Before she rebranded as a Savvy Legal Media Pundit, Sarah Isgur's job was working in the Justice Department, doing PR for Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions during family separation. Now, she is running PR for a different set within the conservative legal movement. It's not more complicated than that.
sarah isgur and brett kavanaugh mugging for the camera together
Brett Kavanaugh officiated Sarah Isgur's wedding and is helping her promote her book, which is all about how good and noble the Supreme Court is. There is no reason to take seriously anything this person says about her very powerful, life-tenured friends. Seriously, have some respect for yourself.
Congratulations Jameel - this is so well deserved!
It contjnues to get worse.
fun fact: law profs don‘t actually have to write blog posts. That is not something we have to do.
As someone who teaches and writes in both PR and 1A, I think the analysis is far off the mark.
My colleague Brad Wendel, one of the nation’s sharpest legal ethics minds, emphasized to me how the legal academy often misses the complexities of legal ethics as a field. One prof’s claims re: the shadow docket story shows how that can happen.
Brad has a great newsletter at bradwendel.substack.com
This is not consistent with First Amendment law. At all!! Strong 1A protections apply when lawyers engage in public discourse. (Even when they don't, see Chiles v Salazar!)
Thanks to @cornelllaw.bsky.social for writing up our work on the campaign to get Flock out of Ithaca. www.lawschool.cornell.edu/news/cornell...
Rest assured that Tim will still be around to hand out gold statues to authoritarians around the world in exchange for tariff relief
A follow-on from Stephen Sachs positing that Adam Liptak, by reporting on these draft memos, may have violated NY state professional responsibility rules. I don’t agree with Sachs’ analysis. blog.dividedargument.com/p/court-leak...
With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars.
We've enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars' Creative Director.
Please stand by for more.
An ill wind. My clinic, working with my colleague @nelsontebbe.bsky.social and Prof. Sager at UT-Austin Law, has filed multiple amicus briefs supporting CO in the Tenth Circuit in this case and a related case.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/u...
NEW: Prof. Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social joins to talk about the NYT story on the behind-the-scenes goings on at SCOTUS over the Clean Power Plan stay - & birth of modern shadow docket
Then we cover girls v ghouls SCOTUS fights & more
crooked.com/podcast/scot...
Two very different newsletter takes this Monday morning on Saturday’s NYT shadow docket reporting (www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...)
Steve Vladeck: www.stevevladeck.com/p/221-chief-...
Will Baude: blog.dividedargument.com/p/the-non-sc...
As it happens, I’m with Steve.
From “The Simpsons” house genius John Swartzwelder, interviewed in The New Yorker by Mike Sacks
One can win any argument by aggressively and joyfully mischaracterizing one’s opponent.
Unfortunate that RCFP, which does great work, will now be associated with this disaster.
This judge cos-playing as a legislator on the record… balls and strikes indeed. 🙃
(As everyone knows, it was and always will be a terrible decision — up there with Shelby County and presidential immunity as the apex of Roberts Court disasters.)
Drinking my coffee, listening to “Transatlanticism” on vinyl, rereading Citizens United for my First Amendment lecture on Monday, reliving how much of a bombshell it was in 2010 when it came down (my 2L year)… really emphasizing those aging millennial law school vibes.
There’s so much to say about the remarkable reporting from Jodi Kantor & Adam Liptak—and I’ll say a lot of it in Monday’s newsletter.
But the most striking thing about all of it is the role & behavior of Chief Justice Roberts. “Calling balls and strikes” this ain’t:
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...
I taught it this week in 1A and noted to my class the controversy about the ACLU representing the NRA (and NYCLU’s opposition). I thought national was right to do it at the time, and am particularly supportive of it in hindsight given its important consequences.
But I thought law and politics were supposed to be different!
Kudos to the Times — and Adam Liptak & Jodi Kantor — for obtaining and publishing these memos.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...
Read the text of this invite below. It is crazed.
'Ellison’s decision to spend time in Washington “honoring” a White House that has made demonizing the press central to its playbook has outraged staffers at CBS News.' www.status.news/p/david-elli...
Nominally independent media institutions celebrating press freedom by serving canapés to president fake news is some bleak, black comedy but the venue is chef’s kiss
Get in loser we’re going shopping
