This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Veterans Day was last week, so it was very fitting that I interviewed Beth Wilkinson, one of the nation’s top trial lawyers and founding partner of Wilkinson Stekloff. After graduating from Princeton and UVA Law, she began her career as a lawyer in the Army JAG Corps. She then continued her public service by working as a federal prosecutor, where she successfully prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombers. Over the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. If you ever get prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, I wish you luck—because you’ll need...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com With a contentious election just around the corner, tensions are running high, and it’s easy to focus on what divides us. So my latest podcast interview, featuring Judge Kenneth Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, is quite timely. The son of immigrants from South Korea—and an immigrant himself, who came to the United States at age four—Judge Lee still believes in the greatness of...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com On Monday of last week, the customary first Monday of October, the U.S. Supreme Court kicked off October Term 2024. So I thought it might be a good idea to offer my listeners an overview of the 2024-2025 Term—and I could think of no better guide to the new SCOTUS Term than Morgan Ratner. I met Morgan this past July, when we participated in a Supreme Court “Year in Review” panel together, and I was struck by...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Our independent judiciary has been described—accurately so, in my opinion—as “the crown jewel of our constitutional republic.” And when it comes to the federal judiciary, few of its members are as independent-minded as Judge Jed S. Rakoff. Judge Rakoff, 81, has served on the Southern District of New York since 1996. During his almost three decades on the bench, he has authored more than 2,000 opinions—many...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Where do I get my story ideas? Most arise organically out of the news, but some come from topic suggestions aka “pitches.” Sometimes...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Defamation law and copyright law: I have a keen interest in both, which shouldn’t be surprising given what I do for a living. So two...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Here’s a trivia question for devotees of Original Jurisdiction: excluding Supreme Court justices and Judge Aileen Cannon, who has been...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks! By next Thursday, August 16, creditors must vote on whether to approve the Chapter 11 liquidation plan of FTX, the once...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com One of the most consequential developments of the last Supreme Court Term was the overruling of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the 40-year-old precedent directing courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. It came about through two cases: Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, argued by Roman Martinez, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Are we all originalists now? Definitely not; originalism has no shortage of critics. But as the latest Term of the U.S. Supreme Court made clear, originalism is the dominant mode of constitutional interpretation at One First Street today. As the justices debate the doctrine’s finer theoretical points, such as the proper use of history and tradition, it’s clear that the debate is no longer “originalism or not...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Happy Pride—and happy June 26. As the Supreme Court hands down its final decisions of the Term over the next few days, it’s worth reflecting on how June 26 is the day the Court issued three of its landmark gay-rights decisions: Lawrence v. Texas (2003), United States v. Windsor (2013), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Obergefell was issued in 2015, the same year that my husband Zach and I got married. And I...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com I’ve been honored to have some of the nation’s leading litigators on this podcast. But I have not had a guest who’s both a renowned courtroom advocate and parent of 11 children—until today. Meet Michael Williams. After graduating from Georgetown Law, summa cum laude and first in his class, he clerked for then-Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the D.C. Circuit and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com What’s the most widely cited legal book in the world? If you guessed Black’s Law Dictionary, then congratulate yourself. Henry Campbell Black published the first edition in 1891, and today it’s a must-have for every lawyer and law student. I even make an appearance in Black’s as the coiner of the term “benchslap,” defined as “a judge’s sharp rebuke of counsel, a litigant, or perhaps another judge.” Who...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Continuing my M&A miniseries here at Original Jurisdiction, I wanted to welcome another dealmaker to the podcast. And as Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month draws to a close, I wanted to interview another AANHPI attorney, including some discussion of their family’s story and how their identity might have shaped their career. So I was delighted when Paul Shim agreed to join...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com After my fascinating conversation with Rodge Cohen of Sullivan & Cromwell, I wanted to interview another transactional lawyer for the Original Jurisdiction podcast. But to mix things up, I wanted to speak with an up-and-coming dealmaker rather than a senior statesperson. And because May is Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I was hoping to feature a lawyer of AANHPI...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com It might seem odd to bestow the title of “titan” upon someone once described in the New York Times as standing five-foot-two and weighing 100 pounds wet. But if you know anything about banking M&A and regulatory work, you know that H. Rodgin Cohen, senior chair of Sullivan & Cromwell, is a true giant of the field. For more than 50 years, Rodge Cohen has practiced at the pinnacle of financial-services...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks! Would you want to be a law school dean in the year 2024? The once-coveted post seems less fun, given the tension and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks! How many Supreme Court advocates wind up with three or more arguments in the same Term? Some of my past podcast guests—like...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks! Chris Christie has had an interesting and eventful career in public life. He served as U.S. Attorney for the District of New...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com Would you leave a thriving law firm to strike out on your own? Many risk-averse lawyers would not, but David Elsberg has done so—twice. In 2018, David left Quinn Emanuel to launch Selendy Gay, later Selendy Gay Elsberg—which today is one of the nation’s top litigation boutiques. Then last month, he made the news again with the launch of Elsberg Baker & Maruri, which he co-founded with former colleagues...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks! What does it feel like to call out Donald Trump—with Trump sitting five feet away? Not many lawyers have had that experience,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.com 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 [email protected]. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks! In part one of my two-part interview of David Boies, I asked the famed trial lawyer to do what he does best: analyze cases and...

I’ve come full circle. A little more than three years ago, I launched Original Jurisdiction with an interview of superstar litigator David Boies, 82, one of the most famous living American lawyers. Now I’m speaking with him again, this time for a special two-part podcast interview. In today’s interview, part one of two, David discusses current events. Most notably, given his representation of Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, he’s critical of attempts to keep Donald Trump off the ballot based on...