‘Pugnacious legal industry website’ is ‘rage read’ for lawyers opposing BigLaw deals with Trump

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‘Pugnacious legal industry website’ is ‘rage read’ for lawyers opposing BigLaw deals with Trump

By Debra Cassens Weiss

May 22, 2025, 9:37 am CDT

If you want to know how BigLaw is responding to President Donald Trump’s punitive executive orders against disfavored law firms, the Above the Law website has it covered. (Image from Shutterstock)

If you want to know how BigLaw is responding to President Donald Trump’s punitive executive orders against disfavored law firms, the Above the Law website has it covered.

The orders—which threaten to suspend lawyers’ security clearances and imperil client contracts—have provoked a range of responses that are chronicled in Above the Law’s “BigLaw Spine Index.”

The listing shows which BigLaw firms sued the Trump administration, which signed an amicus brief supporting one of the suing firms, which scrubbed diversity references from their websites, and which struck pro bono deals with Trump.

Developments are also chronicled in daily posts with plenty of snark. With these attributes, Above the Law has become a “rage read” for lawyers who are steamed about firms failing to stand up to Trump, according to a profile in the New York Times.

One recent post is titled “Orange Shoe Law Firms? What Exactly Should We Call BigLaw Firms Cutting Deals With Donald Trump?” The post seeks reader suggestions on the best way to describe the nine firms that reached “pro bono payola” deals with Trump to avoid the punitive executive orders.

The post included Above the Law’s past descriptions of deal-making firms, including “the Order of the Obsequious,” and the website’s characterization of their actions, including “bending the knee” and “swearing fealty to the administration.”

The “pugnacious legal industry website” is also known for its scoops on associate bonuses, its acerbic presentation of legal news, and “salacious stories of barristers behaving badly,” the New York Times says.

“Partners running billion-dollar firms have long eyed its morning newsletter like an elephant does a mouse,” the New York Times says. “One partner at a top-tier firm told the New York Times that lawyers there have a rule: ‘Don’t do anything that could wind up in Above the Law.’”

David Lat, Above the Law’s founding editor, told the New York Times about one of the website comments he most appreciated. It came from an administrative assistant who told him, “The partners are nicer to us because they don’t want to show up on the site as ‘The Screamer.’”

See also:

Some want to leave law firms with White House agreements, and others avoid firms that pushed back

Did 9 firms making deals with Trump violate bribery, anti-fraud laws? Democratic letters seek answers

Which firms, legal groups, law profs signed briefs supporting Perkins Coie in challenge to punitive Trump order?

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