9. I’ll keep you posted (and so will Howard Bashman, who has been following the case diligently over at How Appealing).

In other litigation news:

• According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE agents can rely upon mere administrative warrants—as opposed to judicial warrants, approved by a neutral judge—to enter the homes of suspected undocumented immigrants. This policy is unlawful, according to a lawsuit filed in Boston federal court (D. Mass.) by two organizations focused on immigrants’ rights. For more on administrative versus judicial warrants, listen to Advisory Opinions—featuring Professor Orin Kerr, a leading expert on the Fourth Amendment—or Serious Trouble.

• Because all of its active judges are Democratic appointees, the District of Massachusetts is a popular venue for filing lawsuits against the Trump administration—such as the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the families of two men killed in one of the U.S. boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela.

• Meanwhile, down in Miami (S.D. Fla.), Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, seeking $10 billion in damages from the IRS for the unauthorized leaking of his tax returns during his first term as president.

• Last week, the first of multiple bellwether trials against several social-media giants got underway in California Superior Court (Los Angeles). The plaintiffs allege that the defendants’ addictive platforms caused them to suffer anxiety, depression, and other maladies. Snap and TikTok reached eleventh-hour settlements in this first case, leaving Meta and Google (the owner of YouTube) as the remaining defendants. And new cases against the social-media companies keep on coming: on Thursday, plaintiffs represented by Boies Schiller filed nine arbitration demands against Meta, on behalf of young users of Instagram who claim that the company’s products are harmful and addictive.

• Across the country, conservative groups are filing cases to advance the ideal of colorblindness—i.e., lawsuits challenging policies and practices that treat people differently based on their race. And the cases are mostly succeeding, according to The Times (gift link), either because courts rule for the plaintiffs or the defendants stop discriminating.

• Have you ever enjoyed a rotisserie chicken from Costco? They’re delicious—but not free of preservatives, at least according to allegations in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed by two women in southern California.

Deal of the Week: VSE’s $2 billion acquisition of Precision Aviation.

VSE Corp. plans to buy a rival aviation-repair company, Precision Aviation Group, from GenNx360 Capital Partners, a private-equity firm, for around $2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal (gift link). The law firms involved are Jones Day, representing VSE, and Winston & Strawn, advising GenNx360.

A quick follow-up on the last Deal of the Week, the divestiture of the U.S. TikTok by its Chinese owner, ByteDance: does it comply with the requirements of the “divest or get banned” law? While non-Chinese entities own more than 80 percent of the new company, which addresses the law’s ownership requirements, ByteDance still controls the content-recommendation algorithm, which might run afoul of the law’s operational requirements—as discussed by Sarah Isgur and David French on last Thursday’s episode of Advisory Opinions.

Law Firm of the Week: Pashman Stein Walder Hayden.

This week, I’d like to give a shoutout to a well-known firm here in the Garden State, Pashman Stein Walder Hayden. As reported by the New Jersey Law Journal, the firm just announced a sabbatical program: every five years, a lawyer or staff members at the firm can take a six-week sabbatical—with full pay, benefits, and billable-hour credit. This strikes me as a wonderful idea—and I hope other firms follow suit.

Of course, the program will impose costs on Pashman Stein (not unlike generous parental-leave policies). But chair Michael Stein believes it will be worth it: “If you allow your employees to recharge by giving them this kind of extended time off every five years, I believe their mental health will be stronger, their productivity will be better and the rate of burnout will be lower.”

As a midsize firm with around 85 lawyers, Pashman Stein isn’t a Biglaw shop, so implementing a sabbatical program isn’t as costly or complex. But it’s worth noting that sabbatical programs used to be “a thing” at several Biglaw firms; I wrote about them back in 2007, and The American Lawyer covered them again in 2019.

Alas, as Biglaw firms have become less like old-fashioned partnerships and more like giant corporations, sabbatical programs have become far less common. Which law firms, especially Am Law 200 firms, still maintain sabbatical programs? I welcome reader tips on this subject—and if I get enough interesting info, maybe I’ll write a story.

In other firm news:

• As the litigation over the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting four law firms continues to move forward in the D.C. Circuit, with the government and the firms sparring over whether the cases should be put on hold and whether they should be consolidated, the Trump administration opened up a new front in its war against Biglaw. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent warning letters to 42 firms that participated in the Diversity Lab’s Mansfield Certification program, claiming that “[p]otentially anticompetitive collusion between law firms on DEI metrics can include quotas by which they agree to compose panels of job candidates based on race, sex, or other personal characteristics other than the candidate’s merit.”

• How are Biglaw offices in Minneapolis holding up under the stress of recent events? Patrick Smith reported on this for The American Lawyer.

• Law firms can be surprisingly vulnerable, but they can also be surprisingly resilient. Over the years, I’ve reported on numerous firms that recovered from rough patches and are now doing just fine. Might that be the case with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner? After losing almost a third of its lawyers and conducting multiple rounds of staff layoffs, the firm seems to have stabilized—and enjoyed record financial results in 2025.

• BCLP wasn’t alone in terms of thriving last year. According to Wells Fargo, the 200 largest U.S. law firms grew revenue by around 13 percent in 2025.

• Kirkland & Ellis dropped Optimum Communications as a client, after the telecom company filed an antitrust lawsuit against its lenders—who include private-equity firms, K&E’s most important group of clients. (To be clear, Kirkland isn’t representing Optimum in its antitrust case—that would be Kellogg Hansen—and Optimum has hired White & Case to handle the deal work K&E relinquished.)

• Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman (N.D. Ill.) denied Foley & Lardner’s motion for summary judgment in the employment discrimination lawsuit filed against it by Jinan Chehade, a Palestinian-American lawyer whose offer to join Foley was rescinded after she commented on social media about Israel-Palestine issues.

Move of the Week: Paul Hastings launching a Charlotte office, with 15 to 20 lawyers from Cadwalader and Haynes and Boone.

It’s fun when industry trends collide. The latest Move of the Week combines three ongoing developments that will be familiar to longtime OJ readers: the endless expansion of Paul Hastings, the deepening departures from Cadwalader (ahead of its merger with Hogan Lovells), and the relentless rise of the Charlotte legal market.

On Monday, Paul Hastings announced the opening of a Charlotte office, as reported by Reuters, Law.com, and Law360. It’s the third firm to establish a presence in the Queen City in recent months, following Orrick and Proskauer—and as you’d expect in a big banking hub, Paul Hastings is building its office around finance.

As firms typically do when launching in a new city, Paul Hastings is hiring partners from rival firms who are already in Charlotte—specifically, fund finance partners Danyeale Chung from Cadwalader and Holly Loftis, Aleksandra “Aleks” Kopec, and Mark Nesdill from Haynes Boone. These four partners expect to be joined by around 10 to 15 lawyers from their former firms, giving Paul Hastings a critical mass of practitioners in Charlotte’s increasingly competitive legal market.

Other notable moves:

• Maintaining the hiring push that chair Yvette Ostolaza described to me last March, Sidley Austin continues to grow—especially in its D.C. office, which welcomed IP litigators Greg Lantier and Alexis Cohen, joining from WilmerHale, and trade lawyer Justin Becker, returning from the Commerce Department.

• Speaking of firms in expansion mode, Ropes & Gray added three partners in New York: finance lawyer Michael McGuigan (from Debevoise), antitrust attorney Marta Kelly (from Paul Weiss), and commercial litigator Noah Yavitz (from Wachtell Lipton). It’s rare for partners to leave Wachtell, but Yavitz is the second one this year (after M&A lawyer Alison Preiss, who joined Simpson Thacher). WLRK is one of the few remaining firms with lockstep compensation for partners—and as the (still sizable) gap in profitability between Wachtell and rival firms narrows, we might see more defections by young partners like Preiss and Yavitz (who, in a lockstep system, earn less compared to their more-senior peers).

• Antitrust partners remain in demand in the lateral market—so it’s not a surprise to see moves like that of Shawn Johnson to Fried Frank in D.C. He came from Crowell & Moring, where he spent more than a decade and co-chaired the antitrust group.

• And as bankruptcy filings grow, we might see more movement among bankruptcy partners—like Gordon Novod, who left Grant & Eisenhofer and joined the New York office of Boies Schiller (which is deepening its bankruptcy bench).

As Hollywood directors like to say, that’s a wrap on this latest edition of Judicial Notice. I’m looking forward to (slightly) warmer weather in the coming week, at least for the next few days—and I hope you have a good week as well.

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