- David Lat
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David Lat
David B. Lat (born 1975) is an American blogger and a former federal prosecutor. He is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law, a blog about law firms and the legal profession.[1][2]
Lat first began blogging under the pseudonym Article III Groupie, pretending to be a woman, for the judicial gossip blog "Underneath Their Robes," until he revealed his identity in a November 2005 interview with Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker. Afterward Lat left his job as assistant U.S. attorney to write for the political blog Wonkette.
In August 2006, Lat launched Above the Law, a blog about law firms and the legal profession, for the Breaking Media network of sites. In July 2008, he became the managing editor of Breaking Media, overseeing its stable of blogs out of its New York office.[3] In December 2009, Lat announced that he would be returning to full-time writing and editing of Above the Law, after a new CEO and executive editor joined Breaking Media.[2]
Lat's writing has also appeared in various newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Magazine, New York Observer, and Washingtonian.
Contents
Education and legal career
Lat grew up in the Bergen County, New Jersey communities of Bergenfield and Saddle River, New Jersey.[4] He graduated from Regis High School; Harvard College, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; and Yale Law School, where he served on the Yale Law Journal and was vice president of the school's chapter of the Federalist Society. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lat then worked at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a leading New York City law firm, for two and a half years, before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, where he specialized in Third Circuit appeals.
Blogging
Underneath Their Robes
In June 2004, Lat anonymously started the website Underneath Their Robes (UTR), a gossip blog about the federal judiciary, under the pseudonym Article III Groupie (also known as A3G). While Lat mentioned his background as a former federal judicial clerk from a top law school, he gave the readers the impression that the author was a female lawyer at a large law firm. The blog became widely popular when it conducted a poll on the "Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary",[5] and several federal judges, including Alex Kozinski and Richard Posner, corresponded with Article III Groupie. The blog interviewed several judges and gained national media coverage in the wake of the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts, Harriet Miers, and Samuel Alito. The blog also served as a clearinghouse for news and gossip about clerks for the Supreme Court, whom A3G called "the Elect."
In November 2005, Lat revealed A3G's identity in an interview with Jeffrey Toobin for the magazine The New Yorker.[6] In the story, Lat gave an explanation for his alter ego: "[t]he blog really reflects two aspects of my personality, I am very interested in serious legal issues as well as in fun and frivolous and gossipy issues. I can go from the Harvard Law Review to Us Weekly very quickly." However, within hours of the article's publication Lat removed his blog from public view at the request of the U.S. Attorney's office, without immediate public explanation. Lat continued to post on UTR until September 2006.
Wonkette
At the end of 2005, Lat left his job at the U.S. attorney's office.[4] He reported that the resignation was his own choice, though his supervisor encouraged him to take any blogging opportunities afforded by his new notoriety.[4] Consequently, in January 2006 Lat became an editor of popular Washington, D.C. blog Wonkette (part of the Gawker Media network), formerly run by Ana Marie Cox.[7]
Above the Law
In June 2006, David Lat announced his decision to leave Wonkette in order to form a legal gossip blog with Dealbreaker's Elizabeth Spiers.[8] In August 2006, this blog came online at abovethelaw.com. In 2008, Lat was promoted by Above the Law's owner, Breaking Media, and returned to New York to run Breaking Media's blogs and develop new blogs.[3]
References
- ^ http://www.legalrebels.com/posts/david_lat_gossip_at_law/
- ^ a b http://abovethelaw.com/2006/08/david-lat-biography/]
- ^ a b Legal Times interview
- ^ a b c Jonathan Miller, He Fought the Law. They Both Won., The New York Times, January 22, 2006.
- ^ David A. Kaplan, Judges: Who's Fairest?, Newsweek, July 19, 2004.
- ^ Jeffrey Toobin, SCOTUS WATCH, The New Yorker, November 21, 2005
- ^ Letter From the Editors: Politics Makes Strange Blogfellows, Wonkette, January 30, 2006.
- ^ Shakeup At Gawker Media: Jesse Oxfeld Out; Shuffle Across Blogs; Two Properties Up For Sale, The Huffington Post, July 2, 2006.
Further reading
- Carlile, Nathan (2006-10-26). "Lawyer-Turned-Blawger Sensation Rises 'Above the Law'". Legal Times (subscription). http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1161767119113. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
External links
Categories:- 1975 births
- American bloggers
- American lawyers
- American online publication editors
- American people of Filipino descent
- Harvard University alumni
- LGBT Asian Americans
- Living people
- Yale Law School alumni
- American journalists
- People from Bergenfield, New Jersey
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