Amy Coney Barrett Wants Her Cake And To Enact Sweeping Constitutional Rewrites Too

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Joe Patrice: Welcome to another edition of Thinking Like a Lawyer. I’m Joe Patrice from Above The Law.

Kathryn Rubino: Hi, Joe Patrice.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. You have heard the interjections of Kathryn Rubino and Chris Williams. We are here all to discuss as we do every week, the big stories and legal of the week before that we covered here at Above The Law and with all of that introductory stuff said, I mean most of you have, I assume long time listeners–

(Voice Overlap)

Joe Patrice: New listeners, welcome. Everyone else, you know the drill. That means we begin with some talks so that we can seem like we’re normal people. Small talk. We just came out of a holiday weekend. Everybody good on that. No one was like stuck at Burning Man or anything.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, unlike former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, I did not get stuck at Burning Man so points for me.

Joe Patrice: I did see Katyal was stuck there and that’s former guest of the show actually, so good to see he’s okay.

Chris Williams: I didn’t have one of my spinny multicolored fan hat. So I wasn’t able to attend this year.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. Yeah, Burning Man, so.

Chris Williams: The real tragedy was not the rains that made the ground money. It was that hat.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Chris Williams: I don’t know if they’re a fashion police at Burning Man, but arrests should have been made.

Kathryn Rubino: There are definitely not but I’ve seen lots of pictures throughout the years. But for those wondering what we’re talking about, there was a story this week that former Solicitor General Neal Katyal, current Hogan Lovells’ partner was at Burning Man and he posted a picture of himself wearing a multicolored spinning top beanie or hat of some sort that is attached to the story. So you should definitely check that out to get the visual, the true point of what we’re looking about here.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. I mean, Burning Man is a vibe.

Chris Williams: Okay, we have to retire the word vibe now.

Joe Patrice: I mean, I don’t (00:02:20). Why would you retire the word vibe?

Kathryn Rubino: Because you used it.

Chris Williams: You used it.

Kathryn Rubino: Utterly uncool.

Chris Williams: Yes.

Joe Patrice: Oh, we’re declaring that mere usage by me–

Kathryn Rubino: That is what you say.

Joe Patrice: Okay.

Chris Williams: Which is a high bar. I mean, it has been — I mean, you are like a decade by using vibes. So you know, there’s some age. Once it becomes related to Joe Patrice.

Joe Patrice: What are you talking? A vibe has been a word always. Like it’s always been a word.

Kathryn Rubino: It has increased in popularity over the last like three years, right? You know that.

Joe Patrice: I mean–

Kathryn Rubino: That’s why you’re using it, right?

Joe Patrice: I mean, it’s been in headlines of mine dating back three years. I’m looking at one now. I’ve been doing — yeah, now, that is not a —

Chris Williams: We know. Did you just literally–

(Voice Overlap)

Joe Patrice: It is a slang. Suggests to me that you’re all behind.

Chris Williams: Joe, you just literally date a real time vibe check.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williams: Do you get it now?

Joe Patrice: Yeah. No, it seems to me as though you are all just behind on the times since I’ve been doing this for years. So once again, I’m the one with my finger on the pulse of the youth and culture?

Chris Williams: Yeah.

Joe Patrice: The rest of you do the stuff you do.

Kathryn Rubino: That’s probably what’s Happening here.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Chris Williams: Well, kids, how was your weekend?

Kathryn Rubino: My weekend was great, hang out with some friends, enjoyed the fall-like weather for the first real weekend of college football. That’s something I personally enjoy quite a bit. Watched Deion Sanders revolutionize the Colorado football program.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: That’s what I did.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, that was wild.

Kathryn Rubino: I tell you, I don’t know that I thought for sure that Deion would win in his opening game against the runners-up to the National Championship from last year TCU. I didn’t necessarily think that he would win, but they think they were 21-point underdogs go into the game and I was like, there’s no way. Deion Sanders losses by 21 points.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. They’re going to beat that spread for sure. But yeah, no, I’m big win. That was exciting.

Kathryn Rubino: It was an exciting game for sure. What did you do Chris?

Chris Williams: On to the beach.

Kathryn Rubino: Oh. Like it’s a real summer thing.

Chris Williams: Yeah. Yeah. And it was real hot to contrast the water which was frigid for some reason.

Kathryn Rubino: Welcome to the beaches in the Northeast.

Chris Williams: Yeah. I was thinking I’m used to beaches in like — because I’m thinking I’m at the beaches I was at before that were out of the country. So, like this is my welcome back to the states though.

Kathryn Rubino: Growing up, we always went to the Jersey Shore and the water is definitely like ice picks into your feet.

Chris Williams: Yeah, it was it was brick out. There was one point we’re like we had some water and like, you know, those sparkling juice bottles, the glass ones.

(00:05:00)

And we decided to fill up with water and it got hot. So I had the bright idea of seeing if I could just put it in the ocean for a little bit to cool down. So I was just a goof ball with a glass bottle in the ocean. It didn’t work but it was still a nice excuse getting out of house. We went to Chicken Bone Beach in Atlantic City. It was the formerly segregated part of the beach, hence the name. it’s because they didn’t allow black people to eat on the boardwalk so they bring their own food and they didn’t have — the cleaning folks didn’t really take care of the beach. There will be chicken bones. But yeah, it was a nice speech.

Kathryn Rubino: Sounds awesome. How about you Joe?

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no, i watched sports just like you did. Very exciting times on getting some technical errors on my computer and I just want to make sure that those weren’t going to debilitate the show but they seem like they’re not going to, so–

Kathryn Rubino: The thing you can multitask like that.

Joe Patrice: Well, I mean, it could have been single tasking if it was going to spear up the podcast so felt like it was terrific.

Kathryn Rubino: I appreciate that.

Joe Patrice: All right. Well, with that all finished, we will transition to our topics. The first topic of the week, what are we want to do? I guess Amy Coney Barrett had some things to say. We’ll kick off with some Supreme Court talk.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. Amy Coney Barrett gave some comments at a seventh circuit gathering. And she notably did not talk about the ethics quandary that the court finds himself with — finds himself in with her colleagues, mostly Clarence Thomas, but also Samuel Alito and a little bit John Roberts, but she didn’t talk about that at all. What she did mention though was talking about how she thought it was less than ideal that the Supreme Court justices are now sort of public figures. She talked fondly about when she was a clerk of the court which was in the late 90s, that people who would be visiting the Supreme Court would ask the justices to like take their picture. Not that they wanted a picture of the justices but rather, can you take my picture because you know, it’s pre-selfie days and they didn’t recognize that it was in fact a Supreme Court justice because they weren’t recognizable like that.

And she said that she thinks that’s better. I don’t think justices should be recognizable in that sense which is whoa, a lot. I mean, it says a lot that she wants the Supreme Court to be in that kind of level of obscurity when these are nine unelected people who have the ability to radically transform the rights and duties of people in this nation, right? I don’t think that that’s a job that you get to do and hide behind obscurity.

Joe Patrice: They’re the highest officers of one branch of government. One would assume–

Kathryn Rubino: We should know who they are.

Joe Patrice: You should know who they are. And I also, I actually kind of — I called BS on her whole logic that they weren’t recognizable. You know like, yeah, there were — I’m sure a lot of people didn’t know what suit looked like but there were some grandstanding justices at that point who were very aggressively making it known what they look like.

Kathryn Rubino: I mean, I think particularly when you’re talking about people who are deciding to visit the Supreme Court, they probably are folks who have a higher sense of who the justices are. But I do imagine that justices probably could operate in public without that sort of notoriety, right? I think that without sort of a robe or even necessarily formal clothes on, even someone like Scalia probably could go grocery store shopping without being stopped constantly.

Joe Patrice: Yeah, maybe.

Kathryn Rubino: Probably. You know, if you put him not in a suit and in that context, it’s entirely possible that people wouldn’t recognize him. I think that that’s  fair but it’s not fair to say that Supreme Court — that it’s somehow better that justices should be allowed to do that. It’s not like she thinks that the President should be able to operate in obscurity, right? That’s also the highest figure in entire branch of government. And I don’t think that it’s fair to say the other. And she went on to say that — which you talked about sort of the failing popularity and approval rating of the Supreme Court and she said that that was created by — that what that did was create misimpressions of what the court does.

Joe Patrice: Oh, okay.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah, yeah. No. I mean, obviously, it’s not a misimpression to say that the Supreme Court took away rights in the Dobbs decision.

Joe Patrice: It’s created an accurate impression, possibly the first time. I want to go back to this recognizability thing because there’s a couple of angles to this that are worth exploring a little bit further. One of which is if her complaint is the security issue, that also came up in the news last week which is that Clarence Thomas finally disclosed that he took some private plane trips paid for by Harlan Crow. Notably, he only told us about ones that happened post Dobbs, post Dobbs leak I should say.

(00:10:04)

Are those the first ones he ever took? Almost certainly not. But those were the ones that he disclosed and then he spitefully informed us all that the reason we did it, he had to do that was because, you know, after the Dobbs leak–

Kathryn Rubino: What a fantastic descriptor that you used there spitefully because I think that the justifications that Thomas put in his disclosure was absolutely spiteful.

Joe Patrice: Right? And it was because the idea of course, one, the opinion was going to come out eventually anyway. So it has nothing to do with the leak. That’s the part that constantly gets me is this–

(Voice Overlap)

Kathryn Rubino: It just changes when people knew about the decision, not their reaction to the decision.

Joe Patrice: It’ just ingenuous bullshit where they act like–

Kathryn Rubino: Right. It was literally one month. It was a month difference.

Joe Patrice: So put that to one side. But his argument is that he takes money from billionaires who have business tangentially before the court, if not directly in front of the court because we make him. Because it’s our fault that that has to happen.

Kathryn Rubino: Keep on blaming.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. Really, really bad. But to the extent and also, as Ellie Mystal, former co-host of the show pointed out on TV last week, if that’s the argument, then we should as taxpayers, demand back all the money that Congress allotted to them for security last year because there was a bit — this was the reason why the Supreme Court demanded more money from the government for security because they blame this Dobbs thing and if the 700 billion or million or whatever we threw — million we threw in for that is not getting the job done, then we should get it back.

(00:11:45)

So if she is making this argument that it was better to be in obscurity because it allowed them to avoid security concerns, yeah, great. Well, you’ve chosen a life as the leader of a branch of government, so sorry. But the second point that I think is more worth focusing in on, is that, you know, sometimes these, in argumentation, you can assume — you can kind of assume and imply an impact where there isn’t really one and you need to kind of state out what it is. When she says it was better when we operated in obscurity, the question, then it really is begged why? But why do you think you were better in obscurity? Do you think that you made decisions better in obscurity? Because that isn’t something that anybody seems to be saying. So really what you’re saying is you didn’t want to ever be blamed for making the wrong decision.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

Joe Patrice: Which flies in the face of the whole concept of having judges. They’re supposed to be out there and notable to the extent that they stand by these things if they believe in them and they believe it is right, then that is what they do. Obviously with all the security concerns that we rightfully have given the money to deal with, like this idea that they should be able to pass judgment silently is really a problem because then that’s the implied issue because she kind of says, “Oh, it’s better when we weren’t being –”she kind of implies being harassed but really what she’s talking about is she wants no accountability.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that you can also glean that attitude from when she talks about the misimpressions that people have based on an actual understanding of what’s going on. And I think it’s kind of this kind of bullshit that says, oh, the court is this perfect body that just calls balls and strikes and just — this is just what the law means and if you don’t think that, you’re wrong.

Joe Patrice: Right. And that’s what I’m trying to get at and I didn’t say it nearly as eloquently. Like the impact to what she’s saying like that she’s kind of leaving out there unsaid is that she believes in a world where accountability should not exist, where the justices should not be treated as though they have made a decision.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

Joe Patrice: They have merely reported what the Constitution says, they didn’t do anything, which is a lie and it’s an obvious one. That’s the part that’s problematic.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. I think that the obviousness cannot be overstated. There may be certain justices if you look throughout the course of the courts, that really kind of adhere to that world view and really do kind of try as best to not read politics on to these court decisions. But even if that was ever true, and I’m not sure it ever was, it is definitely not true of the current court and it’s definitely not true of Amy Coney Barrett’s jurisprudence.

Joe Patrice: I mean, there’s a reason there’s nine of them, right, as opposed to, man, obviously, that’s not fixed by the Constitution but as opposed to one. The reason why there is a panel is because it is assumed that there is not one glaringly correct answer all the time and that someone would have to — I’m going to use bold term here, judge, what the result would be.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

(00:15:00)

Joe Patrice: And given that–

Kathryn Rubino: Judgment is inherently subjective.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. And that accountability needs to go with that and it’s really frightening that this is the way people feel that they can talk in public.

Kathryn Rubino: Absolutely. And it also waves away the legitimate complaints that her fellow justices have raised about the court’s current trajectory like saying that it’s somebody who doesn’t understand the workings of the court when they criticize the court. Do you think that Elena Kagan doesn’t understand the court? She’s been on it a lot longer than you have.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. I mean, that’s just, you know, it’s just what happens when you put people who probably should not be on courts on courts.

Kathryn Rubino: For a lifetime.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. Anyway–

Chris Williams: i do want to say I do think it is interesting that it is an anomaly, the celebrity that American judges have like for example, say, most members — I spoke with people in Canada don’t know the members of their Supreme Court. So like I do get that, you know, this was her way of saying, “I sure do wish we didn’t have accountability” but I do find it interesting at looking at like the cult of personality that surrounds our jurists, that she’s hating on a problem that is her fault. I mean, like when I heard — not her fault in particular, but she is attending public events where like there was  a– trying to talk about how there is not clearly by suspicions happening where they are. You know, It’s a weird move to be a figurehead of the popularity of the court and also want to abstain from it. And other countries that do it differently, but that sounds interesting.

Joe Patrice: Well, I mean part of it is, of course, is parliamentary systems don’t nearly — it don’t give nearly as much power generally speaking to Supreme Courts because the government is arguably more accountable at all times. You can change both the executive and legislature at the same time theoretically, but it’s true and look, a lot of people still can’t recognize Supreme Court justices. That’s the other part of this. This is so ridiculous. We are talking about, it’s not that more people recognize now versus before, it’s always been a small segment of the population. It’s just that more of that segment of the population is angry right now because she’s blowing paths that large swaths of the American population don’t know anything about any of the stuff.

Kathryn Rubino: Sure.

Joe Patrice: They have a hard time recognizing presidents, so.

Kathryn Rubino: Right.

Joe Patrice: Anyway.

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[Music]

Joe Patrice: All right, well, let’s do some sandwiching so that we don’t have to keep talking about the Supreme Court. Big law conversation.

Kathryn Rubino: Yes. Yes. The chair at Crowell & Moring sent out an email to everyone. Some might argue, bragging about his summer vacation. He took two weeks’ vacation and wrote to everybody about it saying that it was actually a good thing that he took a vacation, that it was hard to unplug because you kind of feel like you are so important to the workings of your case and in his case, to the operation of the firm as a whole. But that it’s important to unplug to rely on your colleagues to get the work done and when you come back, you’re actually better at your job. But a lot of folks at the firm we heard from, complaining about the email saying that it was bragging, that younger attorneys at the firm, associates, younger partners did not feel like they have the ability to take those sort of two weeks off and go out and take the time off. And it was tone deaf to say that as the leader of the firm I can do this when you clearly can’t.

And I think that I’m sympathetic to that world view and I think that if you were in the middle of a run of cases or deals or whatever, where you’re really churning out the hours, where you know, it looks like you will never have two minutes to yourself or six minutes as the case maybe to yourself ever again, that having somebody be like, well, I just took two weeks of vacation. You might feel a certain way in response. But I kind of took the take that I think this was offered with the best possible of intentions.

(00:20:02)

And I think that what the leadership of the firm is trying to do is say that it’s important for all of us to take two weeks’ vacation. The only way that a junior associate feels like they’re able to unplug for two weeks is when they see modeled by leaders of the firm, you know, all the way down, you’re up the chain as the case may be and I think that it’s important to say that this is something we value. Look, at even the most important lawyers at the firm are doing it, you should do it too.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. I kind of took that read of it too. Like I just think back to when I was an associate like, yeah, you had four weeks of vacation and it was obvious you were never going to take four weeks, right? There was never a scenario where you were going to do that. Like at best, you took a day here and a day there. The idea of a senior attorney saying, “No, I don’t want you taking a day here or a day there. I’m actually going to go for two weeks and it’s good and it’s important that you do that.” That is valuable and it’s valuable because I’m sure the managing partner does not reflect what some practice group leaders believe, that some practice group leaders are going to be jerks about somebody saying they’re going to take two weeks off. And it’s important to say I’m doing the same thing that he did. I’m going to try to cover my work the same way he did. That’s valuable. So I did read it that way too.

Kathryn Rubino: I do too. And I think that this is a great first step. I think there are other things that firms can and some are doing in order to encourage folks to take those vacations. Some firms are allowing folks to count certain number of hours, maybe 40 hours of vacation time towards their billable hour requirement.  Obviously, that goes a step further in saying, this is something we — if we let you bill for it, it’s obvious something we care about you doing. So, I think that there is — there are more things that people can do, but I think this is a great step in that direction, saying, you know — and you know, we’ve talked about that I host another podcast and oftentimes talk to leaders of firm in a kind of a conversational way. And one thing I always wonder about is how do firm leaders know what it’s like for associates on the ground, right?

Because firm leaders, like this is what our firm does and it’s like that is not necessarily what first-year associate x life is like. You know, how do you go from what are stated goals and stated culture wants to be and how actual attorneys live their lives at your firm. And I think that there’s always going to be a gap between what you want and what the lived experience is but this modeling sort of behavior is one way to bridge that gap or at least start the process of bridging the gap. I don’t think any of it happens overnight.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. I think the next frontier is allowing it to count in your end of year billable totals. Everyone were assumed that say it was four weeks or whatever, if everyone was getting 40 hours that week or preferably 60, that counting as 60 or 80 or whatever when it comes to the final meeting of minimums, I think that go along. That’s a much stronger way of encouraging that I think.

Kathryn Rubino: Right. If the firms care about it, they’ll let you bill for it. That’s been true when certain firms let recruiting count for billable total. Some let diversity initiatives count towards your end of year totals. And that’s a way for the firm to say, “This is what we care about.”

Joe Patrice: You know, I worked at firms with two different models. One, you had it and it rolled over for the first six months and then you would lose it but you get more or whatever. But even if they’re like HR would count up your past ones and still give it to you if you really had a reason. Then the next place I worked had that same model but ultimately changed it to one that I understand the change and I welcomed the change but I think the change was somewhat problematic which was getting paid out for unused at the end of the year which it is useful to the extent that, you know, what good is having six weeks in your pocket if it’s all going to expire anyway to you. That said, it definitely set me on the incentive of why would I even — why would I try to make it two-week if I can get an extra week’s pay. So I mean, partially because I’m at the time still trying to pay off loans and all like that’s like a nice moment.

Kathryn Rubino: It’s a (00:24:43), yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. So it’s interesting. It’s a tough nut to crack. I agree with you, I think this guy was trying to–

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. I think that the intent was correct. I think that this sort of attitude towards–

(00:25:00)

And again, the email was not just, I took a vacation, you should too. It was saying things like, we have to all trust our co-workers and this is how you do it and I didn’t just take the time off, I unplugged. I didn’t respond to emails because it’s very different to really take even just a one week vacation versus a two-week vacation where you’re actually still billing six hours a day. Would you still a vacation from your normal? But it’s different mentally in your ability to recharge and come back as a better lawyer when it’s over. It’s just different.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: I think it was a good — I think it’s a good step for sure.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. No, like look, if you think that that it isn’t reflecting the lived experience, now you have something to cite. “I should be getting this time off. Look, the leadership says I should do.”

Kathryn Rubino: Right. Or you know, even saying to, I took a vacation but the partner — ex-partner constantly required me to do the following so I couldn’t do what feels suggested we do when truly unplugged because of this and it’s a good model to have out there at the firm.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. All right. So coming to the end here, Clarence Thomas’ former — a bunch of Clarence Thomas’ former clerks, not all of them, but the vast majority of them, put out an open letter in which they — I mean, they stood up for him in this ethical mess that he is in and talk about how he is unimpeachable which is probably the wrong choice of words as he is most definitely impeachable. But they should have said beyond reproach maybe. I don’t know. Like that’s actually the takeaway I had. There’s a lot of takeaways here. The idea that John Eastman who is on high likelihood of going to prison, that they let him sign this and federal judges like say, James Howe felt, yeah uncool having may name–

Kathryn Rubino: My name right next to Eastman.

Joe Patrice: Right. Next to Johnny.

Kathryn Rubino: This is–

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. And also, these are people fundamentally who have a vested interest in their association with the name Clarence Thomas meaning something good in the future.

Joe Patrice: Look, that said, at that point, and a lot of people have talked about this elsewhere, but like Judge Catterson(ph), they are notably absent from this. It’s almost as though they looked at it and said, “I’m not sure i want to be on a document with Johnny.”

Kathryn Rubino: I’m okay. I’m okay.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. But the other part of it that really got me and you know, Ho(ph) being an example of this too. But also there were people on there who have real careers as big law attorneys and all, its how badly written it was. Like that’s the part that got me like they were signing their name to something that read like a juvenile wrote it. You know, it sets up with this like flowery rejected from your high school literary magazine style, a conceit of we’re not going name Clarence Thomas in the first six paragraphs. I’m going to hint at him as this unspoken protagonist. Like, just really the stuff that like it was a dark and stormy night style, right? I already mentioned the going with unimpeachable when they should have gone with beyond reproach. If things were — it could have been resolved and there would have been no issue if someone had written a second draft like instead of just like–

Kathryn Rubino: Because yeah, somebody gets you to sign it.

Joe Patrice: It’s drunkenly typing out the first thing they thought and then going, let’s roll with it and somehow convincing a bunch of people to sign on to it anyway. Really, really crazy how bad this was. And, you know, it makes you think like you’re talking about Supreme Court Justice clerks who are always valued in the legal space for being, you know, you’ve learned to write to the highest level and apparently, not only does at least one of them, whoever be main author was, not know how to write. The rest of them don’t seem particularly interested in editing either. I don’t know like it — I’m just thinking if I were the person and somebody was attacking someone that I cared about their reputation and this letter crossed my desk, as the attorney in me, would have sent back a very, very detailed red line. It would have been a red line that was like in the–

Kathryn Rubino: Send in the red lines.

Joe Patrice: The red line to the extent where it might have outweighed the original black line, you know.

Kathryn Rubino: Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Patrice: I just — there’s a passive voice. It’s just oh so bad.

Kathryn Rubino: Not a great example of legal writing. And the other thing is, do you think the folks just signed it without really reading it too closely?

Joe Patrice: Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like, it’s something of this magnitude, right? You’re talking about–

Kathryn Rubino: It’s something you want.

Joe Patrice: Your (00:29:48) and mentor, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino: But also it’s something that’s designed to get attention, right? You don’t just sign this so it goes in some file somewhere. You sign this, it’s written so that people like you write stories about it.

Joe Patrice: Right.

(00:30:00)

Kathryn Rubino: They’re hoping it goes the other direction perhaps the tone of the story. But they want their name out there in the public conversation as taking a stance against the, you know, the questioning of their former boss, Clarence Thomas, they want to make a stand here and it’s a terrible step.

Joe Patrice: I thought about that. I thought a lot about it’s the sentencing the most is something that I have a lot of experience in having done a lot of white color defense, writing them as well as I often was brought in to edit ones that other people had written. And you know, it’s a fine line because obviously when you’re asking for leniency, you want to humanize the defendant, the now convicted or usually pleaded defendant. But you also, you can’t lean so much on humanizing that it becomes kind of a glaring red flag that you’re ignoring what’s the substance is. You know, like and that was always a balance and you would see the sentencing them as the other firms would put in for their, you know, our co-defendants and stuff. And you’d roll your eyes like these, like 30 pages of all of the saintly charity work that they started doing immediately after they became a target of the investigation. All of that being 30 pages and then like five pages of and, you know, hey, we did some bad stuff. People see that discrepancy.

You have to kind of be up front about what you did wrong and how it has impacted you going forward and why that therefore requires you not to get to this sentence and you use the humanization to like tell that story, but you can’t let it be this chunk of stuff that is independent of the story and act like that stuff means you don’t — and you don’t get sentenced. That’s what this red like to me. When I read it, it’s like two-thirds of the document is just Clarence Thomas had such a hard life growing up and he’s so cool and he was so nice to all of us and he was such a warm and loving leader and blah, blah, blah, one paragraph. And you know, people are accusing him of stuff, but we don’t think that he would ever do anything wrong. Anyway, here’s signatures. And that’s one of those — that’s what I thought of. Like it was one of those bad sentencing memos. Like the sentencing memo that says, “Oh, this guy’s totally guilty.” Those are the ones where, you know, you don’t get the request to go to the club fed prison camp, you know. Yeah. Anyway, that was my personal take when I read it. But yeah, very bad. We don’t know which of them wrote it. Several of us on Twitter or X or whatever now, made clear that we have guesses. All of us kept coming back to one person, one of the clerks but we’ll see. Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe it’ll be like the Dobbs thing.

Kathryn Rubino: The world may never know.

Joe Patrice: Maybe it’ll be like the Dobbs leak that the leader did or that we also don’t know who did it.

Kathryn Rubino: So not like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

(Voice Overlap)

Joe Patrice: Yeah. All right.

Kathryn Rubino: Another week in legal news in the books.

Joe Patrice: All right. Thanks everybody for listening. You should subscribe to the show so you get new episodes when they come out. You should leave reviews, do stars, write things. That all helps people see it. You should be reading Above the Law so you see these and more stories as they come out. You can follow all of us on the socials. It’s ATL blog. I’m Joseph Patrice at Twitter and Joe Patrice at Blue Sky. Kathryn’s Kathryn 1 at both of those places. Chris is rightsforrent on the X. I don’t think he’s still probably not on Blue Sky is my guess.

Kathryn Rubino: Peace(ph)

Joe Patrice: No. No, not even close. Not even close.

Kathryn Rubino: Just mostly teasing you out.

Joe Patrice: Yeah. I try to pay just even the modicum of attention. Also you should check out The Jabot which Kathryn’s other show that she hosts.

Kathryn Rubino: Well yeah, you should.

Joe Patrice: I’m the guest on the Legal Tech Week Journalist Roundtable. Check out the other shows on the Legal Talk Network and with all of that now, I’m going to say that we are done.

Kathryn Rubino: Peace.

Joe Patrice: Sure.

[Music]

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