Collateral Damage Across The Legal Industry

Episode Notes

Transcript

Joe Patrice:

Hello. Welcome to another edition of Thinking Like a Lawyer. I’m Joe Patrice from Above the Law. I’m joined by my colleague, Kathryn Rubino Hey. And we come here every week to talk to you a little bit about the week that was in legal professional news.

Kathryn Rubino:

Indeed.

Joe Patrice:

But we begin as usual with a quick – Small

Kathryn Rubino:

Talk?

Joe Patrice:

Small talk. Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:

Do you want to do a done da da dun?

Joe Patrice:

I guess I have to. I’m still having trouble figuring out how to get the soundboard to work. I feel like it’s a victim of sabotage. I don’t know who would’ve done something like that.

Kathryn Rubino:

I assure you I have not had access to your computer or your soundboard. I don’t even know if those are separate. That’s how little I know about this operation. I am a full participant, but yeah, I don’t know that information, so probably not me.

Joe Patrice:

Likely story. So anyway… So

Kathryn Rubino:

Sad when you do it.

Joe Patrice:

Well, yeah, no, it is sad when I don’t have the ability to use my sounds. I like them so much. Anyway, well, why don’t you transition into – Small talk? Talking small.

Kathryn Rubino:

Talking small. I went to the movies this weekend, so that was

Joe Patrice:

A good

Kathryn Rubino:

Time. I saw live action Moana, which I don’t know, it’s kind of an interesting thing. I’ve never been a particularly large proponent of the live action genre of movie. It seems like a… Listen, I’m a Disney fan admittedly.

Joe Patrice:

Let’s clarify. It’s not that you hate live action movies. You hate these Disney remakes that are quasi-live action.

Kathryn Rubino:

Exactly that. Yeah. They remake the movie in an effort to get another kind of cash grab without having to pay new people to write songs and write scripts, et cetera, et cetera. It seems like a pretty easy way to just generate more revenue for the company. And I’ve never been a fan of it, to be honest. Still not a giant fan of the practice as a whole, but Moana is probably a perfect Disney movie and they remade it and my kid’s super into Moana. So we went to go see that was her first ever movie theater experience. I mean, she’s watched movies a lot, hence we know that she loves Moana. But in a theater, no, this was the first time we did that.

Joe Patrice:

How’d it go?

Kathryn Rubino:

Good, good. Yeah, she didn’t really act up at all. She went to the bathroom in the middle of it. She wasn’t upset that I couldn’t pause the movie, which is always a worry. She’s newly potty trained, so it’s always a worry, but that actually worked out really well. But I thought one of the interesting things, I had read some discourse online about it and people were upset because they’re like, “Oh, it’s a shot for shot remake of the cartoon.” They don’t really add any extra scenes. That is not, I think, completely fair to say. I think there were a couple of changes, but there’s no extra backstory or additional information in there. And some people are like, “That makes it worse.” And I was like, “That’s why it was a good version. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel.” I mean, I know they did that with some of the other movies, kind of closing some of the plotholes that people have been focused on.

For example, in the Little Mermaid one, the live action version ads an element where Ursula, part of the curse is that Ariel doesn’t know that she’s supposed to get kissed in three days so that she can’t sort of communicate that. So I guess it’s kind of a plothole that people have been talking about for years. They kind of close that up in the live action version. And maybe just because Moana, as I’ve said, is the perfect Disney movie and they didn’t have a need to do that, but I actually thought it was a superior version because they didn’t add anything to it.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. I mean, to be kind of legal about it, there’s a misconception that these new remakes extend the copyright life of the originals, which they don’t. They’re an independent work. However, it’s a little more complex than that because what prevents you from taking something that’s not in the public domain and messing with it is if it looks you’re taking something from the original, like the costumes and stuff and creating a character that is that can be a copyright issue. So when you make a new remake that pushes the gears out where the characters wear the same thing, you have not avoided say Snow White entering the public domain after those years, but you have now given yourself a bite at the apple to use a Snow White reference.

Kathryn Rubino:

Oh, you’re a big fan of No way.

Joe Patrice:

And it just seemed like, well, it’s the closest to entering public domain. You now have given yourself something of a bite at the apple to say that a future person trying to use that later public domain piece as the basis of something, you could say, “Oh, well, they’re copying off of our later remake actually.” So it’s a way in which you can kind of muddy the waters intellectual property-wise, even though you cannot, despite what some people say online, you cannot actually extend the copyright of the original.

Kathryn Rubino:

Sure. Well, I mean, online is pretty much known as the height of legal analysis.

Joe Patrice:

Right. But anyway – That’s

Kathryn Rubino:

Not surprising to me that the troll version of the law is not the actual version of the law.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. But let’s be fair, there’s a nugget of logic to what they’re saying in there.

Kathryn Rubino:

Yeah. And as what I was alluding to before, the legal issues that I always see is the contractual issues where when you are contracted with Disney to create a score, then Disney has the right to use that score and a whole bunch of different things, including a brand new movie without paying you any additional money than what your original amount was. Which listen, Lin Manuel Miranda is obviously one of the composers for Moana and he’s doing just fine. He’s got a long-term deal with Disney. It’s fine.

Joe Patrice:

And they usually with these, they bring back the composer to write an additional song. Right. So they can

Kathryn Rubino:

Be nominated for an Oscar.

Joe Patrice:

That’s correct. So they aren’t really getting out of it completely. They are paying to get

Kathryn Rubino:

Another song. More in terms of the script writers who are less famous tend to not get the same notoriety as the songwriters. But yeah, they did write a new song. That is something they did new for Moana, but it was in the credits, so it didn’t really affect the thing. But it was actually good, I though, because they brought back the original performer who did Moana, who’s well, too old to play a 16-year-old girl anymore

Joe Patrice:

15

Kathryn Rubino:

Years after the original came out. So they brought her back and did a duet with the current Moana who played in the movie to do a song as the closing credits were rolling. And I’m sure Lin-Manuel Miranda will be nominated for an Oscar and get his shot at closing that EGOT gap for

Joe Patrice:

Him. Yeah. All right. Well, we have now belabored this for a really long time, but because we had a little legal interlude in there, it almost qualifies as actual work content. Yeah. I mean,

Kathryn Rubino:

Listen, this is billable hours as they

Joe Patrice:

Said. Yeah, right. Okay. Well, actually, I’m going to do the thing where we’re going to take a break from small talk and take a real break here. Actual commercial break. Yeah, because we’ve gone on so long. All right, we’ll be right back. Da, da, da, da.

Kathryn Rubino:

That was worse. That was just sad.

Joe Patrice:

I mean, look, I’m doing what I can.

Kathryn Rubino:

You were also sad?

Joe Patrice:

What is sad?

Kathryn Rubino:

We talked about billable hours at the end of the last segment.

Joe Patrice:

Could you

Kathryn Rubino:

Imagine, just in your head, you’re an associate, you’re doing your thing, you’re billing your time, and someone tells you you have to review the last six months of your time entries.

Joe Patrice:

That sounds awful.

Kathryn Rubino:

That doesn’t sound like fun at all.

Joe Patrice:

Look, that actually sounds like the old days where we didn’t have the same kind of tracking software and you would often find yourself at the end of a two-week run going, “Oh wait, I need to enter my time for the last two weeks.” Which was horrible. I

Kathryn Rubino:

Was always on their list of people who had not entered time for the month and I’d be

Joe Patrice:

Like,

Kathryn Rubino:

Off. Wow. Wow, Sean’s fired.

Joe Patrice:

No, I’m shocked by that, I’m saying.

Kathryn Rubino:

No, you’re not. But yeah, and I used to have a notebook that I would write notes in and whatever to try to keep track. But even having to go back and kind of recreate, like you’re saying two weeks, three weeks ago, you’re like, “Oh my goodness, what does this mean? Could you imagine I have to go back to January? This is not just some hypothetical that I’ve come up with. This is because of the whole love Cadwallater merger as they’re moving over to an updated timekeeping system. All of the legacy Cadwaller timekeepers have to review six months worth of time entries to assure that they have not been corrupted, that they’re correct. So that’s not a great homework assignment that they have to do, which is also not billable. This administrative work is not actually billable, so that’s kind of double shitty.

Joe Patrice:

So it’s an issue of when two firms come together, we imagine that there will always be administrative issues with it, but we usually think of them as being redundancy of staff or conflicts – Layoffs and conflicts. Conflicts of interest. We do not often think of the fact that they have two different billing softwares that do not necessarily fold into each other correctly. And it’s even

Kathryn Rubino:

More insulting because I believe it’s actually the same system, but it’s slightly different proprietary versions that just aren’t speaking to each other perfectly. Listen, maybe this is, for some people, it might be a very quick little just double check kind of thing, but could you imagine if those February time entries are all jacked and you got to be like, “I don’t even know what I meant to say.”

Joe Patrice:

What’s extra confusing about it is one would’ve hoped that all of those bills have already been sent out. Right.

Kathryn Rubino:

Right.

Joe Patrice:

So you should be able to – Maybe

Kathryn Rubino:

It’s just to double check. We don’t have more details except that all of the timekeepers were given and were sent an email letting them know that this was on there to do. This is part of your July to – do list. So who knows the intricacies of why? But you would imagine bills go out more frequently than every six

Joe Patrice:

Months. Yeah, but there are markdowns on bills and stuff like that. Maybe they need the raw stuff because they do count the raw stuff for, you don’t count what actually goes out in the invoice for your bonuses. Yo count the actual –

Kathryn Rubino:

Isn’t there one firm that actually does it? It’s like they get bonuses based on the amount collected as opposed to which the associates have no

Joe Patrice:

Control

Kathryn Rubino:

Over, which is not great for –

Joe Patrice:

Yeah, that would be extra onerous. Billing is one of those categories that I’ve always… When I go to these legal tech conferences and see the software that they’re working with, I find fascinating and really do think that it is one of the aspects of this job that clearly benefits from technology. We have these providers who build packages that watch what you do on your screen, keep track of when you’re logged into things, keep track of when you’re on the phone. Obviously the surveillance aspect of it is unfortunate, but it does allow you to not find yourself at the end of a couple weeks trying to reconstruct everything that you did. Now again, I personally think that that sort of surveillance will continue for internal benchmarking and maybe internal bonuses and stuff like that. I think though the days of it as a way in which we get paid are probably numbered.

I’m a big believer that the billable hour is in real trouble assuming the AI industry doesn’t fall off a cliff, which it might.

Kathryn Rubino:

For sure. But listen, I think that’s certainly true, but the death of the billable hour has been foretold for many a decade at this point. And listen, it will happen eventually. It will not be a shock whenever it does happen. But the other thing that the technology fights against is sort of the little C conservative nature of the legal industry. Lawyers are the epitome of if it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it. And also if we’ve done it for 30 years, this is how we should continue to do it. And there is definitely a lot of that, which I think will continue the practice far beyond the efficiency of the new technology.

Joe Patrice:

I just think the real problem it runs into, as I’ve said several times, is it’s going to run into an ethical problem. You can’t bill for time that didn’t exist. And so if you are utilizing tools that take nine-hour tasks and do them in half an hour, there’s only a few paths you can go. You can go the route of just accepting that you’re going to make less money, not what lawyers are going to do. You can raise the individual hourly rate to something like, as Lexis said in a kind of infamous conference appearance, the $10,000 billable hour. Ultimately, that seems like something that people aren’t going to enjoy. Or you can move to a system where you say the output we create, this motion, this contract, this deal is worth X amount. And however much time we take doing it doesn’t matter. Matters to us internally for staffing, yada, yada.

But those are the three options. And you got to pick out of those three. And I don’t think it’s going to be taking less money for lawyers and I don’t think it’s going to be charging ridiculous hourly rates because we already see every time it creeps up another hundred bucks, every client in the world comes out screaming. And the irony is if you told them it’s a five-hour task and it’s $10,000 an hour, pay me 50 grand, they’d be like, “That’s ridiculous, $10,000 an hour.” But if you told them this motion costs $50,000, they go sure. And that’s why I think ultimately it goes that way. Anyway, we’ve gone off of this topic.

Kathryn Rubino:

Sure. But just a little housekeeping note before we get off this topic. I did find the firm that I was referring to. It’s Goldberg Segala pays bonuses based on realized hours. Means that the firm actually has to have collected the money that you have billed out before you get these additional bonus hours. At least that was true as of their 2020 memo that we wrote about.

Joe Patrice:

We good to move on to another topic or? Yeah. Yeah. All right. We’re fairly loose on this show. We don’t really have – Loosey-goosey. I don’t really know when the segment ends. All right, so we will take a break here and be right back.

Kathryn Rubino:

Should we continue talking about technology and what they’re doing in law schools?

Joe Patrice:

Sure. Nothing. I would love more. So law schools have to deal with AI as well. I mean,

Kathryn Rubino:

Everyone does. I have a bunch of friends in academia and I think that is one of the places where the crunch is happening the most acutely right now because there’s a lot of essays and stuff that they have to grade and some of them are very obviously including has the prompt at the end kind of stuff. So I think that academia is certainly I think the place where they are dealing with it quite a

Joe Patrice:

Bit. I don’t know if you… Yeah. Well, there was infamously in the last few days on social media a professor posted the results of they sprung on their class at the last minute that while the midterm had been take home, that the final exam was going to be handled in person and multiple people quit the class.

Some people then didn’t take it. And then of the people who did, the professor posted the delta between their midterm grade and their final grade. The professor even said, shout out to three of the anonymous students, one who had gotten a 97 and then a 95. But then the other two that got credit were somebody who got a 50 on the midterm and a 52 on the final.That’s right. There were two who had done badly on both and one who did well on both and they got the most credit. But more or les, it was a massive gap, like 40 percentage points.

Kathryn Rubino:

Listen, I think there’s a couple things. First of all, I do think that academia is going to move more and more towards in – person live writing of essays, exams, et cetera. But also there’s a difference even in pre-AI world, there’s a different skillset involved in writing a paper and being able to perform on a test, I think.

Joe Patrice:

Well now this is a good segue to the actual topic we’re supposed to talk about. You’re

Kathryn Rubino:

Welcome.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. So what are law schools doing with their AI policies? A few weeks ago, Berkeley came out with their new AI policy. Their new AI policies, you can’t use it ever for anything. Even –

Kathryn Rubino:

Which that seems very unrealistic.

Joe Patrice:

Outlining ideation, drastic, nothing.

Kathryn Rubino:

It’s putting your head in the sand in the worst possible way because

Joe Patrice:

That’s

Kathryn Rubino:

Not realistic.

Joe Patrice:

Absolutely. Even I, who has a reputation as being a little more skeptical of AI than most people who cover it as a tech perspective. But

Kathryn Rubino:

More than the average person. For a tech journalist, you’re a skeptic.

Joe Patrice:

But

Kathryn Rubino:

In the real world,

Joe Patrice:

You’re a true believer. I’m in this weird world. I’m a child of two worlds, much like Moana. Yeah, no. I was going to

Kathryn Rubino:

Say, no, you’re like the original Gen X, right? You

Joe Patrice:

Literally

Kathryn Rubino:

Are in both worlds.

Joe Patrice:

Are you saying that I’m old?

Kathryn Rubino:

Yes.

Joe Patrice:

Okay. Anyway, so that policy made no sense. The University of Chicago just released its new policy. It is a much more robust policy than – It’s very thoughtful. Berkeley one. It is thoughtful. I think some of its thoughts are very wrong. But they have been

Kathryn Rubino:

Thinking about

Joe Patrice:

It. But it is thougtful and some of the thoughts are right. So as opposed to don’t use AI ever, their position is they don’t want AI to be utilized in the classroom. They don’t want it on exams. So there is a push to do more in – person exams as Catherine already suggested. There’s a push to have more reliance on the Socratic method of professors grilling and torturing students because that is – Time

Kathryn Rubino:

On a tradition,

Joe Patrice:

Jill. It’s

Kathryn Rubino:

A

Joe Patrice:

Time honored tradition. Yeah. That said, before we talk about the bad stuff, we’ll talk about the good stuff. They also though say that their legal writing courses that everyone has to go to are going to be much more AI forward. Even though the process of writing is going to be taught without AI first, they’re going to layer AI on top of that because they recognize, and I think this is correct, that all the firms that they’re going to go to as summer associates are not going to be impressed. As I put it in my piece, they’re not really going to be impressed that you know the eerie doctrine off the top of your head. They will be impressed if you could figure out how to use Westlaw’s co-counsel. And so they need you to understand these tools. And I think that’s useful.

Kathryn Rubino:

I also think it’s really important to have it in an academic setting because there’s an ethic to it that we’ve talked about. I mean, listen, we write extensively about all the ways in which lawyers use AI incorrectly and don’t check their work and have all sorts of legal ethics issues as a result. But I think putting it in this academic setting and teaching people the proper way, they’re going to use AI. The question is can they use it correctly? And I think that putting it in this setting is the best chance of having the next generation of lawyers be able to ethically and properly use the tools that are available.

Joe Patrice:

I agree. Now to talk about the bad stuff and what’s really become the headline of it, the Chicago rule will now ban laptops, phones and tablets from the classroom.

Kathryn Rubino:

I mean, good luck. Good luck.

Joe Patrice:

This seems wildly backward looking. I mean, Catherine’s already said that I’m old. I will go ahead and say that when I went to law school, laptops were already everywhere. And I took notes by hand because that was how I kind of came up back to the old thing. But everybody else was using laptops.

Kathryn Rubino:

First of all, there’ definitely research that suggests that writing by hand helps you remember information better. And it’s not an AI thing, that’s not an internet thing that is the difference between making your fingers write out the words and using your fingers to type out the letters. Your brain just reacts to those inputs differently. And I think it’s great to have that skill regardless. But the other thing which I think is interesting is that the sort of phones and laptops, because you’re seeing a tremendous push against banning phones in the high schools where it is kind of taking off and there are reasons why high schools should not have phones in school, but there’s a big, what if something terrible happens?

Joe Patrice:

Well, I mean that’s always been my take about the high school policies that are like, don’t have phones. I was like, we’ve tragically, because we can’t ban guns, we’re going to ban phones. Correct. But we have seen situations where the kids with the phones are the only ones who are letting people know what’s happening.

Kathryn Rubino:

Maybe to call 911.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. So not having laptops doesn’t make any sense to me because I don’t think it has anything to do with the AI problem. I mean, what in the world is AI going to do? I don’t think anybody… If a professor asks you a question, you do not have time to ask ChatGPT for an answer. And when you give that answer, because Socratic method is usually not a one-off moment, once you give that answer and then the professor proceeds to ask you a series of follow-ups while you start realizing that hemlock’s not a bad idea, that whole process, you don’t have access to the ability to use AI to solve all of those questions. So taking the laptop out of the class doesn’t seem to provide any real benefit to me. I think that it adds a whole new layer of accessibility issues that have to be dealt with.

And the school says, of course, there will be ways that they address that.

Kathryn Rubino:

It becomes very obvious when somebody has an exemption to use a computer, but no one else can.

Joe Patrice:

And that’s going to happen on exams and stuff too probably. But yeah, no, agreed. So it’s a real problem. I think that this is a bad decision to get rid of the electronic devices. And you talk about the writing things out improves memory, which the science is very good on that. I agree with that. On the other hand, I wonder to what extent that is based on the fact that we grew up knowing how to write. And so our brains are hardwired that way. So us going to computer means it doesn’t work that way, but a digital native may not think that way. I don’t know, but it’s worth considering. Anyway.

Kathryn Rubino:

And also the other thing I think to note in terms of both Berkeley and Chicago’s policies is that it’s a lot easier for a T14 school to make these sort of controversial policies because if you get into a T14 school, you’re probably going to go.

Joe Patrice:

Well, so now that’s actually a great segue to the next question, which is, so I saw Chicago professor social media post about how the school’s position is that this may not be popular, but we believe that students actually will want to come to a school that is more rigorous in that way and they will view this as a positive. I don’t know as though that’s true. I think that – I

Kathryn Rubino:

Mean, the younger generations really hate AI, to be fair.

Joe Patrice:

So there’s that

Kathryn Rubino:

Part of

Joe Patrice:

It. Sure. Hating AI, but the laptop aspect of it, I don’t know as though they’re going to like that. And I think where students choose to apply may be impacted by this. And I think your point, and this is why I though it was a good segue. If you get into the University of Chicago, you are probably also getting into Harvard, Yale, Columbia, NYU.

Kathryn Rubino:

I don’t know. I think that there are very few people I think are getting into the full compliment of T14 schools.

Joe Patrice:

Not the full compliment, but you’re getting into at least one of the others. I got into a few T14 schools, right? Sure. You got into a few T14 schools. If you are in that world, you are likely to end up at more than one.

Kathryn Rubino:

Yeah. Well, yeah. And you can then choose – I think there are other reasons why people would probably choose UChicago over some of the other T14 schools that they think that having it on their resume long-term is more important than whether or not they can

Joe Patrice:

Throw

Kathryn Rubino:

Instagram in the middle of class.

Joe Patrice:

Sure. I don’t know. I think if I’m a digital native kid and I’m told, “Well, if I go to this school, I can’t take notes on my laptop, but I can go to Yale and do so. ” If you get into

Kathryn Rubino:

Yale, go to Yale.

Joe Patrice:

Well, sure. Hey, projections are that Yale is going to be ranked below Chicago. Sure. But

Kathryn Rubino:

If you get into Yale, go to Yale. Sure.

Joe Patrice:

Well, anyway, so with that said, well, especially to the extent that Yale Law School’s fighting their university. Another story that we wrote about, we’ll just segue real quick. Yale Law School is pushing back against the university as the university’s leadership is trying to settle and make concessions to the Trump administration. The law school is like, “You guys got to be kidding me. “

Kathryn Rubino:

Listen, I will repeat what I just said, which is if you get into Yale Law School, go to

Joe Patrice:

Yale Law

Kathryn Rubino:

School.

Joe Patrice:

So anyway, even Harvard has figured out that that’s not what you’re supposed to do. So in the old days, Yale would not let Harvard get moral superiority over them, but I guess they don’t care as much anymore. It’s going to make for some really wicked signs for college game day.

Kathryn Rubino:

I love that that’s where you went with it.

Joe Patrice:

Sometimes have they ever gone to Harvard Yale? They occasionally go to non-marquee locations. They’ll go to Army Navy and stuff or a random army –

Kathryn Rubino:

But Army Navy is because that’s the only thing that goes on that week.

Joe Patrice:

Again, yes. Again, I was stopping myself. They came to Army to do a random mid-season game and then there was a thunderstorm and so they couldn’t broadcast, but they did do it. But do they go to Harvard, Yale? They should. That seems like one that would

Kathryn Rubino:

Be

Joe Patrice:

Fucking – It’s

Kathryn Rubino:

Probably on rivalry week when there’s a million better

Joe Patrice:

Locations

Kathryn Rubino:

And that’s the issue.

Joe Patrice:

But I just feel like the signs would be worth it.

Kathryn Rubino:

Okay.

Joe Patrice:

They’re just going to be – I love that for

Kathryn Rubino:

You.

Joe Patrice:

It’s going to be such a different level of sign, I think.

Kathryn Rubino:

That’s a lot of faith. You put a lot of faith in people’s willingness at the Harvard and/or Yale campuses to get up at five o’clock in the morning, write signs and camp outside of college game day.

Joe Patrice:

It’s not on the West Coast. It wouldn’t be five in the morning. Well, to

Kathryn Rubino:

Get a good spot, it would be. It starts broadcasting at nine, right?

Joe Patrice:

Sure, sure, sure. I’m not sure the spots will be at a premium at the Harvard Yale game. That’s what I’m saying. I think they can roll in at nine and they’ll be fine.

Kathryn Rubino:

Precisely my point.

Joe Patrice:

Anyway, but they’ll have signs, whatever, with references to Greek literature and stuff on it.

Kathryn Rubino:

You really are putting a lot of faith in students who are mostly legacies.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. Oh, well, fair. All right. Well, do we have anything else to talk about? I’m neutral. We’ll lightning round it.

Kathryn Rubino:

Well, Sullivan and Cromwell useful for a lightning round.

Joe Patrice:

Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:

Sullivan and Cromwell has represented Donald Trump in a couple of his Second Circuit appeals, but apparently when they made the pitch to the partnership in order to have this highly controversial and toxic client on their roster was that they would not annoy anybody participate in the E. Jean Carroll case because it’s a terrible case.

Joe Patrice:

Then what did they do?

Kathryn Rubino:

They did it anyway.

Joe Patrice:

Fair enough. So there’s a bit of a civil war going on over there for morale issues?

Kathryn Rubino:

That is what we’re hearing.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah. Also, Donald Trump is having his solicitor general go back to the Supreme Court and say, “You need to immediately rehear the birthright citizenship case. Has anything changed? No. Is this going to be successful? No. But he did call them insane along the way. And if you’re – That’s

Kathryn Rubino:

Definitely the way to make friends.

Joe Patrice:

Yeah, catch more bees with Stricknine than… Anyway, so that’s going on. And then was there anything else from the week that’s worth mentioning even in this lightning round format? Oh, and finally, the Congress wants the Supreme Court to swear that not everybody is cashing in on polymark

Kathryn Rubino:

And Kelsey. Yeah. I mean, listen, should it be caught by the existing judicial ethics code? Sure. Do we have a judicial ethics code that’s worth anything in the Supreme

Joe Patrice:

Court? That works at the Supreme Court? No, we do not.

Kathryn Rubino:

Nope. And as I kind of put in my article about this, this is so easy for John Roberts to get a legal ethics W. There’s no allegations that this has happened. You can get ahead of it and be like, “Of course we’re not going to bet on the cases that we are

Joe Patrice:

Hearing.”

But that would require admitting that ethics apply to them at all, which he has taken the stance they do not, and that it’s a constitutional violation to suggest that they have to follow ethics. Yeah, it’s not great. So here we are. All right. So with that said, I think we’re done. Thanks everybody for listening. You should subscribe to the show so you get new episodes when they come out. Listen to the Jabo, Kathryn’s other podcast. I’m a guest on Legal Tech Week Journalist Roundtable. You should listen to the other programs from the Legal Talk Network. You should be reading Above the Law, so read these and other stories before we talk about them here. You should follow social media at boblaw.com. I’m at Joe Patrice. She’s at Catherine1, the numeral one. And yeah, peace. Bye.