Read the Top 5 Exclusive Jurisdiction Columns of 2025

David Lat’s Exclusive Jurisdiction column analyzes a wide range of news in the legal industry, and 2025 provided plenty to cover. David’s most-read columns of the year spanned Big Law’s relationship with the Trump administration, professional development recommendations for attorneys, and trends in litigation and legal recruiting.

Skadden Associate Says Peers Have Role in Standing Up to Trump. Law firm associates must encourage their peers to promote change in response to President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting firms, two Big Law associates told David in March. A Skadden associate who helped organize an open letter condemning the Trump administration’s actions said law firms’ silence had spurred her to conditionally resign: “You can’t spend decades proclaiming your dedication to these values, as a form of reputation management, and then abandon them when it’s most important,” she told David. Read More

Aspiring Rainmakers Should Become ‘Activators,’ New Study Shows. Law firm rainmakers have different skill profiles that can lead to success building a clientele, but the most effective approach was characterized in a study as an “Activator.” Activators “commit to business development, they connect broadly and deeply, and they create value proactively,” study co-author Matthew Dixon said, describing to David in June how lawyers can develop such a mindset. Read More

Crypto Litigation Shows the Industry Won Fight Over Legitimacy. You can learn a lot about an industry from the litigation filed against it. Shifts in the cryptocurrency sector away from enforcement and toward regulation and even legislation show the ways the industry has matured. The Trump administration’s pro-crypto policies have included scaling back enforcement and signing the first federal law to regulate stablecoins. More litigation is now “run-of the-mill” commercial fights, rather than cases that speak to existential issues about the legitimacy or viability of crypto, David wrote in October. Read More

Great Law Clerks Are Like General Counsel, Not Junior Associates. In August, as judicial clerk classes transitioned, David gave suggestions to incoming clerks on how to make the most of “one of the best jobs the legal profession has to offer.” Clerks should “think independently and offer their honest assessments of the facts and the law, as opposed to being yes-men or yes-women who simply say what they think their judges want to hear,” David wrote based on conversations with federal judges. Read More

Big Law’s Accelerated Recruiting Is a Lose-Lose-Lose Situation. Big Law’s move to recruiting during the first semester of law school for second-year summer jobs is causing academic disruption—students are networking and filling out applications when they should be learning how to read cases and to respond to cold calls. “Probably the most unfortunate part of this process is that we have to make decisions that shape our early careers based on little information about ourselves and our interests,” a 1L at Yale told David. This is leading to more mismatches between firms and students, which results in expensive attrition at law firms, David wrote in December. Read More

David Lat, a lawyer turned writer, publishes Original Jurisdiction. He founded Above the Law and Underneath Their Robes, and is author of the novel “Supreme Ambitions.”

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