Pence was a relatively successful guy. He’d served in the House of Representatives for more than a decade. He’d been the governor of Indiana. He had a reputation for being a devout Christian.

Pence served Trump loyally. Pence played a key role in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. Pence gave Trump — now a convicted felon and, in the usual sense of the words, a rapist — credibility with the religious right. Pence became known on the left for being Trump’s lickspittle vice president.

Pence then made the mistake of standing up for the Constitution on January 6, 2021. Trump castigated Pence for lacking courage and stood idly by while rioters threatened to hang Pence. Pence became known on the right as being a traitor to Trump.

In the end, Pence had no support on the left and no support on the right. That’s a bad place to be.

Pence made a mistake: He trusted Donald Trump.

Rex Tillerson gave up a fair amount for Donald Trump.

Tillerson was the chairman and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil when Trump nominated Tillerson to be secretary of state in December 2016. That’s walking away from a pretty fancy job. Tillerson implemented the administration’s foreign policy agenda in 2017 and 2018.

But Tillerson made the mistake of disagreeing with Trump about a few policies. Tillerson thought that the U.S. should remain in the Iran nuclear deal. (That’s called advice, Don. You really should have listened.) Tillerson took a hard line against Russia for destabilizing American politics. (I bet that went over well.) Tillerson pushed back on proposals that he thought violated laws or treaties.

So Trump fired Tillerson (by tweet, of course).

Tillerson made a mistake: He trusted Donald Trump.

John Kelly gave up a fair amount for Donald Trump.

Kelly was a retired four-star general in the Marine Corps who was serving as secretary of homeland security in July 2017. Kelly agreed to serve as Trump’s chief of staff. Kelly tried to impose order on the White House and to protect Trump’s presidency from chaos.

So Trump eroded Kelly’s authority, mocked him publicly and privately, and pushed him out of office in about a year.

Kelly made a mistake: He trusted Donald Trump.

Canada gave up a fair amount for Donald Trump.

It agreed to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced NAFTA, expanding trade with the United States. Canada deepened trade relationships between the countries.

So Trump announced that he wanted Canada to be the 51st American state, referred to the prime minister as “governor,” and treated Canadian sovereignty as a bargaining issue. Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on the country.

Canada made a mistake: It trusted Donald Trump.

The Kurds gave up a fair amount for Donald Trump.

The Kurds fought alongside the United States against ISIS, losing roughly 11,000 fighters. But Trump chatted with the Turkish president in October 2019 and then chose to withdraw troops from areas controlled by the Kurds, allowing a Turkish offensive.

The Kurds made a mistake: They trusted Donald Trump.

Ukraine gave up a fair amount for Donald Trump.

But then he withdrew military support.

Afghanistan trusted Donald Trump.

But then Trump negotiated directly with the Taliban and negotiated a withdrawal without meaningfully involving the Afghan government.

Saudi Arabia gave up a fair amount for Donald Trump. They supplied an awful lot of U.S. military bases.

But now, when the United States attacked Iran, prompting Iran and the Houthis to attack Saudi Arabia, Trump couldn’t be bothered to provide military support to the Saudis.

NATO trusted the United States.

You know the drill.

And I’m tired.

Sane folks are nodding their heads in agreement with everything I’ve written.

But Trump supporters violently disagree with me.

Why? Because they trust Donald Trump.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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Trump warned Friday that “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” and promised more bans were coming. Asked about the First Amendment in the Oval Office, he said there’s “something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” before adding, “Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house.”

And, after being informed of the plan to sue the administration, Trump again ranted on Truth Social, writing:

The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

How convenient, the defendant publicly establishing motive like that.

“This ban on the free press harms the American people, who are entitled to rigorous, fact-based coverage of the President of the United States,” Boutrous said in a statement. “The law is on our side across the board, and we look forward to presenting our arguments to the court as soon as possible.”

He has reason to be confident, seeing as he built some of that law himself. The Secret Service confiscated Jim Acosta’s hard pass on November 7, 2018, after a combative exchange at a press conference, and Boutrous took the case for CNN and Acosta, pleading the First Amendment and due process. The complaint and the TRO motion went in on November 13, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted the TRO from the bench on November 16, and by November 19 the pass was permanently restored and CNN had voluntarily dismissed the case.

The press corps also declined to make the ban painless. ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and Fox News all refused to supply a replacement camera crew for CNN’s pool duty, saying in a joint statement that “no administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.” Fox backed CNN in 2018 too, which should tell the White House something about how narrow its constituency is here.

This is the latest fight this administration has picked with the First Amendment, not the last one, and taking up the mantle are three of the lawyers in the country who are most prepared to fight this battle.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

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Turns out that was not a figure of speech.

Bloomberg Law reports that Weil is now considering a merger with a competitor, with firm leadership warming to a combination and holding informal talks to gauge interest:

Weil has been canvassing its partners in recent days as it seeks to stem the tide of defections, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. It has also been studying other ways to shore up its business through strategic hires and promotions, and it could still remain independent, the people said.

Weil is pretty tight-lipped about what is actually happening. “Weil is not engaged in merger discussions with any firm,” a spokesperson said. “Like every leading firm, we continually evaluate opportunities to strengthen our platform.”

Weil’s comms team just can’t quit the word “platform.”

The tide in question is real. Aiello, the chair of Weil’s roughly 600-lawyer corporate department and a member of its management committee, is taking M&A co-head Matt Gilroy and four other partners to Cravath. London co-managing partner David Avery-Gee and corporate partner Sarah Flaherty just went to Sullivan & Cromwell. Listen, the firm has breathing room — Weil billed $2 billion last year and is not a firm on the ropes — but, no matter the friction he brought to the table, it’s wise to evaluate what’s next when your biggest rainmaker walks out the door.

And, remember per Bloomberg Law’s reporting, Aiello was an obstacle to growth, territorial about his practice, skeptical of expansion, and a drag on recruiting. He reportedly called it “disloyal” when his own longtime deputy Sachin Kohli wanted to go build a West Coast M&A practice; Kohli left for Wilson Sonsini. Insiders framed Aiello’s exit as “a great opportunity to let Weil be Weil; to be entrepreneurial and grow.” A week later, the entrepreneurial growth under consideration is a merger.

Aiello didn’t travel light, either. Cravath presiding partner Faiza Saeed welcomed him as “a unique fit within our culture” who shares “the values that have long defined Cravath” — a line that reads differently once you remember that Aiello is the Weil partner who advised the CBS board through the Les Moonves mess, which cast a troubling MeToo spotlight on the firm after critics picked apart Aiello for downplaying the Moonves allegations to the board. So, the rainmaker came with an asterisk, and Cravath took him anyway to restock their ranks. For its part, Cravath has seen partners depart at a healthy clip, and the takeaway is that no firm is untouchable anymore.

None of this happens in a market with functioning lockstep. When partner pay tracks seniority, a rainmaker’s outside options are capped by whatever rung another lockstep firm will slot him onto. The death of pure lockstep — at Davis Polk, Cravath, and nearly everywhere else — means every partner has a number, every practice group has a number, and $20 million is just the price of admission. This merry-go-round of top talent shows no signs of stopping, and the firms that can’t afford another ticket are the ones taking merger calls.

Weil says it isn’t currently in merger talks with any specific firm, we’ll see how long that stays true.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

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The transaction announced late Sunday continues the dealmaking streak for Telix and comes amid increasing consolidation in the radiopharmaceuticals sector. Telix and ITM expect to close their transaction by the end of this year.

Munich, Germany-based ITM already has a commercial presence as a supplier of 177Lu and other radioisotopes to entities in nuclear medicine. This global manufacturing and distribution network will add to Telix’s own infrastructure. Telix said privately held ITM’s radioisotope manufacturing business generated $273 million in revenue, driven by growing global demand for targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) and the use of radioisotopes in commercialized products and therapies still in development.

The ITM pipeline is led by 177Lu-edotreotide, code name ITM-11, a radiopharmaceutical designed to target somatostatin receptors. Though the FDA last month rejected ITM’s application for the therapy as a treatment for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), the regulator only cited manufacturing issues at a third-party commercial facility and raised no concerns about the therapy’s clinical data or safety. ITM said it planned to resubmit its application to the FDA in this indication. An additional Phase 3 study is evaluating the therapy in aggressive Grade 2 or Grade 3 somatostatin receptor-positive GEP-NETs. An interim analysis is expected in the first half of 2027.

Telix said ITM is profitable and potential approval and launch of ITM-11 offers additional financial upside. The company added that ITM’s pipeline complements its own portfolio of commercialized theranostics, products that pair a precision diagnostic with a targeted therapy to diagnose and treat disease. The top Telix product is Illuccix, which has regulatory approvals in prostate cancer. The newest Telix product is Pixclara, a drug for glioma approved by the FDA last week to differentiate this brain cancer from treatment-related change in adults and pediatric patients age 1 and older.

The Telix pipeline includes three assets in pivotal clinical testing for prostate cancer, recurrent glioblastoma, and kidney cancer. Melbourne, Australia-based Telix, which trades on the Australian Securities Exchange and on the Nasdaq in the U.S., reports its financials in U.S. dollars. For 2025, Telix reported $803.8 million in revenue, up 56% from the prior year. Telix projects that 2026 revenue of the combined company will top $1.3 billion.

Some of Telix’s growth reflects acquisitions. Investing in various aspects of the radiopharmaceuticals supply chain, Telix has purchased four companies in the past four years. The most recent completed deal was last year’s $230 million buyout of RLS, a U.S.-based radiopharmacy distribution network. In a prepared statement, Telix Managing Director and Group CEO Christian Behrenbruch said the merger with ITM positions his company at the forefront of the consolidation happening as the radiopharmaceuticals industry matures.

“By combining our complementary strengths, we will create a company with commercial scale, world-leading supply and the most exciting theranostic drug portfolio in the sector,” he said.

The big player in radiopharmaceuticals continues to be Novartis, which sells the prostate cancer therapy Pluvicto and the GEP-NETs treatment Lutathera. Both products came from acquisitions. A recent FDA decision is bringing new competition to Lutathera. Last week, the FDA approved Curium Pharma’s Bexlutry, a radioligand equivalent to Lutathera, as a treatment for GEP-NETs. Private equity-backed Curium has also been acquisitive. It’s in the process of closing its $8 billion purchase of radiopharmaceuticals company Lantheus.

Recent years show a broader trend of radiopharmaceuticals M&A activity. From 2023 to 2025, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, and Bristol Myers Squibb each acquired radiopharmaceutical companies or assets. Beyond gaining clinical-stage pharmaceuticals, these deals brought the big pharma companies important manufacturing capabilities. New companies are also making a splash in the space. The first biotech IPO of 2026 was Aktis Oncology, a clinical-stage company developing radiopharmaceuticals with potential advantages over currently available products in the class.

In a Monday research note, analysts at William Blair said ITM brings Telix a product pipeline that enables the combined company to tackle neuroendocrine tumors, a new area for Telix that would diversify its revenue. The deal also continues Telix’s vertical integration strategy and further expands its global manufacturing footprint.

“By building a vertically integrated company with even greater control over the entire radiopharmaceutical value chain, we believe the transaction will allow Telix to further corner the industry and advance a range of product candidates from development through commercialization,” the William Blair analysts said.

The ITM acquisition is a stock deal. The terms call for Telix to pay $1.25 billion in the form of its shares that will be released to ITM shareholders as Nasdaq-listed American depositary shares. Telix will also assume $302 million of ITM’s net debt. ITM will cover $96 million of the transaction expenses related to management’s purchase of equity in the combined company.

The milestone payments break down to up to $250 million upon FDA approval of ITM-11 across three different indications, the first of which is expected to be Grade 1 and 2 GEP-NETS. Up to $450 million could be paid out if ITM-11 achieves net global sales of $150 million in fiscal 2030. The company has not yet determined whether those payments will be made in cash or Telix shares.

The ITM acquisition still needs approvals from Telix shareholders and regulators. A Telix shareholder meeting is scheduled for November. When the deal closes, Telix shareholders will own about 76.3% of the combined company and ITM shareholders will own about 23.7%.

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Oura targets $15.62 billion valuation in US IPO, setting stage for fall listings [Reuters via Yahoo!]
"Oura is the first real test of US appetite ⁠after a sluggish September so far and a period of more volatile markets. If it comes strongly out the gate it will encourage other issuers," ​said Samuel ​Kerr, global head of equity capital ​markets at Mergermarket.
"However, a weaker ‌IPO might set alarm bells ringing that market sentiment may be turning."

Radiant World Table Shows Six Lenders With $870 Million Exposure [Bloomberg]
The spreadsheet shows the two largest exposures as being held by Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, followed by Deutsche Bank AG, Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Mariner Investment Group and Incomlend Pte…. At least two lenders under receivables financing facilities have accused Radiant World in legal proceedings of providing them with falsified documents under those facilities, with a lawyer for Jefferies last week accusing Radiant World of being part of a “very large scale fraud….”

Bill Pulte Scrutinized Mortgages of Trump’s Political Rivals—and Todd Blanche [WSJ]
That effort occurred as Pulte clashed with Blanche, who was then the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, over investigations related to the adversaries’ mortgage records.
Some officials believed Pulte had been trying to collect information on Blanche and others to undermine them and pressure them to more quickly pursue the investigations, the people said.

GOP senator asks Senate committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. over wedding celebration funds [CNN]
“To me, it just stinks. It’s corruption, I don’t like it,” [Utah Sen. John] Curtis said….

David Einhorn says young Americans are too ‘impatient’ to buy homes. With mortgages near 7%, is he wildly out of touch? [MoneyWise via Yahoo!]
"They'd rather, you know, speculate in crypto or speculate in stocks or speculate on sporting events and try to build wealth by guessing those things correctly," he continued. "And some of them will have some success with that, and others will have less success."

What Cheryl brought to the conversation was over three decades of clinical experience and a psychologist’s clarity about what actually makes people stay, thrive, and grow inside an organization, and what quietly drives them away.

What Healthy Organizations Need

Cheryl’s framework for building a firm people want to stay in comes down to three non-negotiables. When any one of the three is missing, things start to unravel.

Hiding in Plain Sight

One of the most direct observations Cheryl made in the episode was about what has quietly been lost in the shift to hybrid and remote work.

When people feel like they’re part of an assembly line rather than a team, they leave. The connection has to be created intentionally, or the talent walks.

The Non-Linear Path

Cheryl’s answer to the closing question about her biggest mistake was one of the most grounding moments of the episode.

The lesson she carried forward, and the one she brings to the lawyers and leaders she works with, is that the non-linear moments aren’t detours. They’re often where the real development happens.

Steve Fretzin is a five-time bestselling author, host of the BE THAT LAWYER and Future Rainmakers podcasts, and a business development coach who works exclusively with attorneys. For more than 18 years, he has helped lawyers build strong books of business without selling, pitching, or chasing, using his proven Sales-Free Selling™ approach. His clients consistently become top rainmakers and credit his coaching and systems for driving meaningful, measurable growth. Steve can be reached directly at , or through his website at www.bethatlawyer.com. Connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefretzin. His ALL NEW BE THAT LAWYER Community is changing how lawyers develop the skills never taught in law school. Learn more at www.bethatlawyer.com/community.

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It used to be that consumer wearables like Fitbit and smartwatches occupied a segment focused on the worried well and were regarded as completely separate from clinical spaces. Their growing tech sophistication coupled with the rise of AI could pave the way for some interesting collaborations and advancements in healthcare. Expanding their use to monitor vital signs, gait, and even infer hydration based on sweat rate and activity level could help remotely monitor patients. These developments could also pave the way for wearables to be used for clinical trials on a wider scale.

The ability to transmit data from wearables makes them even more valuable as a way to remotely monitor health, although a reliable way to include this data in an EHR is not yet practical on a large scale.

The INVEST Digital Health conference, scheduled for October 29 at Pegasus Park in Dallas, which will spotlight the consumer influence in healthcare, will include a discussion on wearables in the session, How Are Wearables Changing Health Behavior?

It includes speakers from ŌURA, a smart ring business from Finland that recently filed an IPO, Withings and AliveCor, which developed a way to convert a smartphone into an EKG. Here’s a description of the session:

Millions of people across the country don wearable devices like smartwatches and smart rings every day. These devices have moved beyond step counting into the continuous monitoring of sleep, heart health, stress and metabolic signals. Listen to industry leaders discuss how they’re working to validate wearable data and integrate it into care delivery, as well as what they see coming down the pipeline in terms of reimbursement and regulatory pathways for wearable-driven care.

Speakers:

Tanvi Jayaraman, Clinical Lead for Health AI, ŌURA

Patrick Sheehan, VP of Value-Based Care, Withings

Ben Green, Chief Clinical Officer, AliveCor

Peter Micca, Managing Partner, Caduceus Capital Partners

Policy developments, particularly HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s move last year calling for widespread public adoption of wearable healthcare technologies has added to the interest in wearable technology applications. Kennedy said they are key to his Make America Healthy Again agenda, which seeks to combat the rise of chronic disease, among other things.

Wearable technology developments continue. Earlier this month, Nutromics secured a breakthrough device designation for a wearable patch that monitors vancomycin levels in real time. The widely used antibiotic for life-threatening infections like sepsis is notoriously difficult for clinicians to get the right dosage.

It will be interesting to see how this sector continues to evolve. Join us at INVEST Digital Health and be part of the conversation.

Click here to view the full agenda and register today!

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On Enters Football alongside Kylian Mbappé [press release]
On Expands Into Football, Lures Mbappé From Nike [Business of Fashion]

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Kimmel and ABC had cause to worry; we’ve outlined in detail how Carr has manufactured several phony investigations — and even begun proceedings to revoke ABC’s local broadcast licenses — for the crimes of journalism and platforming comedians that make fun of the president.

So instead of airing the Talarico interview on ABC broadcast TV over public airwaves, Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired the interview on YouTube, where it currently has over 10 million views.

As it turns out, even doing what Brendan Carr wants — purportedly not using public airwaves to broadcast interviews with politicians Trump is afraid of — upsets Brendan Carr. Carr went on Elon Musk’s right wing propaganda website to call Kimmel’s choice a “hoax,” and ironically complain about “partisan lemmings.”

Carr was apparently triggered by this post by an Austin-based Democratic group, University Democrats:

In response, Carr then went on a very long (and factually incorrect) lecture where he tries to pretend his censorship campaign against ABC is supported by logic, reason, and the law (it’s not):

That screenshot is Carr tweeting:

Ok, fine. I’ll weigh in.

• The Equal Time statute doesn’t apply to GameDay for several reasons.
  For one, when it passed the statute, Congress applied it to broadcast tv stations-not cable programs like GameDay. For another, Congress stated that the statute only applies to legally qualified candidates. The Senator is not one.
• The Equal Time statute does not prohibit anyone from interviewing anyone on broadcast tv. It is about more speech, not less. Congress wanted to ensure that voters would decide elections, not media gatekeepers picking winners and losers by providing preferential airtime to some candidates and not others.
  Indeed, when the statute applies, it simply requires broadcast stations to offer comparable time and placement. And comparable does not necessarily mean an interview by the same person on the same program either.
• This ties back to Talarico. He’s just running the same hoax he did a few months ago on Colbert for the purpose of getting clicks and donations-he’s banking on people not understanding the statute or operating as partisan lemmings.

As we’ve noted previously, Carr is claiming to use a dated rule called the “equal opportunity” rule, or “equal time” rule, to claim that ABC’s The View violated the law by airing an interview with Talarico last February, but not airing a counter-interview with a Republican.

But more importantly, The View had struck very clear agreements with the FCC that it has been exempt from this rule since 2002. Carr knows this. But he still falsely claims The View violated the law. Carr’s so desperate to make this whole thing seem like a real violation of the public trust, Carr even worked closely with right wing broadcast affiliates to try and make it look like ABC’s Houston affiliate broke the law (something that will resurface in ABC’s lawsuit against the FCC).

Carr’s post to Elon Musk’s right wing propaganda website is very long, suggesting that Carr put a lot of time and effort into trying to make his censorship campaign against ABC sound cogent. But he continues to cling to this idea that harassing companies specifically when they air politicians Trump doesn’t like somehow serves the public interest. Carr even had his staffers make him a meme!

Again, The View was documentably exempt from the rule Carr is talking about. He just keeps babbling on as if everybody doesn’t know it. And as we’ve noted previously, Carr’s claims that he’s interested in “protecting the public interest” are undermined by the fact he only engages in this kind of harassment when it involves broadcasting people critical of this president.

For example, Carr’s fine with AM radio endlessly airing right wing propaganda, despite it also being under purported (and never enforced) FCC “equal time” provisions.

Most of the people responding to Carr on Elon Musk’s right wing propaganda website (why are people still using Elon Musk’s right wing propaganda website?) weren’t having it:

Given the ham-fisted First Amendment violations Carr is engaged in, he’s going to have a bad time in court. And his overly verbose defense of his historically shitty censorship choices suggests he knows it.

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San Francisco-based Angle Health is a digital healthcare benefits provider for employers, particularly small and mid-sized employers. Its AI-powered app offers care navigation services through its care team. Its customizable health plans include telemedicine, behavioral health and other digital health solutions. The company serves more than 5,000 employers across 47 states.

The funding round was led by Vitruvian Partners, with participation from Town Hall Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Portage Ventures, PruVen Capital and Y Combinator. The round includes $200 million in Series C financing and a $400 million tender offer. Angle Health has raised $334 million in primary equity funding to date.

According to Vitruvian Partners, Angle Health is replacing outdated systems and manual processes with an AI-powered healthcare platform.

“Its combination of technology, industry-leading growth and retention, and financial stability in an increasingly volatile market is proof that the team at Angle Health has built something truly needed,” said Jeremy Gelber, partner at Vitruvian, in a statement. “At Vitruvian, we focus on aligning capital with change, so we are thrilled for the opportunity to help Angle Health scale its impact and expand access to high-quality healthcare for working Americans.”

With the financing, Angle Health will invest in its technology platform and improve navigation to high-quality, condition-specific care, according to Angle Health CEO Ty Wang.

“The goal is to make it easier for employees to access the right care while helping employers better manage healthcare costs and creating greater transparency across the healthcare ecosystem,” Wang said.

Research shows that employers are battling skyrocketing healthcare costs, and smaller businesses are disproportionately affected. About 30% of businesses with fewer than 50 employees report that health insurance costs are worsening their business situation, according to a survey from Morgan Health.

This is something Angle Health hopes to solve.

“Accessing high-quality healthcare in the U.S. is still too complex, expensive, and fragmented,” Wang said. “We’re rebuilding the infrastructure and pathways to care so employees can more easily find and access high-quality treatment, while giving employers greater transparency and control over healthcare costs. Ultimately, we’re working toward a healthcare system where affordable, high-quality care is accessible to all Americans.”

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I learned this lesson from firsthand experience. I generally work during most of the Jewish holidays. In the past, I sometimes sent emails to clients on Jewish holidays just as I would on any other workday. Some of my Jewish clients observed those holidays, and I could tell on occasion that my communications during a holiday peeved them.

Of course, lawyers should not make assumptions about a client’s religious beliefs or practices. Two people who identify with the same religion might observe holidays in completely different ways. Some people might refrain from working but still check their phones, while others might completely disconnect from email and other technology. Still others might not observe a particular holiday at all. The point is not that lawyers should stereotype clients based on their perceived religion, but that attorneys should have enough awareness to recognize when a religious observance might affect communications.

This can be particularly important when a lawyer is waiting for a client to provide information or make a decision. Lawyers are often operating under significant time pressure, and it is easy to become frustrated when a client does not answer an email or return a telephone call. Sometimes attorneys send follow-up messages or escalate their communications because they assume a client is simply being unresponsive. Before doing so, it might be worth considering whether there is a religious holiday or observance that explains why the client is temporarily unavailable.

Lawyers can also benefit from knowing that a client observes particular holidays. If an attorney knows that a client will be unavailable for a few days, the lawyer can try to obtain approvals, documents, or other information beforehand. This is not much different from planning around a client’s vacation or other known absences. A little preparation can prevent a lawyer from scrambling for instructions when the client is unavailable and a deadline is approaching.

Religious observances can also affect the tone of communications. There is ordinarily nothing wrong with sending an email while someone is away from work since the recipient can simply respond when they return. But repeatedly sending messages, demanding an immediate response, or acting surprised that someone is unavailable during an important religious observance can come across poorly. Clients hire lawyers in part because they expect attorneys to exercise judgment, and judgment includes understanding that not everyone organizes their life around the same calendar.

This does not mean that lawyers need to become experts on every religious tradition. There are countless holidays and observances, and the significance of each one varies considerably among individuals. Moreover, religion is a sensitive and personal subject, and attorneys should be careful about unnecessarily questioning clients about their beliefs. In many situations, simply paying attention to an out-of-office message, calendar notation, or something a client has previously mentioned will provide all of the information a lawyer needs.

Technology can make this even easier. Calendars can display major religious holidays, and a quick internet search can provide basic information about an unfamiliar observance. Lawyers who represent numerous people from a particular community or organization may also naturally become familiar with dates when many of their clients are likely to be unavailable. None of this requires much effort, but it can help attorneys avoid unnecessary friction with the people they represent.

Lawyers spend a great deal of time thinking about how to provide excellent client service. Usually, this involves substantive things like returning communications promptly, providing useful advice, and keeping clients informed about their matters. But client service also involves understanding the people lawyers represent. Being cognizant of religious observances — and giving clients some space when appropriate — is one small way attorneys can demonstrate that understanding.

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothman.law.

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LVMH signed a secret 2002 pact to buy Hermès heir’s shares. Now he says his fortune is missing [Reuters]

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That’s a strange thing to say about your biggest rainmaker.

Aiello was a polarizing figure, and nobody at Weil is pretending otherwise. Insiders describe a leader who was territorial over his practice, skeptical of growth, and a roadblock to recruiting. He reportedly called a longtime deputy “disloyal” for wanting to build a West Coast practice. And, despite the firm’s other notable departures, the vibe at Weil seems to be that getting rid of the friction Aiello brought to the table matters more than the hole his book of business leaves behind.

Then there’s Cravath’s side of the handshake. Presiding partner Faiza Saeed called Aiello and his team “a unique fit within our culture” who share “the values that have long defined Cravath.” Given what we know about Aiello’s work for Les Moonves, pointing to his “values” is, well, not where I would have gone with the statement.

Back in 2018, we wrote that Weil Gotshal had a big, big #MeToo problem, and Aiello was the reason. In January of that year, CBS’s independent directors wanted to know whether their CEO was exposed as #MeToo reporting swept through Hollywood, and they asked their M&A lawyer to look into it. According to New York attorney general’s report on CBS and Moonves, the resulting inquiry amounted to a single 20-minute phone call with Moonves, with Moonves’s own lawyer on the line, plus a request for his HR file. On that call, Moonves disclosed that a woman had filed a police complaint accusing him of sexual assault, and he described an encounter with an actress who, in his telling, ran out of the room. Aiello reportedly didn’t ask for names, and then told the board there had been some “rebuffed advances” in the distant past and that CBS had “nothing to worry about.” Neither the police complaint nor the actress made it into the briefing, and when the board pressed for details, Aiello said they “didn’t want to know” and that he “didn’t want to go there.”

None of this is a secret — Aiello’s role in the Moonves scandal was in the New York Times back in 2018. And yet, Cravath went with “values” anyway.

Which brings us to the Cravath of it all.

Aiello is a coup for a firm that badly needed one. Cravath has lost 28 partners since 2021, and it isn’t for lack of trying to keep them. In late 2021, the firm scrapped the lockstep compensation model it had used for nearly 50 years in favor of a modified lockstep meant to keep its rainmakers from wandering. But they’re wandering anyway. Davis Polk has taken six Cravath partners over that stretch. Freshfields has landed four directly, most recently Bethany Pfalzgraf this month, plus Keith Hallam by way of White & Case. And the exits have hit hard in 2026, with a dozen departures so far if you count Philip Boeckman, who heads to Liberty Media next month. These weren’t benchwarmers, either. The M&A co-head (George Schoen, to Martin Marietta), the chair of investigations (John Buretta, to Paul Hastings), a former FDIC chair (Jelena McWilliams, to Plaid), and last year, the private equity co-head (David Perkins, to Sidley).

It isn’t hard to see why. The lateral partner market is white hot, and firms are dangling eye-watering paydays to lure rainmakers across the street. Cravath has always sold something other than the biggest check. But it runs a much smaller partnership than most of its Biglaw peers, around 100ish partners, and at that size, losing roughly a fourth of them is significant. So bringing in Aiello and his team is a talent restock.

Weil got rid of the friction, and Cravath got the rainmaker. Time will tell which firm got the better end of that deal.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

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“By replacing broad immunosuppression with selective elimination of principal cells that drive disease, we believe our approach can do for immune-mediated diseases what precision oncology has done for cancer, transforming the treatment paradigm for patients,” Electra said in its IPO filing.

Electra had set preliminary IPO terms of more than 21.6 million shares in the range of $14 and $16 each. The company ended up boosting the deal size to more than 23.3 million shares priced at $15 apiece. Those shares began trading on the Nasdaq Friday under the stock symbol “ETRA.” Electra finished its first day as a public company at $13.25 per share, down nearly 12% from the IPO price.

The research of South San Francisco-based Electra focuses on signal regulatory proteins (SIRPs), a family of receptors expressed on specific types of immune cells. SIRPs play a role in keeping immune responses in balance. But the expression of SIRPs can increase as immune cells become activated, making them a good target for immunology drugs, Electra said in the filing.

Electra’s lead drug candidate is ipsoprubart, an antibody designed to selectively bind to SIRP-expressing cells, depleting them. This drug is intended to specifically go after SIRP-expressing myeloid cells and T cells, which are the main drivers of cytokine storm, an excessive immune response in hyperinflammatory conditions. Ipsoprubart is a pan-SIRP-targeting antibody whose lead indication is secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH). The excessive immune response from sHLH can spark life-threatening multi-organ failure. This disorder can be triggered by cancer, immunotherapy, or an infection.

Standard sHLH treatment includes corticosteroids, which broadly suppress the immune system. Other treatments include off-label use of drugs that inhibit certain cytokines. The Sobi antibody drug Gamifant has FDA approval for primary HLH and macrophage activation syndrome in Still’s disease, a regulatory decision that does not specifically encompass sHLH.

Ipsoprubart was internally discovered by Electra, coming from a technology platform for developing SIRP-binding antibodies. In Phase 1b testing in patients with malignancy-associated HLH, which is the largest subset of sHLH patients, Electra reported 100% overall survival and a 100% overall response rate measured at eight weeks. The study drug was generally well tolerated.

The program has since advanced to a Phase 2/3 study in newly diagnosed, treatment-naïve sHLH patients. Those study participants will be compared to the natural history of sHLH patients. Trial enrollment is expected to be complete in the second half of 2027. Targeting SIRPs may have additional applications for treating cancer. A Phase 1 study is underway evaluating the drug in T cell and natural killer cell malignancies; preliminary data are expected in the second half of next year.

The next Electra program is ELA822, an antibody designed to selectively deplete activated T cells expressing SIRP gamma. ELA822’s Phase 1 test in healthy volunteers is expected to post data in the first half of 2027. If successful, the company plans to advance this drug to a Phase 1/2 study in T cell-mediated disorders in mid-2027.

Electra formed in 2018 as a subsidiary of Star Therapeutics, a startup creator focused on rare diseases. Star was founded by veterans of True North Therapeutics. Under Sanofi, True North’s former lead asset received FDA approval in 2022 as the first treatment for the rare autoimmune disorder cold agglutinin disease. Electra’s CEO is Kathy Dong, whose experience includes senior roles at True North and Star.

Both Star and Electra remained stealthy until 2022, when the companies revealed Electra’s $84 million Series B round led by Westlake Village Biopartners (now Westlake Biopartners) and OrbiMed. The following year, Electra spun out of Star, ending its direct affiliation with its former parent, the company said in the filing.

Since its formation, Electra said it had raised about $300 million in private financing, most recently a $183 million Series C round last fall co-led by Nextech and EQT Life Sciences. According to the filing, Westlake is Electra’s largest shareholder with a 10.4% post-IPO stake followed by the 9.1% owned by OrbiMed. As of the end of June, Electra reported its cash position was $97.7 million.

According to the filing, Electra plans to spend about $220 million to continue Phase 2/3 development of ipsoprubart, taking the molecule through the readout of preliminary data and supporting a potential FDA submission as well as commercialization preparation in sHLH. Another $25 million will fund the ongoing Phase 1 test of the drug in T/NK cell malignancies. Electra has also budgeted $50 million for ELA822’s Phase 1 and Phase 1/2 trials. The company estimates its capital will last into 2029.

Marea’s Merger Brings the Endocrine Disorder Biotech to the Public Markets

In other biotech-related public market developments, Marea Therapeutics reached a deal to go public by merging with Nasdaq-listed Lisata Therapeutics. Along with the business combination, Marea said it will raise $225 million in a private placement.

South San Francisco-based Marea is a clinical-stage biotech developing what could become first-in-class therapies for cardioendocrine disorders. Lead program MAR001 is an antibody inhibitor of ANGPTL4, a protein abundant in adipose tissue. Blocking this target is intended to augment lipoprotein lipase activity and lower triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood.

MAR001 has reached Phase 2a testing for severe hypertriglyceridemia (sHTG). This drug could provide an alternative to Tryngolza, an Ionis Pharmaceuticals antisense oligonucleotide that in June became the first FDA-approved therapy for sHTG. Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals could be next. In July, the biotech reported its RNA interference drug Redemplo met the goals of its pivotal test in sHTG; an FDA submission is planned by the end of this year.

Another Marea antibody, MAR002, is a growth hormone receptor antagonist in early clinical development for acromegaly. The endocrine disorder stems from excess production of growth hormone. Marea contends its antibody could offer advantages over the limited number of acromegaly products currently available to patients.

When the merger closes, Marea stockholders prior to the transaction will own about 59.4% of the combined company’s stock while investors in the private placement will own about 38.07%. Lisata shareholders prior to the merger will own about 2.39% of the combined company.

Hearing Loss Biotech Sensorion Eyes a U.S. Stock Listing

Montpelier, France-based Sensorion is preparing for a possible U.S. stock market debut. The hearing loss biotech already trades on the Euronext Exchange under the stock symbol “ALSEN.” Last week, Sensorion announced the confidential submission of a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

SENS-601, Sensorion’s lead program, is a gene therapy in development for patients who have lost hearing due to mutations in the GJB2-GT gene. SENS-401 is an oral small molecule in development for sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The biotech is exploring partnering options for this asset.

Sensorion’s former lead program, SENS-501, was a gene therapy in development for hearing loss due to OTOF gene mutations. After Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ gene therapy Otarmeni won FDA approval in this indication this past spring, Sensorion announced it would discontinue development of SENS-501, making SENS-601 the lead program. Earlier this month, Sensorion announced it received authorization to begin a Phase 1/2 test of SENS-601 in France.

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US Fed, BoE Step up Scrutiny of Bank Exposure to Trading Firms After Jane Street Loss [Reuters via U.S. News]
The central banks are now seeking information ​on the trading ⁠firms' risk appetite, how banks' exposure to them evolved throughout the trading day, and how risk controls operated…. Last month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America. It ⁠was examining Situational Awareness' trading activity and use of leverage following its near-collapse, including the trades that triggered margin calls and the fund's communications ​with lenders.

Crypto Blew Its Big Moment—and the Blame Game Has Begun [WSJ]
“We had a lot of momentum in January,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, which supported the bill. “Then one group in our industry kind of shot ourselves in the foot….”
Senate aides in both parties were exasperated with the crypto lobby and especially with [Coinbase CEO Brian] Armstrong and his team, who continued to wield their influence to extract concessions they viewed as good for Coinbase and the industry.

Silver Lake Takes On Carl Icahn and All of Merger Arbitrage in Endeavor Fight [WSJ]
Private-equity firm Silver Lake is asking a judge to declare that activist investor Carl Icahn and a group of hedge funds illegally colluded in attempts to fight the $13 billion acquisition of talent agency Endeavor…. Endeavor and Silver Lake argue the investors are interlopers who shouldn’t have a voice in the appraisal fight because they bought after the deal was agreed.

Michael Burry Warns Hyperscalers Are Hiding $3 Trillion In AI Liabilities — And Wall Street Isn’t Looking: ‘When The Music’s Over…’ [Stockwits]
Burry estimated the five hyperscalers have nearly $1.2 trillion in uncommenced lease commitments and more than $1.5 trillion in purchase commitments…. Burry argued that rapidly changing hardware could leave hyperscalers with expensive, highly specialized facilities that are difficult to repurpose if AI demand slows or chip architectures change….
“Nvidia chips may be economically depreciating waiting in warehouses while GAAP depreciation remains at zero,” Burry wrote.

Ken Griffin’s New Miami Headquarters on Pause After Construction Accident [WSJ]
Building a skyscraper on Miami’s porous and water-soaked shoreline is proving to be… treacherous.
A drill rig that was solidifying the foundation of Citadel’s future Miami headquarters toppled onto traffic early Monday morning, crushing three vehicles, including one that burst into flames moments after the driver escaped.

What I learned from Steinem (and I know there are others who disagree) was the concept of choice: that I had the power and the right to choose what was best for me, not for anyone else, but for me. Whatever a woman decided to do, wanted to do, chose to do; it was about a woman’s autonomy, a novel concept in the 1970s and yes, even today.

In those days, we saw many women enter law school (and do very well, BTW), we were always told that we were usurping those seats that “belonged” to men. The same criticism was leveled at women in medical school, MBAs, or seeking other advanced degrees. The condescending tone was “why bother? You are just going to get married and have kids.” Thank you for sharing. We fought hard and long to have choices, choices that 47 is happily eviscerating with his perpetual smirk.

I am a member of the “second wave” of feminism. Steinem was the most visible symbol for that era and succeeding ones as well. We were the first generation of women who learned that we were just as capable as men, could do the same jobs as men, and that the whole world could be ours. It was in the 1970s that women started to storm barricades, too numerous to mention. It was in the 1970s that we learned that “Ms.” was the preferred salutation for women, regardless of marital status. It was in that decade that women were able to get credit on their own, regardless of marital status. It was then that “help wanted” ads were no longer classified by sex.

We could, at last, start to dream, after being pigeonholed as secretaries, clerks, and in the typing pool. We could start to make those dreams realities, and Steinem had much to do with our abilities to do just that. It must not have been easy for her, the past 10 years, for her to see much of what she had advocated and pushed for, along with many others, fall prey to dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It took so long for women to reach as far as we have. And please don’t insult my intelligence by saying that DEI is not on the ropes, even for any institution brave enough to fight the good fight.

Everyone who was alive and sentient on September 11, 2001, has their own recollections about what happened that day. As a dinosaur lawyer, I will never forget that day, just as I will never forget the days of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King, and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Some memories are not just memories; they are mind etchings. Three of the four hijacked planes were destined for Los Angeles, the fourth, San Francisco. We are obligated to not erase those memories, but to share them. Just as we have responsibilities to “pay things forward,” we have the obligation to keep those memories alive. As remaining Holocaust survivors die, as the last soldiers of World War II die, those of us who remember life-changing events of the second half of the twentieth century are also approaching the ends of our lives. (Sorry, not sorry.) As Proust said, “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” True enough.

I don’t think it’s really much of a surprise that lawyers are more miserable than previously thought. Practicing law can be detrimental to our health. Should there be a warning label plastered on law school acceptances? Given current law school tuition, should students understand what they are getting into? Not just mountains of debt, but health issues. What about bar licenses? By the way, as much as I have loved practicing law, it has definitely affected my health and not in a good way.

Is being more miserable today really any surprise? It shouldn’t be.

Let’s run down some of the issues that freak us out today: AI, business development, AI, nasty clients, AI, nasty opposing counsel, AI, discovery (both propounding and responding), AI, billings, AI, collections, AI, intra-firm issues, in-house corporate maneuvering, cranky judges, incivility. And did I mention AI?

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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And that realization became the founding thesis behind Arben Ventures, a fund focused on precision health and longevity that Ganz co-founded three years ago.

Equipped with a molecular nutrition PhD from Cornell and a Stanford genetics postdoc, Ganz and her fund have since backed 83 early-stage digital health startups. The portfolio spans early cancer detection, AI-native health records, at-home care and personalized medicine.

Those 83 investments have since drawn more than $200 million in follow-on funding, and four portfolio companies have earned FDA clearances, Ganz noted.

She attributed part of that track record to Arben’s willingness to write early checks before larger funds are willing to commit.

“Even with a small check size, we’re often the first investor outright, or the first in that round,” Ganz said.

 In some cases, Arben has set the terms for a round that a much larger investor was waiting on the sidelines to join, she pointed out. Ganz added that this early conviction approach has also shaped who the fund backs, with 72% of its capital going to underrepresented founders and 27% to all-female founding teams.

Arben’s portfolio touches dozens of specialties. In early cancer detection, the fund backed Malcova, which is developing an imaging system its team believes could eventually replace mammography for many women, particularly those with dense breast tissue that standard mammograms struggle to read. In addiction medicine, Arben backed NorthStar Care, an at-home alcohol use disorder program that treats the condition as a biological and metabolic issue rather than a matter of willpower.

And in behavioral health infrastructure, Arben invested in Allia Health, an AI-native EHR now used by roughly 8,000 providers that can flag missed diagnoses, such as early psychosis or thyroid issues, directly from clinical notes.

 “We’re investing in things we think should exist more, rather than trying to judge whether something is good or bad today,” Ganz said.

Ganz said Arben is now raising a larger fund to give founders more meaningful capital earlier — the kind of support she believes could cut down the time it takes an early, unconventional idea to become something that patients and providers can use.

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Alexandre Arnault Joins Nike’s Board of Directors [Business of Fashion]

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“We are taking this opportunity to work with partners we have not worked with before, show them the products we have, and define what our path is to gaining share on those weapons,” Northrop CEO Kathy Warden told investors at the Morgan Stanley conference yesterday. “There are 10 agreements — about eight weapons — that we are in active discussions with various primes on.”

Warden added that those discussions span Northrop’s role as a provider of solid rocket motors to other components such as seekers, cases, nozzles and fuses.

The Pentagon has made boosting munitions production a key acquisition priority while also pushing the defense industry to make larger investments in the facilities and equipment needed to scale up weapons manufacturing.

To induce those investments, the department has entered into roughly a dozen framework agreements with companies. Northrop announced its first such agreement with the Pentagon in August, which will see the company emerge as a second source of solid rocket motors for the Patriot’s PAC-3 missile as well as scaling up component production for PAC-3 and THAAD.

Northrop’s version of the PAC-3 solid rocket motor has been fully qualified and the company is “far along” in contract negotiations with Lockheed Martin, Warden said.

“Now we are in the process of ramping production and meeting increasingly higher targets for delivery,” she said. “We are feeling very good about how that’s progressing and simultaneously working our way through contract negotiations.”

Beyond munitions, Warden pointed to the B-21 bomber program as one that could see expansion, noting that the Air Force is currently analyzing whether to expand the program of record for 100 B-21s.

That analysis is set to conclude this year, and involves evaluating whether the B-21 could befor other missions aside from its original use as a strategic bomber, she said.

The Air Force “look at this [B-21] as a multifunctional aircraft,” she said. Originally, “it was an aircraft that was designed to meet part of the nuclear triad mission, but it can do so much more.”

Much of the Pentagon’s munitions funding — along with other key priorities like Golden Dome, the department’s Drone Dominance program, and much of the planned F-35 procurement for fiscal 2027 — are tied up in its $350 billion reconciliation request, which has yet to be passed by Congress.

That’s not a major hindrance for Northrop, Warden said, which is seeing funding for most of its programs come through the base budget, with reconciliation funds seen by the company as “upside.”

“We do believe that there is room for some of the reconciliation and supplemental priorities to be funded in addition to the base budget,” she said, adding that, “We think that’s unlikely to happen in the near term.”

Warden also said she thinks its likely that Congress will fail to come to a budget agreement before the continuing resolution expires on Dec. 11,

“[It’s] likely that the CR will be further extended,” she said. “It does cost the government more when we have these extended periods of continuing resolution. But at the end of the day, as we look at our programs, we have the funding we need to continue work and believe that’s the case even into early next year.”

Lockheed Investing, Despite Budget Uncertainty

the timing of a budget agreement “[does] not affect our overall business that much” due to the lengthy backlog of orders at the world’s largest defense firm.

However, he added that congressional action is needed to fund the munitions production agreements, which for Lockheed includes deals for PAC-3, THAAD interceptors, the Precision Strike Missile and — as of today — the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM).

“We do need Congress to come in for the full funding of the whole seven years, if you will,” he said. “They’ve already been doing two or three years so far on some of the programs we have under these long-term agreements. I do think Congress will see the value of this and the protections that we put in for the government and the upside they put in for industry, and I think they will get there.”

Lockheed announced this morning that GM Defense, the military subsidiary of American car manufacturer General Motors, delivered its first round of mission critical components for the PAC-3 missile. The deliveries occurred on Aug. 28, “less than one month after a formal contract between the two companies was signed” on Aug. 6, Lockheed said in a statement. The companies announced a partnership agreement in June at the Reindustrialize conference.

Taiclet also revealed that Lockheed is bankrolling initial production of GRIZZLY, the new low-cost containerized launch system it unveiled earlier this year.

“I said, ‘Build 1,000 of each of them right now, and we’ll figure out how to either sell them to the U.S. government or somebody else, or lease them out,’” Taiclet said. “This is the right technology solution. This is scalable, and we’re going to have a couple of hundred of these GRIZZLY’s ready to deploy by the end of the year.”

The company is also testing the GRIZZLY launcher aboard Saildrone autonomous ships, he said.

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This week, Ron White, the scotch-in-hand veteran of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, sat down with Joe Rogan and took apart Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton. There was no hedging and no “both sides.”

“He’s a criminal,” White said. “Just a piece of shit.”

This happened on Rogan’s show, a regular campaign stop for Republicans, and not in a debate hall or a newspaper editorial. And White didn’t just insult Paxton, he cited the record: Paxton cost Texas taxpayers $6 million after firing whistleblowers, and his own party impeached him.

Both of those things are true. If anything, White went easy on the math.

Back in 2020, a group of Paxton’s senior aides went to the FBI accusing their boss of taking bribes and using his office to help Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer and campaign donor. Several of them were fired soon after and sued under the Texas Whistleblower Act. In 2023 Paxton agreed to apologize and pay $3.3 million, which he cast as a way to “save taxpayer dollars.” Then the legislature refused to pay for the deal, and it fell apart. A Travis County judge later awarded the whistleblowers about $6.6 million. Paxton vowed to appeal, then dropped the appeal. So the “$6 million” White mentioned is the rounded-down version.

That settlement request is also what led to the impeachment. When Paxton asked lawmakers to cover his bill, the Republican-controlled Texas House took a closer look and made the belated discovery that its attorney general was a raging fireball of corruption. In May 2023, the House voted 121-23 to impeach him. Paxton skipped testifying at what he called an “evil” proceeding, and the Texas Senate acquitted him that September. His separate securities fraud case had been hanging over him for almost a decade, and it ended with a whimper when he finally made a deal with prosecutors: restitution, community service, and legal ethics classes. That last part is a little on the nose for the state’s top lawyer.

The Senate campaign has also been controversy laden. Paxton beat John Cornyn in the primary runoff, and then his estranged wife released an endorsement slate that pointedly skipped his race. Next, it turned out that his own defense lawyer had donated to Democrat James Talarico. While Paxton was asking Texans to report illegal voters, a ProPublica/Texas Tribune report found that he voted six times from an address he’d already moved out of. And a man who won’t discuss his own marriage has no problem regulating yours.

So that’s the guy Rogan’s audience heard about. Rogan himself wasn’t ready to go as far as his guest.

“I don’t know enough about him,” Rogan said. “But I do know that they’re surprised that Talarico’s ahead of him in the polls.”

White wasn’t surprised at all.

“I’m not,” White said. “I think that people are sick of what’s going on right now in Texas. They’ve been in control for 30 years. What have they given us? Let somebody else fucking drive.”

Ron White made a career out of the line that you can’t fix stupid, and Texas voters are about to find out whether they can fix corrupt.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

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The Am Law 200 firm has completed a combination with Kane Kessler⁠, a Manhattan firm with approximately 40 attorneys that’s been in business for more than 90 years. The deal establishes Michael Best’s New York presence, with the firm now touting nearly 400 attorneys across 19 U.S. offices. Welcome to the Big Apple!

Kane Kessler brings corporate and securities experience, along with practices in capital markets, M&A, litigation, intellectual property, and real estate. Its clients range from startups and entrepreneurs to financial institutions and domestic and international Fortune 500 companies. Rob Lawrence, Kane Kessler’s managing partner, will lead Michael Best’s New York office.

David Krutz, Michael Best Firm Managing Partner, offered the following statement on the combination:

“This combination represents an exciting step for both firms. Beyond establishing a meaningful presence in New York, it brings together talented attorneys and professionals, complementary strengths, and a shared commitment to exceptional client service. Kane Kessler has built an outstanding reputation for trusted counsel and practical business advice, and their capabilities align seamlessly with our strategic objectives.”

Congratulations to everyone at the combined firm. Here’s hoping their New York state of mind comes with plenty of new business.

Michael Best, New York-based Kane Kessler, P.C. Complete Strategic Combination [press release]

Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Tuesday’s memo, titled “Fostering One Strong Industrial Base,” primarily targets the Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) used across goverrinciples (GAAP) used in the commercial sector.

“We will accept GAAP-based accounting across all contracts to the maximum extent the law permits,” Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, writes. “Transparency and partnership run both ways: the Department opens its buying to market forces, and when asked, industry shares the cost and pricing information it already keeps.”

While Feinberg said the move was part of an effort to “completely transform and modernize our contract cost and pricing ruleset," analysts said it also appeared to be something of a reversal for the Pentagon in the wake of a contentious that floated more aggressive Pentagon oversight of pricing practices. In the wake of that memo, some in industry worried the Pentagon was attempting to get deep into proprietary info or financial information, a particularly sensitive issue for the kind of non-traditional firms the department has been courting.

The August memo “was received very poorly, and I think no one really understood what they meant, I think was the challenge,” said Jerry McGinn, director of the Center for the Industrial Base at CSIS and a former senior defense acquisition official. “And that is what they’re doing here — they’re tying it back to the [industrial base] strategy and what they’d like to do, and they articulate that it’s a process.”

Added Bill Greenwalt of the American Enterprise Institute, “The first memo was an attempt to applying traditional compliance oversight to everyone including commercial and non-traditional companies. That would have had serious ramifications to the firms trying to disrupt the status quo. I think they got the message on that, that those firms weren’t happy and could exit the market.”

In the new memo, Feinberg defended the August order as “essential to ensure companies at every tier are treated fairly.” But he also appeared to offer industry more options, analysts said.

“It looks like they may have realized they overreached with the first memo, and they’re now trying to limit the damage,” Greenwalt, who worked on acquisition reform as a Senate aide for years, continued. “This is a Pentagon that doesn’t want to admit they made a mistake, and the first memo was a huge mistake, so it’s progress they’re at least working to change things.”

‘A Way For Traditionalists To Become Non-traditional’

CAS has traditionally been used to help audit government-only sole source contracts. While used across government, the Pentagon, with its outsized budget, has naturally had the lion’s share of CAS-covered contracts.

The problem is that right now, there is effectively a bifurcated system: major defense firms have to undergo CAS standards due to their participation in CAS-covered contracts, while many non-traditional firms do not. McGinn said that only aroundof companies that do business with the Pentagon are CAS-compliant, but those accounted for around $300-$400 billion that was obligated last year, as they cover all the major defense programs like carriers, subs or fighter jets.

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched a major acquisition reform effort last November, part of the goal was to streamline the system. That effort bled through in Feinberg’s August memo as well, which Greenwalt described as attempting to create one system for all contractors. But Greenwalt said the DoD chose the wrong way to go about it, by increasing oversight and pushing everyone more towards something resembling CAS requirements.

In contrast, this week’s memo effectively says that the Pentagon will attempt to get off CAS as the default.

“The first memo seemed like it was trying to get everyone into one system, but it did that by doubling down on the government-unique ideas and oversight, which was a mistake,” Greenwalt said. “This language seems to lean towards opening up commercial-type systems to everyone, or at least the option of that to everyone.”

It won’t be quick: By law, the Pentagon will still need to apply CAS to sole source development programs until it can work within the government-wide CAS Board to change the standards of CAS to GAAP.

In the meantime, the Pentagon will attempt to use a series of existing authorities to constrain CAS on commercial and new entrants. The goal will be to apply CAS on a program-by-program basis, and attempt to limit CAS applicability on a company-by-company basis as it currently is.

In an investor note, Roman Schweizer of TD Cowen noted that while the August memo was focused on pricing transparency, this memo “seems less about imposing new oversight & more about removing barriers that discourage companies from doing business” with the Pentagon.

Still, shifting to a new model raises questions, according to Alek Jovovic, also of CSIS.

“What are the business implications of transitioning from CAS compliant companies to CAS compliant programs? What impact does that have on companies? I think that’s a critical element of the memo, but how they’re going to implement this change — that is the question,” he said.

Said Greenwalt, “It looks like they are providing a way for traditionalists to become non-traditional depending on what contracts they pursue. That’s an interesting new shift and will require a lot of thought by the companies on corporate restructuring and the CAS board to figure out how to convert from CAS into GAAP accounting.”

Sorting out how this will all work will be especially important with “things like the Family of Affordable Mass Munitions, these new kind of programs, low-cost interceptors,” McGinn said.

Some Pricing Info Concerns Remain

Early reaction from industry seems cautiously optimistic. A statement from Eric Fanning of the Aerospace Industries Association, a major defense trade group, said, “Many of the reforms outlined in this memorandum, including streamlining business systems requirements and continuing the shift from Cost Accounting Standards toward Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, reflect priorities AIA has long supported and helped advance.

“At the same time, some aspects, particularly continued demands for extensive cost and pricing data, could undermine the Department’s broader objective of attracting more companies, capital, and innovation into the defense industrial base,” Fanning said.

Wrote Schweizer, “We believe there could still be some potential negatives for [companies] in the implementation and adoption. We also think Congress and industry will want input into how the changes are enacted — we do not see the new memo as the final word on this subject.”

McGinn agreed this will not be the last word, stressing that the memo is best thought of not as a standalone, dramatic change, but rather as part of a continuum of reform efforts being pursued by the Trump Pentagon.

“It’s very much in line with the administration’s priorities, but it’s a journey, I think,” he said.

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As always, to build its Outside Counsel Rankings, our colleagues turn to those whose perspectives matter most to law firms — the clients who hire them.

If you are an in-house attorney, they want to know which law firms you engage and what level of work you entrust to them.

Please share your experiences in this brief survey. As always, the survey is both brief and anonymous.

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North’s path forward is a reverse merger with Aethlon Medical. According to terms announced Thursday, the combined company will keep the North Immunology name and will be overseen by North’s management team, including CEO Jonathan Barr. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

Antibody drugs abound in immunology, but many of them each address a single target. While Dupixent is a monoclonal antibody, it addresses two signaling pathways involved in inflammation, IL-4 and IL-13. North’s approach has some overlap with Dupixent, blocking IL-13 signaling. But North notes that inflammatory disorders are also driven by other pathways. In addition to blocking IL-13, the biotech’s bispecific antibody, NOR-101, is designed to block IL-18. The company contends this dual approach could offer deeper and broader response compared to IL-13 inhibition alone.

Beyond potentially better efficacy, North aims to improve the patient experience. Conjunctivitis is a known side effect of Dupixent, and it’s more common in atopic dermatitis compared to the other indications where the drug is approved. North believes inhibition of IL-18 alongside IL-3 could reduce conjunctivitis. In an investor presentation, the company points to placebo-controlled tests of single-agent IL-18 inhibitors that showed efficacy on measures of lesions and itch. These results also showed no reported cases of conjunctivitis.

Dosing frequency is another area where North is aiming for an edge. NOR-101 is engineered to offer an extended half-life to enable less frequent dosing. Maintenance dosing for Dupixent is an injection every two weeks. North says its drug could be dosed every three or six months.

One of the IL-18 inhibitors that North referenced is EVO301, an Evommune fusion protein that posted positive Phase 2a data earlier this year. North’s most direct potential competitor might be Talawar Therapeutics, which is developing an IL-13/IL-18-blocking bispecific antibody called TALA-125. Talawar is going public in a SPAC merger and concurrent private placement set to infuse the biotech with $285 million. TALA-125 is slated to enter the clinic in early 2027 with preliminary data expected late in the year.

The pursuit of immunology and inflammation drugs with potential advantages over Dupixent has led to a recent flurry of dealmaking. Last month, Attovia Therapeutics raised $289 million from an IPO that will fund clinical development of its fusion proteins designed to bind to multiple targets to treat immunological indications. Days later, startup Infinimmune unveiled $75 million for clinical development of a pipeline that includes an internally discovered antibody designed to block IL-13. And AbbVie recently closed its $11 billion Apogee Therapeutics acquisition, a deal that brings zumilokibart, a Phase 3-ready long-acting antibody designed to inhibit IL-13 to treat atopic dermatitis.

While atopic dermatitis is North’s lead indication, the presentation notes that NOR-101 has potential applications in eight additional immunological diseases. The company has not specified any clinical trial plans for those conditions. North plans to begin the Phase 1a test in atopic dermatitis in the first quarter of 2027; interim data are expected mid-year. The company then plans to proceed to Phase 1b and Phase 2b testing later in the year with preliminary data from both studies expected in 2028.

“If NOR-101 is able to demonstrate clinical data in line with its target profile, we believe it would be a material improvement to current standard of care,” North said in the presentation.

North’s clinical trial plans will be supported by a $180 million private placement. Investors include Bain Capital Life Sciences, Janus Henderson Investors, Deep Track Capital, Longitude Capital, Soleus Capital, Invus, Sirenia Capital Management LP, funds managed by Farallon Capital Management, Adage Capital Partners LP, and TCGX. North expects the capital will fund its operations into the second half of 2028.

Aethlon’s Hemopurifier, a medical device in development for organ transplant procedures, has no future at the combined company. North will look for a business deal placing the asset with another company. The merger agreement makes Aethlon shareholders eligible to receive a contingent value right tied to proceeds from a transaction related to Aetholon’s legacy business.

According to the terms of the merger agreement, North’s stockholders, including those participating in the private placement, will own about 95.25% of the combined company; Aethlon’s stockholders will own the remaining 4.75%. When the deal closes, North is expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the new stock symbol “NRTX.”

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That is, unless you’re a bloviating madman. In his refutation of the need for any type of AI regulation, even as major tech companies ask for a regulatory framework to be imposed upon themselves, President Donald Trump may have just inadvertently stumbled into a solution to being replaced by AI.

To really dumb it down, to achieve whatever goal it is given, an AI system looks at how things have been done before, and tries to accomplish the task in a way most likely to succeed without making any of the same mistakes twice. But how can a learning machine learn to make completely illogical missteps like an unhinged lunatic with an utter disregard for the ultimate outcome?

For instance, no machine relying on the dictates of good sense to reach a positive outcome could have predicted that Trump would go against the CEOs asking for their companies to be regulated, the overwhelming support of the American electorate for AI regulation, and the global consensus that relying only on voluntary self-regulation by AI companies causes “greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives.” Yet, the guy ignored all of this, and he has been president, twice.

Unfortunately, at first glance my job as an ATL columnist seems a prime example of a position ripe to be supplanted by artifice. All of my columns, dating back to the very first one eight years ago, are available for free right here at Above the Law thanks to our wonderful sponsors. That amounts to about 416 columns made up of something in the neighborhood of 300,000 words that someone could easily feed into a large language model.

I’ve asked a few of the more popular models whether they’ve in fact trained on my writing, and don’t really get a satisfying answer (we all know AI is effective at lying). Yet, if someone specifically set out to create a Wolf-bot, asking it to spit out future columns in the style of Jonathan Wolf, the end product would probably be reasonably readable.

Ah, but those simplistic assumptions leave out the human factor that Trump represents so crazily. Unlike humans, and particularly addled, aged dictators, machines use logic, reasoning, and unimpeachable replication to make their decisions.

The lesson to be learned here is clear to me. If I do not want to be replaced by an AI ATL columnist, I have to become more and more deranged in a way that no AI could ever possibly replicate.

Go ahead, call my decline into mental illness a crutch if you will. But it just might be my most powerful tool in resisting the influence of the coming AI overlords, and I’m only following the example of our most powerful leader, after all.

This strategy also has the benefit of being true. While Trump is clearly in age-related decline himself, even at half his age the deluge of batty nonsense he causes to be hurled at us all every day genuinely does have my brain teetering on the precarious verge of sanity.

An AI isn’t going to pull its hair out because the president’s eldest son had his wedding bankrolled by an evil Russian oligarch and Republicans just shrug like it’s not a big deal. No machine can vomit into its hat when Trump closes the Kennedy Center because judges keep telling him he can’t add his name to it. Hell, for that matter, would any MAGA voters even bother sending vile hate mail to an AI author if they somehow realized there wasn’t a real person behind the name?

I think the path is clear. Sure, a sufficiently advanced LLM could probably make a passible facsimile of the writing I’ve done in the past. But no machine can predict just how deeply into madness living through the rest of this presidency will drive me. Writing about this sort of thing is exactly the type of genuineness I think valued readers like you will continue to appreciate.

Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

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Prada says Armani not on its radar as it focuses on Versace turnaround [Reuters]

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L'Oreal steals French stock market crown from LVMH [Reuters]

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It did not go smoothly.

A quick refresher, because the Halligan era packed a lot into a few months. Halligan, a former Trump personal lawyer and insurance lawyer with zero prosecutorial experience, was installed as interim U.S. attorney in September 2025 after her predecessor was pushed out, and within days had secured indictments against Comey and James. Then came her day in court, which ended with Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie finding that the 120-day clock for an attorney general-appointed interim U.S. attorney had already run out on Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, so Pam Bondi had no power to appoint anyone else. That meant Halligan managed to lose two cases at once. Currie warned that the government’s theory would let it “send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment.” The dismissals were without prejudice, but the DOJ’s attempts to start over went nowhere: grand juries declined to re-indict James, and Currie found the statute of limitations had already run on Comey (the DOJ disagrees). Halligan herself kept acting like the U.S. attorney for months after she was disqualified, until Eastern District judges forced the issue and a brutal, humiliating benchslap put an end to the Lindsey Halligan experiment.

All of which brings us to yesterday’s Fourth Circuit hearing, where DOJ lawyer Henry Whitaker “at times faced distinct skepticism,” per POLITICO. Chief Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee, spelled out where the government’s reading of the statute leads:

I understand that you’re representing that this administration has no incentive to engage in a cascade or carousel of interim appointees. But under your reading of the statute, that is the logical conclusion, that an executive could … just continue with a succession of appointments, thereby essentially cutting off both the court, the district court, and the Senate’s advice and consent power. Isn’t that true?

Whitaker tried the no-incentive line again. Diaz cut him off, “You’re saying you have no incentive, but under your reading of the statute, a nefarious, ne’er-do-well executive could do exactly that, right?” And Whitaker was forced to agree.

That’s a big concession. Statutory interpretation doesn’t care about promises of good behavior, least of all from an administration whose interim U.S. attorney saga has included a judge demanding that a fake U.S. attorney explain why she was still pretending to be U.S. attorney. “Trust us” is a weak argument from these people on everything but on this particular subject especially.

Judge Henry Floyd, another Obama appointee, brought up the government’s most awkward precedent. “How would you then distinguish United States v. Trump when Judge Cannon found that Mr. Smith, whatever his name was, wasn’t lawfully appointed?” he asked. Whitaker’s answer was that different appointment authorities apply, and that the DOJ could have appointed Halligan to bring these prosecutions under a different statute. Diaz wasn’t buying it: “To put it bluntly, would have, could have, should have. That didn’t happen.” The same appointments argument that ended the case against the president is now the problem for the cases his DOJ wants back.

The Trump appointee on the panel, Judge Julius Richardson, was more helpful to Whitaker, suggesting that “if an executive were to abuse this power, Congress has the full authority to revise the statute to read in a way that reaches a better policy result.”

Which is technically true, and also cold comfort. Richardson’s “Congress can fix it” is the same theory other circuit courts have already thrown out. The Third Circuit rejected the administration’s attempt to keep Alina Habba in charge in New Jersey through an elaborate game of musical chairs with interim appointments, and even Trump’s own judges agree Sigal Chattah isn’t a real U.S. attorney. The DOJ is asking the Fourth Circuit to be the first appellate court to buy the argument, in front of a panel whose chief judge got the government’s own lawyer to admit the theory would let a “nefarious, ne’er-do-well executive” appoint interim prosecutors forever.

Well… things don’t look great for Lindsey Halligan’s comeback tour.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

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Authentic Brands Targets Creator Economy, Eyes Public Offering [Bloomberg]

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Did Warsh Really Seek Trump’s Blessing to Hike Rates? [WSJ]
“I talked to Kevin,” Trump told reporters. “I said ‘you might as well vote with the board because it’s not going to matter.’ The board is very hostile. They are very political. They are doing the wrong thing. They are a bunch of politicians.”

Trump Looks Isolated on Interest Rates [DealBook]
While Trump’s comments cast Warsh as powerless against the board, Warsh made it clear that the decision to raise rates was his own — underscoring central bank independence despite pressure from the president who appointed him…. That signals new friction between the president and the central bank, as Warsh makes combating inflation his highest priority….
After the decision, the president wrote on social media that “Interest Rates in the United States should be 1%, or less.” He added, “LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!”

Why the Bank of England Didn’t Follow the Fed in Raising Interest Rates [WSJ]
“So far higher global energy costs have had a limited effect on price and wage setting in the U.K. But the longer this volatility persists, the bigger the impact it will have on inflation, and the more likely it is we will need to raise bank rate,” said Gov. Andrew Bailey.

SEC clears path for tokenized stocks, bringing the market closer to 24/7 trading [CNBC]
The long-awaited move by the securities regulator comes two days after the Clarity Act, crypto’s most consequential push for regulatory certainty, failed to advance in the Senate. The crypto market structure bill would have established clear rules for how digital assets, including tokenized securities, are classified and regulated. Now the SEC is moving to define that regulatory boundary through its existing authority.

Ways and Means approves crypto tax bill on bipartisan vote [Politico]
Even advocates for the crypto plan said it was only a start at addressing myriad issues associated with digital assets, especially after Smith dropped key provisions addressing when mining and staking awards — the compensation people receive for helping process crypto transactions — ought to be taxed. Democrats had balked at Smith’s plan to allow people to defer taxes on those awards.

Thatch helps employers offer Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs) — which recently rebranded as CHOICE Arrangements — in which employers can provide their employees tax-free money so they can purchase their own individual health insurance plans. Employees can also use the funds for certain healthcare expenses, including GLP-1s and therapy. More than 5,000 employers use the company, including Jersey Mike’s and Smoothie King.

The Series C funding round was from The General Partnership, Index Ventures, General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz. ADP Ventures, Paychex, Eli Lilly and Company, Scale Venture Partners, QuantumLight, SemperVirens, Quiet Capital and Avid Ventures also participated. In total, Thatch has raised $192.5 million in equity funding.

“Every massive consumer market eventually gets rebuilt around the individual – Amazon did it for retail, Expedia for travel, Robinhood for investing. Thatch is doing it for healthcare,” said Jahanvi Sardana, partner at Index Ventures, in a statement. “With AI, the end state is bigger than shopping: an agent that knows you, holds your wallet and can find, book and pay for the right care. The magic is that you stop navigating healthcare and start being taken care of.”

The funding round will help Thatch build out the infrastructure behind individual health coverage at scale, according to Chris Ellis, CEO of Thatch.

“Concretely, that’s three things: deepening our integrations with payroll and HR platforms like ADP and Gusto, expanding the ways employees can use their health budgets, and growing the team fast enough to keep up with employer demand,” he told MedCity News. “We’ve grown revenue nearly sevenfold in the last twelve months and we’re now working with more than 5,000 employers. The money is going toward making the switch from a traditional group plan to a health budget as seamless as possible for both employers and employees.”

Interest in ICHRAs is growing. The number of employers offering ICHRA grew from more than 6,600 in 2025 to more than 12,700 in 2026 — nearly doubling in one year, according to a recent report from the HRA Council. Advocates of the insurance model argue that it provides employees with more flexibility while providing employers with more budget control.

Ultimately, Thatch aims to change the way the healthcare industry is funded, Ellis said.

“Right now healthcare is the only industry that calls its customers ‘patients,’ a word that literally means someone who suffers and waits. That’s not an accident,” he declared. “When an employer picks your insurance for you, the people actually competing for your business are HR benefits consultants, not you. We think that’s backwards. Every industry that’s gotten better for consumers — travel, telecom, even LASIK, one of the few parts of medicine people pay for directly — got better because the person receiving the service was also the one paying for it. Our bet is that healthcare works the same way once individuals hold the dollars.”

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The fact that this proposition required resolution by a federal appellate court says a great deal about how far prediction markets have outrun the legal architecture meant to govern them. Platforms like Kalshi have rebranded wagering as “event contracts,” building a lucrative consumer product around this loophole. Users can put money on sports, elections, entertainment, and other real-world outcomes. The industry describes these transactions as financial contracts regulated at the federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Nevada, along with a considerable number of other states, sees the matter differently, and their reasoning requires little elaboration: when a person risks money on an uncertain outcome, especially on the outcome of a game, rebranding the transaction up as a “contract” does not alter its essential character.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has now agreed. However, this decision directly conflicts with an April ruling from the Third Circuit, which concluded that Kalshi’s sports event contracts qualify as “swaps” under the Commodity Exchange Act and therefore receive federal pre-emption from state gambling regulation and oversight.

Two federal circuits, examining substantially the same phenomenon, have now arrived at opposite conclusions. Similar litigation continues to work its way through additional circuits, and the CFTC itself has acknowledged that the resulting split may ultimately demand Supreme Court intervention. It probably will. But while courts sort out the jurisdictional question, we should not lose sight of the people actually using these products.

States did not develop gambling regulation as an exercise in semantics. It emerged from practical concerns: age verification, licensing, responsible-gaming safeguards, consumer protection, game integrity, and the capacity of regulators to intervene when something goes wrong. None of those concerns are alleviated simply because a wager migrated from a sportsbook’s platform to a prediction market.

If anything, this shift may make the underlying risk harder for consumers to recognize. Traditional sports betting is branded as just that, betting. Prediction markets are much less clear and operate in a gray area. The terminology associated with prediction markets may change the perception of gambling, but it does not change the risk associated with it.

If someone puts money on a football team to win on a given Sunday, have they made a fundamentally different decision because one platform may call it a bet and another calls it a futures contract? In reality, of course not, but this is the question underneath this legal complexity and the answer matters beyond sports.

Prediction markets have expanded into elections, economic events, and entertainment. As their popularity increases, so does the possibility that people who would never think of themselves as gamblers begin repeatedly putting money at risk on uncertain outcomes precisely because the experience is engineered to feel like investing rather than betting.

None of this argues for prohibiting prediction markets outright. It argues that regulation should track what a product actually does, and not the vocabulary its marketers have chosen for it.

There is also a federalism concern that should be seriously considered. For decades, states have exercised independent judgment over gambling within their borders, determining who may operate, which products are permitted, what age restrictions apply, and what protections companies must provide their customers. While Congress certainly retains the authority to pre-empt state law when it chooses to do so, courts should require a clear statutory basis before concluding Congress intended to displace an entire body of gambling law merely because a company structured a wager as a financial instrument. Forty-four states recently advanced this precise argument, and contended that sports wagers are neither swaps, futures, nor derivatives, and cannot be swept into CFTC jurisdiction.

The Ninth Circuit’s ruling does not resolve this dispute, but rather indicates this dispute will continue to grow. The Supreme Court will likely have to determine where the Commodity Exchange Act ends and traditional state gambling authority begins. Congress may need to enact precise legislature for a category of product that has evolved considerably faster than the statutes meant to govern it.

Regardless of what comes next, regulators and courts alike should begin their analysis with protecting the consumer, regardless of how these products are labeled. If Americans are wagering money on uncertain outcomes, particularly the outcome of sporting events, they are entitled to the protections this country has spent decades building for people who gamble. Calling the wager a “contract” should not make those protections disappear.

Madeline Pendley is a national mass torts attorney with Rafferty Domnick Cunningham & Yaffa, representing individuals harmed by dangerous drugs, toxic exposures, and defective products. Madeline was recently appointed to serve on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Development Committee in the Roblox multidistrict litigation, reflecting national recognition of her leadership in high-stakes mass tort proceedings.

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As the report lays out, the largest chunk of change was for the $21.7 bi

“The U.S. has probably used between one-half and two-thirds of its inventory of certain interceptors since June 2025, spanning both conflicts; rebuilding those inventories would probably take at least five years,the report adds, referring to Operation Epic Fury and Operation Midnight Hammer.

The repoenditure” of missiles and interceptors will leave the US with a “reduced inventory of interceptors for several years.” Such a situation would “become especially problematic if a conflict arose with an opponent whose arsenal included large numbers of ballistic and cruise missiles,” namely China, the report reads.

Such munitions included Tomahawks, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems, Patriot systems and Standard Missile 3 and Standard Missile 6 interceptors.

Apart from munitions, CBO’s repoestimates that the Pentagon has spent $10.4 billion on increased flying hours, $2.7 billion from increased fuel costs, $1.9 billion in equipment lost in battle and $1.5 billion in “other operational costs.” 

Further, the report adds that every additional month would cost the Pentagon about $2 billion at “the level of violence seen in May and June” and estimates that it could cost the department about $3 billion at July’s level of intensity.

“Monthly costs would be higher if the conflict intensified further or DoD used expensive munitions,” the report added.

 The DoD did not respond to CBO’s queries on such figures. Hence, the “estimate relies on government databases and public reports and is subject to considerable uncertainty,” the report reads. The CBO report also does not include costs related to personnel killed or injured in the conflict or any “future increases in outlays for veterans’ health care and disability compensation.”

In a table located towards the end of the report, the CBO also estimates key US equipment lost through the start of August. The 42 planes and one AN/TPY-2 radar would cost roughly $3.3 billion to replace with new equipment, per researcher estimations; however, there is no guarantee the Pentagon will look to replace these systems on a one-to-one basis, leaving the dollar total somewhat speculative.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration sent a $87.6 billion supplemental request, with $67.1 billion in defense funds to cover expenses associated with the war in Iran. The CBO notes the president’s request is “not directly comparable with CBO’s estimate because the [a]dministration’s request includes other defense priorities and funding for other departments.”

“Comparing CBO’s estimate ($38.1 billion) with the [a]dministration’s request for supplemental funding is complicated by a lack of information in the latter; however, the estimate and the request are broadly similar in their costs for replacing expended munitions and for fuel,” the report reads.

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Bessent and Warsh Take On the Bond Bears [DealBook]
Analysts see Wednesday’s rate decision as a credibility test for Warsh. Futures traders expect a quarter-point increase to help bring inflation closer to the Fed’s 2 percent target. Such a move is likely to anger Trump, who has urged central bank officials to cut rates.
The big question is whether Warsh, who prefers a more tight-lipped communication style, will give the market what it seeks — guidance that an increase on Wednesday is not a one-and-done move.

OpenAI Weighing Funding Round at Over $1.2 Trillion Valuation [Bloomberg]
A funding round of that magnitude would meanwhile allow OpenAI to leapfrog its chief rival Anthropic, which raised funds in May at a $965 billion valuation, including the new investment…. [CEO Sam] Altman told Fortune in his interview that the company will likely not go public until 2027.

He’s No Longer A Trillionaire, But Here’s Why Elon Musk Remains America’s Richest Person By Far [Forbes]
Elon Musk more than doubled his fortune over the past 12 months to rank No. 1 on the annual Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people for the fifth straight year, worth an estimated $908 billion…. He’s now $530 billion richer than the nation’s No. 2, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (estimated fortune: $378 billion), who has returned to the second spot after falling to No. 4 on last year’s ranking.

US retail sales rebound more than expected in August; import prices surge [Reuters via Yahoo!]
"This reaffirms that the economy is more than capable of handling higher interest ​rates, providing the Fed plenty of scope to hike to get inflation under control," said Bradley Saunders, North America economist at Capital Economics.

Elon Musk Trains His Political Chaos Machine on the U.K. [WSJ]
He called the mayor of Belfast a “betrayer of her people.” In another, he called a British political leader “a scumbag and a traitor….” No other foreign nation has drawn such frequent, sustained attention from the world’s richest man as the U.K., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 4½ years’ worth of his posts on X.

As far as I can tell, Cohen was an incompetent, a thug, and a criminal who mindlessly supported Trump.

Cohen then had a change of heart. He became an incompetent, a thug, and a criminal who vindictively opposed Trump. For some reason, the left embraced Cohen.

Cohen then had another change of heart. He’s now an incompetent, a thug, and a criminal who again licks Donald Trump’s boots.

Why does the press cover a single word of what Cohen thinks, says, or does? There was no reason for this clown to be be prominent 10 years ago, and there’s surely no reason for him to be prominent today.

Enough already.

Let’s not hear another word about Michael Cohen until his obituary.

(Don’t get me wrong: I’m not rooting for Cohen’s immediate death. I’m rooting only for news about Cohen to vanish immediately into the trash bin of history. I’d be happy to ignore Cohen’s obituary when it appears 20, or 30, or 100 years from now.)

Same with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

She was a fool who owned a CrossFit business. She moved on from her CrossFit gig and began writing crazy stuff for conspiracy news websites. She was elected to Congress in 2020 because Americans are idiots.

I understand that we were obligated to hear about Greene when she was a member of Congress saying insane things and supporting Trump.

But Greene, like Cohen, had a change of heart. She split from Trump over the Epstein files. Trump started attacking her, and she resigned from Congress.

Great! There was just barely a reason to hear from her before, and there’s surely no reason to hear from her now.

But she continues to attack Trump, the left continues to care, and we’re cursed with news stories about her.

Why? She was a nobody. She should have remained a nobody. And she’s plainly, once again, a nobody.

I don’t want to hear another word about Marjorie Taylor Greene until her obituary.

Who else?

George Santos.

He fabricated his biography, was elected to Congress (because Americans are idiots, or do I repeat myself?), was expelled from Congress, and was convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

I understand why I was forced to hear about Santos while he was in Congress. But he’s gone now. Can’t he be gone from my life?

Please?

Who else am I tired of? Anthony Scaramucci.

The Mooch was the White House Communications Director for 10 days in 2017, setting a historical record for shortest tenure in that job.

2017, for heaven’s sake!

Couldn’t he have disappeared in 2018, or 2019, or any time else in the past decade?

Begone!

I don’t want to read a peep about him again!

Last example: Rudy Giuliani.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, America’s Mayor, Time’s Person of the Year, presidential candidate.

Trump sycophant.

Disbarred lawyer. Sufferer of massive defamation judgments.

The guy is so inept that he filed for bankruptcy, and the judge later threw out the bankruptcy case because Giuliani was a “recalcitrant debtor.”

He couldn’t manage to go bankrupt? Shoot; even I could do that. Not being able to go bankrupt is like not being able to quit your job.

So this moron is gone, right?

Wrong.

Giuliani says that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani should not have attended the 9/11 25th anniversary memorial celebrations, and Giuliani’s back in the news.

Why?

Stop! Stop! I can’t take it any more.

Please note that this is a bipartisan issue for me.

If I never hear another word about Hunter Biden, that’s too soon for me.

Hunter traded on being the president’s son. Joe’s no longer the president. Let’s stop hearing about Hunter.

And don’t be upset that I didn’t say that Donald Trump should drop out of the national conversation.

Trump, like Cohen, is an incompetent, a thug, and a criminal.

But he’s the president.

He says crazy stuff; we’re obligated to know about it. He’s the president (because Americans are idiots, or do I repeat myself?); you’re a citizen; it’s your duty to suffer this insanity.

But wait until noon on January 20, 2029!

You’ll never have to read about him again, thank God.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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But it was not a one-off.

In the days since, Weil partners have lined up to make sure nobody mistakes this for a firm in mourning. Bloomberg Law reports people there are feeling something closer to relief.

As Weil suffers the loss of a practice head, some partners there feel relieved. Aiello as a business generator has few peers in Big Law. But as a leader whose influence at the firm exceeded his role commanding the corporate department, he was a divisive presence who stalled progress in the new directions Weil needed to go, some people at the firm said.

That is a remarkable thing to say about the man the firm’s own partners routinely called its most powerful and, by other reporting, its highest paid, at north of $20 million a year. Firms usually manage a gentler goodbye than this.

The specifics are where it gets uncomfortable. Per Bloomberg Law, Aiello was viewed as a roadblock to recruiting and territorial over his practice, and important partners have left in recent years over his skeptical view of growth. The cleanest example: one of his own longtime deputies, Sachin Kohli, wanted to move to California to build a West Coast public-company M&A practice and went to Aiello for his blessing. Aiello reportedly called the idea “disloyal.” Kohli decamped for Wilson Sonsini earlier this year. In another instance, Bloomberg reports, Aiello raised concerns about hiring an M&A partner from a top rival even as others in the process were enthusiastic, the partner went to a competitor instead, one that has since helped itself to a handful of other Weil lawyers.

And now the firm has a pitch for what comes next.

The firm should be bigger, with a broader transaction base, and Aiello’s departure is “a great opportunity to let Weil be Weil; to be entrepreneurial and grow,” said one person familiar with the firm.

Maybe all of that is true. Maybe partner and firm had simply grown out of sync, and the split is better for everyone — Weil billed $2 billion last year and is not going to want for work.

But this is unusually messy for Biglaw, an industry that leans heavily on graceful and noncontroversial sound bites. The standard-issue departure statement wishes the defector well, thanks him for his contributions, and says absolutely nothing. Weil insiders skipped all of that and went straight to briefing reporters on why it is better off without him.

Messy? You bet, but also a helluva lot more fun for the rest of us.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Sort of.

The only remaining legal question is whether to sanction Trump’s personal lawyers in Florida along with “his lawyers” at the Department of Justice for unethically conspiring to defraud the court with a sham lawsuit. The government’s position is there was too adversity, and thus the settlement, which grants Trump and his family immunity for any and all tax crimes they may have committed to date, is totally legit.

And yet the DOJ’s conduct at this late date effectively concedes that the two parties are one and the same and always have been.

Me, myself, and I

In January, Trump’s current sparklemagic lawyer, Alejandro Brito, sued the Internal Revenue Service, demanding $10 billion for the 2020 leak of the Trump family’s tax returns.

The lawsuit was hot garbage. It was filed long after the two-year statute of limitations had expired. It claimed a preposterous amount in damages, roughly equal to two-thirds of the IRS’s entire yearly budget, without pointing to a single dollar lost. And it sought to hold the IRS responsible for republication by journalists, in direct contravention of the statute.

But if Trump had managed to get himself in front of one of his own appointees to the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, maybe even Judge Aileen Cannon, it might not have mattered. Had the judicial wheel kicked out someone else, Trump’s flunkies inside and outside the government might have happily cooked up a “settlement” to put untold millions of taxpayer dollars directly in Trump’s pocket.

But it was not meant to be. Instead he drew Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, who was never going to sign off on blatant looting of the Treasury. So Trump’s lawyers pivoted. Instead of a cash payout to himself, they announced a settlement agreement creating a $1.8 billion slush fund for anyone “harmed” by the Biden administration, plus civil and criminal immunity for all tax crimes for the extended Trump family.

The deal provoked immediate backlash, but Trump and his lawyers had taken pains to ensure that Judge Williams wouldn’t be allowed to weigh in. Rule 41(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows a plaintiff to dismiss his lawsuit without seeking approval from the court if notice of dismissal is filed before the opposing party has responded to the complaint. If the defendant has already answered, the lawsuit can only be dismissed “by court order, on terms that the court considers proper.”

In this case, no lawyer for the government even entered an appearance. Brito requested and was granted multiple extensions for the government to answer his complaint, and in every instance he simply represented to the court that the government did not object.

And so, after a bunch of procedural shenanigans, Trump filed a notice of dismissal on May 18. Judge Williams closed the case the same day, noting that her order could not be construed as judicial imprimatur for the deal, which she’d never even seen.

Sanctions

Judge Williams may have thought there was nothing she could do to stop the obvious collusive fraud on her doorstep, but 35 eminent former federal judges disagreed. Nine days later they urged Judge Williams to reconsider, noting that a trial judge retains jurisdiction to impose sanctions when parties commit a fraud on the court. Two months later, Judge Williams issued a 56-page opinion sanctioning the parties for their unethical conduct and calling out the DOJ’s obvious wheeze to avoid submitting to her jurisdiction.

“For the 109 days that this case was pending, no attorney representing the United States filed a notice of appearance or any document indicating the government’s position, interest, or awareness of this matter,” she wrote.

The order punished Trump’s private attorneys, including Alejandro Brito (who is barred in Florida) and Daniel Epstein (who isn’t). Brito was referred to the Florida Bar for disciplinary proceedings, and Epstein was barred from appearing pro hac vice in the Southern District of Florida for a year. The clerk was instructed to mail a copy of the order to the state bars of New York and D.C., where Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward are facing disciplinary investigations.

Judge Williams also prohibited both Trump and the IRS from citing the collusive settlement as evidence, effectively declared it null and void:

The Parties are prohibited from referring to the purported “settlement agreement,” or using, offering, admitting, or citing any of its provisions in any judicial, administrative, regulatory, arbitration, or any other official proceeding as evidence of a “settlement” reached in this matter, Case No. 26-cv-20609-KMW (S.D. Fla. 2026).

The 11th Circuit

Three weeks later, Trump appealed to the 11th Circuit and moved to stay Judge Williams’s sanctions order. That same day, the IRS finally poked up its head, saw its shadow, and noted an appearance in the appeal.

Deputy Attorney General W. Trent McCotter identified the IRS as the “appellee” — affecting to have been dragged in as an adversarial party. That made sense, because Judge Williams’s order imposed zero burden on the agency. (It might potentially embarrass McCotter’s bosses at the DOJ, but that’s not a cognizable harm to the IRS or the Treasury.)

In fact, Judge Williams’s order conveyed a massive benefit to the IRS by blowing up the collusive settlement and allowing Trump’s dismissal with prejudice to stand. The agency is relieved of a potential $10 billion in liabilities and is now free to pursue civil and criminal charges against the Trumps for any tax fraud they may have committed. (Stop snickering.)

And so it was more than a little odd that the IRS, as appellee, joined Trump’s motion, demanding that Judge Williams’s order “be stayed immediately.” The supposedly adversarial parties insist that they are absolutely entitled to treat the “settlement” as binding, and any ruling otherwise amounts to an unconstitutional gag order and prior restraint of their free speech rights.

Why are you even here?

To get immediate relief, Trump would have to demonstrate that the trial judge’s order constitutes irreparable harm. But Trump will only be harmed if he intends to introduce the settlement-that-dare-not-speak-its-name as evidence in another official proceeding, i.e., to dismiss pending tax charges against himself. Obviously, there are no such charges and there won’t be while he’s in office — the entire point of this exercise was to provide immunity in the event that a Democratic president controls the DOJ in 2029. But, as the 35 judges point out, to concede that is to admit that the entire lawsuit was a collusive sham all along:

If the parties actually intend to reference or introduce or use the purported “settlement agreement” in any other “official proceeding” “as evidence of a ‘settlement’ reached in this matter,” then they should say just that, and explain why their current inability to do so (until they are ultimately permitted to appeal the District Court’s ruling) is causing them “serious, perhaps irreparable,” harm.

But the parties will not try to make such a showing, because doing that would prove that the District Court was absolutely right in recognizing that the parties were using their sham “settlement” of this sham litigation to try to achieve something substantive in some other forum.

The 11th Circuit ignored Brito’s demand to stay Judge Williams’ order. Instead, the panel questioned whether it might lack jurisdiction at all and instructed the parties to brief the issue of “whether the district court’s order is immediately appealable, including whether that order is appealable as an injunctive order.”

This apparent skepticism seems to have triggered some alarm at the DOJ. As the appellees, the government is effectively in the passenger seat while Brito drives … over a cliff. And since it was the putative “winner” at the lower court, where it never even deigned to show up, the government effectively has nothing to appeal. And so, on the eve of the 60 day deadline, McCotter raced back to the trial court to notice his appearance.

Sort of.

“Reserving all rights and waiving nothing, Defendants appear solely for the purpose of noticing their appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from this Court’s July 13, 2026, ECF docket entry #106 and any orders and decisions merged therein,” he wrote.

But the IRS has not noticed an appeal to the 11th Circuit where it continues to litigate in the posture of appellee. Clearly, the IRS isn’t trying to overturn the dismissal of a $10 billion lawsuit against it. The only thing they want is to undo the order whacking Trump’s personal lawyers for misconduct — a whacking the DOJ largely avoided by never entering an appearance in the case.

But the United States has no cognizable interest in protecting the professional reputation of “opposing” counsel! And yet, the DOJ is so invested in redeeming Alejandro Brito’s honor that it will go back and put itself in the line of fire, after studiously keeping well clear of it for nine months.

What better proof could there be that the appellants and appellee are one and the same?

Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast.

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark rate, defying Trump’s demands [AP]
Trump has demanded that the Fed cut rates, a move that isn’t on the table, and on Sunday the president said, “the United States is so strong we should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world….”
“I’d be wary of a rate hike ... I think if you want an independent Fed, then one thing the Fed does is it stays out of the way of elections,” [White House economic adviser Kevin] Hassett said.

Bank of America CEO Sparks Bank Stock Selloff With One Small Word [Barron’s]
Shares of Bank of America turned sharply lower on Monday after the bank’s chief executive, Brian Moynihan, said quarterly sales and trading revenue would be “flat” relative to a year ago.

Fed System Monitoring Banks Suffered Outage Last Month [WSJ]
People familiar with the matter said that the internal system was affected as well. Regulators use it to monitor banks, using both public and confidential data…. One of the business areas that was affected, the email said, was the Fed’s discount window. That is the Fed’s primary channel for lending directly to banks and can be critical to banks in a crisis.

DOJ Says Millions in Iran Oil Proceeds Laundered on Binance [Bloomberg]
According to US prosecutors, two Chinese entities used trading accounts on Binance as part of a scheme to funnel the oil proceeds to Iran, its agents and proxies where it was used to finance military and terrorist activities…. Prosecutors didn’t accuse Binance of wrongdoing

Cathie Wood Dumps $60 Million In Crypto Stock Ahead Of Clarity Act Vote [IBD]
The price of bitcoin fell early Tuesday ahead of the Clarity Act vote, scheduled for 2:15 p.m. ET, while Cathie Wood and her ARK Invest firm dumped crypto stocks on Monday…. Polymarket traders now expect a 20% chance the Clarity Act becomes law this year, falling from its Monday peak around 31% and its February high of 82%. Even if the bill fails to pass, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodities Futures Trading Commission have vowed to introduce their own market structure rules.

Channeling her inner Gen Z, Judge Thompson put out a lengthy bankruptcy opinion that took a sledgehammer to the air of formality that’s surrounded legal opinions since… well, forever. The effect is jarring to anyone familiar with federal judicial opinions. To call it unorthodox undersells it.

And yet, read in full, the opinion untangles a complicated, multiyear bankruptcy saga in a readable — dare I say, pleasant — 40-page account. Honestly, I expected to find myself more critical of this opinion. I’ve been quite critical of judges exploiting the inherent power imbalance to score laughs at the expense of litigants. That said, this isn’t a criminal defendant or fraud victim watching their world become a judicial plaything — it’s a gnarly corporate bankruptcy dispute. In that context, this all… kind of works?

Anyway, it’s safe to say that I’m the minority opinion on this one:

To the Hon. Members of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary: We, the undersigned, respectfully request the commencement of impeachment proceedings into the Hon. O. Rogeriee Thompson, U.S. Circuit Judge, for high crimes and misdemeanors, evidence of which is attached:… pic.twitter.com/GElQL7QfVx

— Legal Style Blog (@legalstyleblog) September 9, 2026

Instituto Médico del Norte v. Greengift Capital does, in fact, fill in the deets, but the opening actually does accomplish the time-honored role of SparkNotes by letting us know the main characters, their motivations, and the source of their dispute with the exact same approach that helped us avoid reading The Scarlet Letter.

Who am I kidding? It was Cliff’s Notes then. And I did read The Scarlett Letter. The Mayor of Casterbridge on the other hand….

We’ll start at the beginning, of course. Back in 1984, Instituto obtained a loan to the tune of $10,683,230 from Ponce Bank to build a hospital in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico.

But Instituto and Ponce quickly fell into a dispute. The dispute’s details are admittedly complicated and not well-documented in the record before us, but here’s what we can glean from the parties’ materials….

This reads like a conversation with your good friend Judge Thompson giving you all the gossip she’s heard about these companies. That’s not how opinions are usually written, but it’s so much more engaging.

But admittedly — and with no disrespect intended towards the bankruptcy court — we struggle to make sense of several key determinations in its dispositive order. We know that bankruptcy courts are quite busy, and they also don’t have an obligation to make specific findings of fact or to elaborate on their decisions when resolving motions for summary judgment.

Given the byzantine nature of this dispute, the bankruptcy court probably couldn’t lay it all out without taking the sort of narrative approach employed here.

While Instituto’s bankruptcy plan was being worked out, Instituto and Oriental got into it about how much Oriental should be paid. But they worked it out.

Standard legal writing? No. But, likely a far better picture of what happened than any formal language could convey. The whole dispute drips with the pettiness of a middle school cafeteria incident and would “Instituto and Oriental arrived at an impasse over the proper treatment of the allowed secured claim before reaching a temporary resolution” followed by three paragraphs nobody cares about send the reader that same context?

Not for nothing, if we want to stop AI from training itself to replace human legal writers, Judge Thompson is doing the Lord’s work in messing up the algorithm.

Oh, and then there are the defined terms:

The final plan (which we uncreatively christen “The Plan”) approved by the bankruptcy court incorporated most of the above-reproduced language, but not all.

That’s how all the definitions play out. To all the 1Ls out there: do this, watch your legal writing instructor’s head explode, and then say “sorry, I guess I just care more about modeling my work on a distinguished federal appellate judge than you do.”

Other moments over the following pages: “And then things began to go off the rails,” “Thus spawned more motions,” and, referring to a bankruptcy court determination “(whatever that means).”

With those five sentences, the litigation before the bankruptcy court came to an end.

This line actually stood out the most. The bankruptcy opinion was plenty formal, gathering 1,000 exhibits and proceeding with the cadence of authority before delivering its curt conclusion. The First Circuit opinion is saying — both in substance and with this style — that stiff legalese isn’t always rigor. Sometimes it functions as camouflage for decisions that don’t stand up to the elevator pitch test. To that end, the unanimous First Circuit panel isn’t disrespecting a fellow judge — which is a much more disturbing trend in legal writing than using “deets” — but explaining that formality can become a cage that leads to the wrong result.

Ultimately, the holding here is that litigants were owed an explanation, and the court delivered it in plain (perhaps too plain for many) terms.

Just imagine the legitimacy crisis that could result if a court ran around issuing deeply significant rulings while stubbornly refusing to provide its reasoning! I mean, that wouldn’t be as serious as a judge using the word “deets,” but I’m sure it would be pretty bad.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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The octogenarian former federal prosecutor thought he was being recruited to run the mother of all conspiracy cases and take out every dirty, stinkin’ Democrat at once. He and his wife Victoria Toensing laid it all out in April on Rudy Giuliani’s Scotch and Dentures Variety Hour. (h/t CNN)

“She was a queen bee and she screwed President Trump to a fair thee well,” diGenova snorted about the recently fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. “What it is she is dumb as a post.”

Toensing agreed that it was a massive error to charge former FBI director and Bridgewater Associates general counsel James Comey for making false statements to Congress in Virginia, i.e., where those statements actually took place.

“That should have been part of a conspiracy in Fort Pierce, Florida, which she did not have the sophistication to understand. I never as attorney general would have allowed the one count against Comey in Virginia. I would have saved it for the vast conspiracy,” she huffed.

“You do the same thing with You do the same thing with Letitia James,” diGenova broke in. “You don’t charge her in Virginia on mortgage fraud. you include her on a massive conspiracy account down in Miami with a bunch of people beginning in 2017, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Brennan, James Clapper, and Susan Rice.”

Creative theories of venue aside, the interview shows exactly what diGenova and Toensing expected when they joined the ongoing investigation in the Southern District of Florida. The plan was to round up all of Trump’s enemies, including Jack Smith, Tish James, Jim Comey, and even Barack Obama, and charge them with being part of a “grand conspiracy.” They could defeat the statute of limitations by saying that the crime was ongoing. Or they could call it deprivation of rights, which has no expiration date. With a grand jury supervised by Judge Aileen Cannon, the sky’s the limit!

Except that it wasn’t.

Because, when you’re tasked with using the legal system to go after one of Donald Trump’s enemies, the point is not to build a case. You’re not trying to establish probable cause and prove the elements of a crime. Conviction is more or less irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is getting an indictment so Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel can hold a press conference patting themselves on the back for their great service to the Republic and the Old Man — although you do get extra points for a perp walk that can be played endlessly on conservative media and turned into a meme.

It doesn’t matter if the case falls apart in a few months, bringing the U.S. Attorney’s office into disgrace or even contempt. Charge it, go on Fox, take the “W” — you’ve got prosecutorial immunity anyway, right?

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, tapped to indict all the antifa protesters in Chicago, knew the deal. He didn’t care about dragging his entire office into the middle of a scandal over prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury. He indicted the “Broadview 6” and a handful of other dissidents, watched the cases fall apart, and then took his promotion.

U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle in North Carolina could care less that the Comey seashells case will wash away with the tide.

But diGenova and Toensing were never in on the joke. They’ve been mainlining stringboard-level conspiracy theories since the first Trump administration, when they were getting paid by Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash and huddling up with Rudy and Devin Nunes to undermine the Mueller investigation. They thought this was finally their big moment. And according to CNN, diGenova was pissed to find that he was expected to spend a few weeks securing a piddly indictment of former CIA Director John Brennan and declare “mission accomplished.” And so on Thursday he stomped off in a huff, resigning his role as a special government employee.

DiGenova, who once had to apologize for saying that the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency should be “taken out at dawn and shot” after the 2020 election, had a moment of indiscretion when talking to the New York Post’s Josh Christenson.

“If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem,” he snapped.

Later he regained his composure, telling the AP, “There’s plenty of evidence in all of these cases to prove the theories of prosecution. It just takes time to get there, and some people want to get there a little faster than others — and you can’t do that.”

Well, of course you can — and if you want to get ahead in Trumpland, you absolutely will. But every cloud has a silver lining. Before you know it, those two crazy kids will back on air with Rudy explaining how everyone but them is too stupid to understand civil procedure.

Trump admin pick to oversee a conspiracy investigation into president’s foes resigns after DOJ clashes [CNN]

Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast.

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

By any measure, that is a big loss. Aiello is one of the most sought-after dealmakers in the country, and losing your corporate chair and a chunk of his practice group in a single raid is the kind of thing that reshuffles a firm’s internal power structure whether it admits it or not.

Which brings us to the statements.

Cravath’s is a model of gracious recruiting. “I’ve known Mike Aiello for many years, and he and his team are extraordinarily talented M&A advisors and a unique fit within our culture,” presiding partner Faiza Saeed said, going on to praise their belief in collaboration, client service, and “the values that have long defined Cravath.”

Weil’s statement is… well, let’s take a look.

“Mike Aiello and his team have informed us that they are leaving the firm for a smaller platform,” the firm said. “Weil has long believed that an ambitious growth strategy is in the firm’s best interest and intends to accelerate execution of that strategy going forward. We thank Mike and his team for their contributions.”

Describing Cravath as a smaller platform is a choice.

Sure, Cravath has fewer lawyers than Weil… but it’s still fucking Cravath. Cravath is the white-shoe standard-bearer, the firm so central to Biglaw that the industry’s associate pay benchmark is literally called the Cravath scale (despite Milbank’s best efforts on that front) — the scale Weil’s own associates are paid on. Shading them as a lesser platform is wild.

Weil has an aggressive lateral strategy, the firm added 51 lateral partners since the start of last year. In a market where firms are dangling multi-year guarantees to chase $40 million rainmakers, Weil is on a genuinely ambitious growth path. And perhaps the rapid expansion is part of the relevant backdrop that helped motivate the departure — I don’t know. But I definitely know snark when I read it.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

Tech Stocks Shudder in Response to Calls to Slow A.I. Progress [NYT]
“A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute,” [Anthropic CEO Dario] Amodei said. As one remedy, he said he would bring on third-party “evaluators” who would “verify adherence to safety practices and commitments.”
The post was endorsed by Elon Musk, who runs Space X, which also houses his A.I platform, x.AI; Sam Altman, who co-founded OpenAI; and Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of Google DeepMind.

JPMorgan Curbed Lending to Situational Awareness After AI Losses, Source Says [U.S. News via Reuters]
JPMorgan, one of the fund's key lenders, notified Situational that it would ​end its lending relationship after the losses….
Other Wall Street banks, including ⁠Goldman ⁠Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of ⁠America, remain ​active brokers for the company. It has also recently started working with Clear Street, ​a New York-based brokerage ⁠firm.

Crispin Odey Loses Bid to Overturn UK Financial Services Ban [Bloomberg]
“During the hearing he reinvented history, painted himself as a victim and displayed no contrition. That arrogant entitlement and the resulting complete disregard for proper governance means Mr. Odey is unfit to work in financial services.”

Did a Crypto Bro Pay $4.5 Million to Marry a Movie Star? A Scandal Grips China [WSJ]
In the rambling essay, he said he had a crush on the actress since college, rented out a theater to watch “Zootopia 2” for a date and wired her family $4.5 million for a so-called bride fee, a traditional Chinese gift from a groom’s family to the bride’s family before marriage. He also detailed an intimate encounter involving fingernails…. He said as the couple prepared for medical procedures to have a child in the U.S., the “other party”—whom he didn’t name directly—demanded $50 million. When he refused to pay, he added, the other side cut off contact. “The engagement could no longer proceed,” he said.

How Bill Ackman’s journey into tennis left him stranded on one of its most famous courts [The Athletic]
Lots of wealthy people write big checks to gain access to world-class athletes and professional sports. But almost none of them would ever dare to step onto a playing field with those athletes in an official event…. “A lot of people think just because they’re very good at one thing that it naturally transfers to the next,” [former professional tennis player and member of the Goldman Sachs private equity team Milos] Raonic said, speaking generally about high performers in every realm.

Health Wildcatters co-founder and CEO Dr. Hubert Zajicek will moderate a panel discussion at INVEST Digital Health on how convenience is reshaping clinical strategy. The panel will explore how providers are offering patients the level of consumer-
centric convenience they’ve become accustomed to in other areas of their life — and how this shift can lead to
improved loyalty, adherence and outcomes. Among the panelists for the session are: Angeline Chen, Novellia Founding Director of Product, Arpan Parikh, Kin Health CEO, Travis Rush, Reperio Health CEO.

Commenting on the new cohort, Zajicek said:

“We are thrilled to welcome 10 innovative healthcare startups to Dallas and the rapidly growing North Texas healthcare ecosystem. In the years ahead, the innovation driven by these 10 startups has the potential to address some of healthcare’s most complex challenges and shape the future of care.”

To view the full agenda and register, click here.

This week, Health Wildcatters unveiled its 14th cohort of healthcare startups. The 2026 cohort brings together 10 innovative startups representing the U.S., Canada, and Israel, with 1/3 of the companies female-founded or female-led, according to an emailed press release.

They include:

Atomistic Insights develops physics-guided AI for protein dynamics and drug discovery. Its proprietary DeepPath platform reveals biologically relevant protein conformations and hidden drug-binding opportunities, helping discovery teams identify new pockets, prioritize compounds, and accelerate therapeutic development.

Co-founders: Katie Kuo and Shiyao Bao

Calaris Diagnostics is developing novel saliva-based diagnostic technologies for the early detection of chronic diseases, beginning with fatty liver disease (MASLD/MASH).

Founder: Dr. Jim Chen

DISCHARGEpath is an agentic AI platform automating hospital discharge coordination, including eligibility, prior authorization, post-acute placement, durable medical equipment, transportation, and remote patient monitoring.

Founder: Sean Elwell

EquiShift is a U.S.-based health IT company developing an AI-powered demand forecasting platform that predicts patient demand and generates shift-specific staffing recommendations. It also helps hospitals optimize workforce allocation, reduce staffing costs, and combat clinician burnout.

CEO: Snehita Sana

Full Time Nurse Staffing Inc. is addressing the U.S. nursing shortage by recruiting, training, licensing, and employing registered nurses from Mexico to strengthen the healthcare workforce.

Founder: Brett McDonald

MG Health Tech Inc.is a deep-tech company combining AI, healthcare, and connected-device engineering to enable real-time, data-driven care through AI/ML technology, proprietary sensor hardware, and advanced connectivity infrastructure.

Founder and CEO: Ganesh Natesan, MG Health Tech

PatientX, Inc. is an independent patient experience benchmarking platform that captures real-time feedback from clinical trial participants and uses AI-powered analytics to help pharmaceutical sponsors and research sites identify barriers to retention and improve the patient experience.

Co-Founders: Farah Ahmad and Jodie Huddleston

SanaOculis is a U.S.-based medical device company developing a non-invasive neurostimulation device designed to stop the progression of vision-affecting glaucoma.

CEO: Soumendu Bhattacharya

Sub-Q Bionics is developing a fully implantable bionic lymphatic drainage system designed to treat lymphedema, a chronic and progressive condition that particularly impacts cancer survivors who have undergone lymph node removal.

CEO: Jordan Pollack

Venom Biologics is developing non-opioid treatments for chronic pain, including an engineered peptide derived from scorpion venom that targets NaV1.8, a sodium channel in pain-sensing neurons.

CEO and co-founder: Neil Luhar

To register for INVEST Digital Health, view the agenda, and apply to speak at the conference, click here.

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Eric Holder, who served as AG under Barack Obama and who has not been shy about this administration, had some thoughts. “Attorneys general don’t talk about political things,” Holder told NewsNation’s Joe Khalil. “He shouldn’t be there.” He called the appearance “unprecedented” and “disgraceful.”

House Democrats on the Judiciary panel were equally pointed:

In our history, no sitting U.S. Attorney General, Democrat or Republican, has ever appeared to speak at a political party convention. Until now. Tomorrow Todd Blanche will appear and speak at the national Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas where the party’s working desperately to mobilize a demoralized MAGA to go vote for a party which has no plans for America. In other words, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer will be violating federal law on national TV in front of the entire country. It’s dumbfounding and unprecedented. Amazing how far the DOJ has fallen. We’ll be watching.

The DOJ’s response, posted from its official X account, was a swipe at Jack Smith: “While Jack Smith may agree with you about violating federal law, the Hatch Act is available for everyone to read, and Todd Blanche’s appearance this evening in his personal capacity is legal (and has been approved by ethics).”

Approved by ethics! Great! Except… the DOJ’s top ethics official was fired last year. Joseph Tirrell, who served as the senior ethics attorney responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on their ethical obligations, was terminated by Pam Bondi in July 2025. So, the ethics office that “approved” Blanche’s convention appearance is the same ethics office that was purged, and rebuilt under an administration that has fired employees for refusing to lie in court and lost 16,000 employees in the process. Pardon me if that assurance isn’t worth much.

Despite its unprecedented nature, none of this is surprising, exactly. Blanche spent months performing for an audience of one to secure the AG job, who introduced himself as Trump’s lawyer at his own confirmation hearing, and has former DOJ staff coming out of the woodwork saying he’s not upholding his oath of office. The convention speech is simply the next data point in a very consistent pattern: Blanche has hitched his wagon to Trump’s political star — at least he’s stopped pretending otherwise.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1

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Scott Bessent fails to break ‘fever’ in US bond market [FT]
Scott Bessent's bid to steady the $32tn US government debt market has backfired….

Bridgewater’s Jensen Says AI Will Kill People Before It’s Curbed [Bloomberg]
“Unfortunately, this is what it was like in February 2020,” [Greg] Jensen said, likening AI to the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. “Until the AI starts killing people, unfortunately, history would suggest we’re not going to do anything, but we are going to face that. That’s going to happen, and it’d be much better if we started dealing with it before then.”

OpenAI targets work of Wall Street junior bankers with new ChatGPT for Financial Services [CNBC]
“We’re effectively teaching ChatGPT to research like an analyst and back up its conclusions like an analyst as well,” [OpenAI vice president of product Nick] Turley said during a briefing announcing the new product….
What separates this version from the product it’s based on, ChatGPT Work, is native data access from LSEG, Daloopa and PitchBook that furnishes the system with things like financial statements and earnings transcripts as well as automated access to users’ existing data subscriptions.

Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried appeals conviction to Supreme Court [CNN]
The Supreme Court appeal, which was reviewed by CNN, raises a technical question about evidence that was submitted at his trial, and whether Bankman-Fried should have been permitted to demonstrate that his investments were ultimately sound and would have covered any losses by FTX customers.
He also argues that the $11 billion forfeiture violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines.

Sept. 11 Changed the World Order. But Not for the Reason We May Think. [WSJ]
Consumed by the War on Terror, the U.S. had less capacity to address other global priorities such as the pivotal rise of China and an increasingly hostile Russia. That inattention to shifting global forces was what really changed the world….
America’s failure to address the dislocation resulting from China’s rise fed another post-9/11 fracture in the world order: anger in America toward globalization…. This discontent contributed to an undercurrent of isolationism and nativism, helping fuel the rise of Donald Trump’s America First movement.

Though Nolan took the ancient Greek adherence to Zeus’s law in his own direction for the film, it had powerful historical implications in real life. Ancient Greeks’ religion told them that gods regularly walked among humans incognito, dressed as travelers or beggars. Kindness could be handsomely rewarded. On the other hand, nastiness might be brutally punished.

The benefits of adhering to Zeus’s law were not limited to matters of divine judgment. A good host could expect human guests to be respectful, to not take advantage of the host’s hospitality or overstay their welcome, and to reciprocate the generosity they were shown in the future.

Tons of major religions have their own version of Zeus’s law. It’s not so dissimilar from Jesus Christ’s admonition (ye olde fancy edition), “[a]nd as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” The idea that gods disguise themselves to test humanity is not unique to the ancient Greeks either, though I must say that the Norsemen of myth really seemed a bit thick in figuring out that all those cloaked, one-eyed old men were really Odin.

Unfortunately, nobody fears divine retribution today. Obviously, modern access to objective, provable reality cuts pretty strongly against the proposition that a god or gods directly intervene to punish or reward humans here on earth, yet I don’t really even think that’s at the bottom of it. For instance, it seems that many of the people who claim to be the strongest believers in Jesus are quite certain that they will not be punished for simply ignoring everything he actually taught.

The practical consequences of being a total dick are not what they once were, either. Upward social mobility has nearly ground to a halt in the U.S. Someone who is gratuitously nasty to a poor person can be pretty confident that the victim isn’t going to unexpectedly rise to power and then settle some scores. Likewise, the message has been crystal clear for at least the past decade that nobody’s going to repay kindness in the future if you yourself fall on hard times. In Trump’s America, you are on your own.

Is there any hope of reversing this sad decline? Well, I suppose we can all try in our own little ways to reignite the rapidly cooling coals of kindness in the world, but only one group of people could easily bring back the fear of godlike justice being meted out in everyday circumstances: billionaire oligarchs.

Think about it: What if instead of spending so much time watching the rocket scientists they hired fire giant phalluses into the sky, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk threw on disguises and wandered skid row for a few weeks? Without even noticing a tiny difference in their net worth, almost like magic, they could bestow such marvels as healthcare, decent housing, and quality sustenance on the dozens they’d surely encounter who offered even a modest kindness.

Those who denied undercover billionaires basic human decency might find themselves facing a frivolous lawsuit (as opposed to the journalists and critics billionaires normally weaponize the justice system against). Hey, these rich douchebags might even themselves undergo a Scrooge-like transformation in the course of interacting with some of the struggling people they seem to have forgotten they share the world with.

Sadly, I think the billionaires are going to remain above us rather than among us for the time being. Neither powerful men nor clandestine gods are here to incentivize decent behavior. So, whether you call it Zeus’s law, the Golden Rule, or something else, I guess it’s up to all of us to try to follow it simply because we want to.

Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

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The next question is what happens to the relationship with outside counsel. Corporations increasingly have access to many of the same AI capabilities as law firms, making general legal knowledge more readily available to both clients and firms.

Businesses pay the bills for Biglaw. As they reengineer their legal departments around AI, the ripple effects may be profound.

Corporations will continue to rely on firms for specialist knowledge, credibility, capacity, and judgment. Work that is a distraction or where the organization lacks experience will still be sourced to firms.

Firms will continue to be trusted for bet-the-company litigation, strategic work, and important M&A activity. Political air cover and the “insurance” of outside experts will remain standard practice. Saving fees doesn’t matter if litigation is lost or a deal falls through.

Think of a seesaw. On one side is the specialized expertise and judgment of a law firm, and on the other side are clients rethinking their law departments.

Here are three likely power shifts that tilt the seesaw toward clients.

The Battle Over Context

Corporations are notorious for losing institutional memory amid organizational changes and employee turnover, but AI can change that. A corporation with mastery of its information can develop context for its business and decision-making.

Additionally, the same AI can understand the law, spot legal issues, develop alternatives, and even provide what amounts to legal advice. Clients may no longer need to engage a firm for many of the basics. They can have AI informed by their data.

As general legal knowledge becomes more readily available through AI, proprietary context becomes more valuable for both the client and the firm.

A company may now know why it accepted a particular clause two years ago and how the decision was made, eliminating the need to seek counsel when negotiating the same clause again.

When outside counsel is engaged, expertise and judgment can be scoped more narrowly. Issue identification for an employment dispute over executive compensation might be drafted in-house. The advice from an employment law partner could be framed to review the identified issues and alternatives, and then draw on their experience and judgment from similar situations. The client might complete the work traditionally done by an associate.

From OCGs To Harnesses

Law firms are governed by Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCGs). In addition to billing guidance, OCGs increasingly focus on how work gets done and when automation is expected. What if clients directed more of the systems that law firms use?

What if firms were required to perform certain work within a client-controlled research environment, perhaps by leveraging a client instance of a legal research service? The client could gain additional insights into how the work was done, including search strategies and the AI prompts used to approach the matter. That information could help with risk assessment and decision-making. It would also become part of the client’s institutional knowledge so future matters have greater context.

The same could hold true for workflows defined by the client using its preferred AI platform, or legal operating system, as some vendors call their platforms. Think Claude for Enterprise, Harvey, Eudia, or other solutions.

In the future, panel participants might be required to use a “legal operating system” to complete work.

In AI, a harness is the surrounding infrastructure that constrains and directs a model’s operation. Perhaps OCGs evolve into something resembling Outside Counsel Harnesses (OCHs), defining not just billing rules but the technology and processes that firms must use to perform the work.

Matter information already travels with a lateral between firms to put the client first. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the matter information to just stay with the client in the first place?

This may be jolting for law firms, and to be fair, there would be much to think through. There will be situations where a firm has proprietary know-how and shouldn’t expect to give it up. Complicated situations, such as multiparty litigation, would pose challenges too. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that all work becomes controlled by the client, but the seesaw may tilt more in that direction.

The very expertise that clients rely upon may atrophy if firms can’t benefit from the knowledge gained on a matter, too. That’s not good for anyone. It’s also in clients’ interest for firms to retain their ability to specialize.

In the future, clients will require firms to conform even more closely to their preferences regarding how work is completed.

Legal Operating Systems As Marketplaces

Amazon’s retail business collects information about what products flow through it. As a result, Amazon-branded products, from batteries and ibuprofen to sofas and golf balls, can be purchased alongside brand names. Amazon knows which private-label items it can deliver profitably and which to leave to others.

Vendors that pursue legal operating systems may have a similar opportunity. The first step is straightforward. What if legal operating systems incorporate features for RFPs and panel management? Clients might bid their work out to panel firms through those platforms.

The second step is more interesting. The platform could see which categories of work are being purchased, how much they cost, and potentially how efficiently they are completed. Then comes the Amazon question. If the platform can identify legal services that can be delivered predictably and profitably, why merely facilitate the transaction? A vendor might eventually offer its own or affiliated legal services. Depending on the jurisdiction and regulatory structure, that could involve an MSO, affiliated legal provider, or other structure.

That would raise significant questions about professional independence, fee-sharing, conflicts of interest, and regulation.

The Limits Of Client-Directed Work

If legal operating systems and marketplace features take hold, there would be a practical limit to how many can serve the market. It would be impractical for law firms to learn a dozen different production environments for their clients. Client confidentiality, portability of work, conflict checks, and safeguarding the law firm’s intellectual property are just a few of the broader implications, not to mention the ethical considerations. Interoperability may be needed between platforms.

The most consequential impact of the reimagined law department may ultimately be control over institutional memory. Organizing internal data for AI means that each request, exception, negotiation, and outcome can inform the next one.

That creates more than efficiency. It creates buying power. The future law department won’t do everything itself. It will still need exceptional outside lawyers. But increasingly, the client may own the environment, the context, and the institutional intelligence through which legal work gets done. The firms will continue to provide expertise, while the client increasingly owns the system.

AI was used in the creation of this article.

Ken Crutchfield has over forty years of experience in legal, tax, and other industries. Throughout his career, he has focused on growth, innovation, and business transformation. His consulting practice advises investors, legal tech startups and others. As a strategic thinker who understands markets and creating products to meet customer needs, he has worked in start-ups and large enterprises. He has served in General Management capacities in six businesses. Ken has a pulse on the trends affecting the market. Whether it was the Internet in the 1980s or Generative AI, he understands technology and how it can impact business. Crutchfield started his career as an intern with LexisNexis and has worked at Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, Dun & Bradstreet, and Wolters Kluwer. Ken has an MBA and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University.

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Oil surges 5%, Brent and US crude both over $100 on more tanker attacks [Reuters via Yahoo!]
"With prospects for a definitive resolution to the Iran conflict dimmed and Brent crude prices recently topping $100 for the first time since July, crude oil markets are now settling into a prolonged new normal where disruption risk is persistent, not episodic," a new analysis by S&P Global Energy showed.

The IPO That Asks You to Buy AI Hype Today and Get Paid Years Later [WSJ]
“The earnings pattern sucks for a typical developer,” said Ted Brandt, chief executive of Marathon Capital, a clean-energy-focused investment bank. Development can take years and requires a lot of upfront expenses, meaning a company can post years of losses before the asset starts generating cash, he said…. The long development timelines mean the company could be burning cash and reporting losses for some time.

Energy Transfer Switches Listing to Texas From NYSE [Bloomberg]
It would be the biggest company to swap its primary listing location to Texas from New York…. Energy Transfer… has an approximately $75 billion market capitalization….

Nasdaq invests $100 million in Kraken parent, eyeing 2027 launch of ‘tokenized’ stock trading [CNBC]
[Kraken parent] Payward will also adopt Nasdaq’s market-surveillance technology across its trading venues, including crypto and tokenized equities, as the Kraken exchange looks beyond cryptocurrencies to move into stocks, derivatives and other traditional financial products in an attempt to turn its crypto exchange into a broader, multi-asset trading platform.

Foldable Phones Are Unpopular. Why Is Apple Selling One? [NYT]
“Whenever something is exclusive, limited and luxurious, automatically consumer psychology wants it,” said Nabila Popal, a director at IDC, a market research firm. “It’s like handbags. Why is someone buying a Chanel versus that? It’s not because of the leathers. It’s to show that they have a Chanel and they can afford it.”

“Generally resist this provision.”

“Accept if commercially reasonable.”

“Escalate material deviations.”

“Use judgment.”

A human lawyer can often work with that language. An AI agent cannot, at least not reliably. “Use judgment” is not an executable instruction.

As B2B agents begin participating in contract negotiations, companies will need playbooks designed for machines as well as people. That does not mean converting a Word document into a database. It means making the company’s actual contracting logic explicit enough that an agent can follow it, recognize its limits, and know when to stop.

Consider a familiar negotiation issue: limitation of liability. A conventional playbook might identify the company’s preferred cap, offer one or two fallback positions, and instruct the negotiator to escalate anything materially less favorable.

But what counts as material? Does the answer change based on transaction value, data sensitivity, the type of service, or the counterparty’s importance? Can the negotiator trade a higher cap for stronger insurance obligations? Who may approve the exception? Does an uncapped obligation require escalation in every case, or are there recognized exceptions?

Experienced lawyers often know the answers, even when the playbook does not contain them. They have negotiated similar deals, understand the company’s risk tolerance, and know which exceptions have been approved before. They also recognize when the business context makes an otherwise acceptable term dangerous.

An agent needs those connections stated.

A machine-usable playbook requires structured positions, fallbacks, limits, and approval requirements. It should identify the company’s preferred position, the range an agent may negotiate independently, the factors that change that range, and the point at which human approval becomes necessary.

It must also capture relationships among terms. Contract provisions rarely operate in isolation. A company might accept a different indemnity position if the liability cap changes, or permit broader data use if the data is sufficiently deidentified. An agent following clause-by-clause instructions could produce an agreement in which every individual term appears acceptable while the combined risk is not.

The harder challenge is capturing tacit exceptions. Many legal teams rely on unwritten rules that sound like this: “We normally accept that language, except for strategic vendors,” or “Legal approves these provisions, unless Security has concerns.” Those rules may work because the same experienced people apply them repeatedly.

Agents will expose how fragile that arrangement is.

This is not necessarily bad news. Preparing playbooks for agents may finally force companies to improve playbooks for everyone. Vague standards, conflicting policies, missing approval paths, and undocumented exceptions already create inconsistent negotiations. Human lawyers compensate for those weaknesses through experience, memory, and internal relationships. New team members, outside counsel, and business partners may struggle with them too.

The goal should not be to encode every possible negotiation outcome. Contracts are too contextual, and genuine judgment cannot be reduced to a very large decision tree. The better objective is to define where the organization has made a repeatable decision and where it has not.

That distinction matters. Agents can handle repeatable decisions when the company has established clear boundaries. Novel, consequential, or highly contextual decisions should remain visible as such and move to a person with the appropriate authority.

In-house teams can begin by examining their most frequently used playbooks. Look for words such as “reasonable,” “material,” “standard,” “significant,” and “generally.” Each may conceal a decision that humans understand differently. Ask what facts determine the answer, what range is acceptable, and what triggers escalation.

The exercise is not really about teaching agents how to negotiate. It is about discovering whether the company understands its own negotiating positions well enough to teach anyone.

B2B agents will need contracting playbooks. Creating them may reveal that many legal teams have been operating without complete playbooks all along.

Olga V. Mack is the CEO of TermScout, where she builds legal systems that make contracts faster to understand, easier to operate, and more trustworthy in real business conditions. Her work focuses on how legal rules allocate power, manage risk, and shape decisions under uncertainty. A serial CEO and former General Counsel, Olga previously led a legal technology company through acquisition by LexisNexis. She teaches at Berkeley Law and is a Fellow at CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics.She has authored several books on legal innovation and technology, delivered six TEDx talks, and her insights regularly appear in Forbes, Bloomberg Law, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Above the Law. Her work treats law as essential infrastructure, designed for how organizations actually operate.

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