One of the small rituals of law firm life is that attorneys frequently send exit emails to the colleagues they leave behind on their last day of work. These emails are usually warm, funny, and help attorneys leave positive impressions that might serve them well as they move throughout their careers. During my time at four different … Read more
Life can be strange sometimes. When I started writing this column I had a few expectations of what I might encounter. A few gossipy scandals, some crazy tales from document review projects, and one or two commenters encouraging me to commit suicide. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least not for the pages of ATL. But I never … Read more
AI has been taking the “y” out of “your” work product for years now. As courts succumb to the apparent inevitability of AI being used to collaborate on briefs, they’ve shared some pretty reasonable expectations with the lawyers who use ChatGPT or whatever LLM is en vogue to do their jobs. First and foremost, you … Read more
As soon as Donald Trump took office, he made it loud and clear that he was going to go bigly on immigration enforcement. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, demanded a daily quota of 3,000 immigration-related arrests. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have increased their social media … Read more
As of today, John Sarcone III is out of a job. The former regional administrator for the US General Services Administration and town attorney in Westchester County was appointed to a 120-day term as interim U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York by Pam Bondi, and in order to keep the job, he needed … Read more
Most litigators need to travel for court conferences, depositions, site inspections, and other events during the life of a lawsuit. Depending on the type of appearance, a lawyer might spend more time traveling to attend an event than at the appearance itself. While many lawyers bill for travel time in some fashion, I have encountered vastly different … Read more
(Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Last week, attorney Andrew Lattarulo was on his way home from Aruba when his iPhone 15 Pro Max was seized by Homeland Security and Border Control agents at Boston Logan International Airport. Perhaps un-coincidentally, Lattarulo is a well-known immigration in the Boston area — his … Read more
Every seasoned litigator knows sometimes you have a bad day in court, but this is really, really bad. Because whatever fresh hell is currently unfolding inside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, where the vibes are so rancid that a federal judge literally had a prosecutor shown the door mid-hearing, is … Read more
(Image from Getty) Assistant US attorney Rudy Renfer recently came under fire for a series of blunders. Not only did he manage to file a response that was replete with AI-generated quotes and faulty case holdings, a judge held that he made false or misleading statements about how they got in there. The shoddy work, … Read more
Texas attorney Fangzhou Chen, aka Amber Chen, was charged in federal court with cyberstalking and transmitting threatening communications. Chen allegedly sent 25 unsubstantiated online tips to the FBI National Threat Operations Center and engaged in a campaign of online harassment directed at an unnamed Biglaw partner based in New York as well as a Biglaw associate … Read more