David Lat
David Lat made it his goal to collect “brass rings.” And he was quite the collector.
After graduating from Harvard University, Lat attended Yale Law School where he landed a plum position as book review editor for the Yale Law Journal. From there, he obtained a much-sought-after clerkship with Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
All of which are mile-markers on the paths of some of the most successful and powerful attorneys in the country.
But it was Lat’s last goal — seeking a position as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk — that inspired his debut novel, “Supreme Ambitions,” and which provides even the most determined young lawyers a useful commentary on an unfamiliar feeling: Coping with unmet expectations.
Lat, who is the founder of the blog Above the Law, does not have a Supreme Court clerkship on his bio. Spoiler alert: His somewhat self-inspired main character, Audrey Coyne, deals with similar heartbreak.
“Writing the novel was almost therapeutic for me in a way,” Lat said in an interview last week. He was in Chicago for several events including one at the American Bar Association.
Ankerwycke, a new commercial publishing arm of the ABA, made “Supreme Ambitions” its first published novel. It is available at shopaba.org.
“Of course, this was years ago, so I’m kind of over it. Back then, when you’re so invested in these types of credentials, and when you’re young and it’s all you know, not getting something like that can be a crushing blow. It’s not until you get older and look back in the rear view mirror do you realize, ‘Hey, life goes on.’”
“Supreme Ambitions” chronicles Coyne’s affection for and struggle with the prestige-grab that influences the law’s upper echelon.
The Filipino-American first must explain why a lesser-paying federal clerkship is a better career move than taking the $160,000 salary offer to become an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP — or what her mother calls “that Cravath place.” Coyne’s mother warns that her cousin is also a clerk — at a shoe store.
Coyne then wrestles with the ruthlessness that her Supreme Court quest requires, including sabotaging a competitor’s interview and manipulating other judges’ clerks. She bristles when she sees those same traits in her boss, Judge Christina Wong Stinson, whom Coyne initially reveres.
Coyne at one point asks: “So what advice would you give to young, ambitious women today?”
Stinson responds: “To be a successful professional woman, you need to be a little monstrous.”
Perhaps Coyne’s most compelling moment comes when she realizes there is more to life than a Supreme Court clerkship. Losing out on the position, Lat writes, gave her “freedom to stop chasing elusive glory, freedom to live a normal life.”
Lat’s life has many parallels with Coyne’s, including the Filipino heritage. Both his parents were doctors. And while their professional success isn’t what lured him to the law, as it does for so many others, he said he found the law a suitable vehicle to fulfill his own ambitions.
“At a certain point, you kind of wonder, ‘Well, why am I doing this? Towards what end? Is it some kind of search for validation? Or some kind of self-esteem issue?’” Lat said.
Lat moved on to Big Law when his 9th Circuit clerkship ended in 2000, taking a position as a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York. He departed there to become an assistant U.S. attorney for the appeals division in the District of New Jersey.
It was there that Lat learned his life would go on as a full-time legal blogger.
He started an anonymous blog in 2004 called Underneath Their Robes, which offered a gossipy, somewhat sarcastic take on the federal judiciary. His erstwhile pen name “Article III Groupie,” who purported to be a woman, held a competition called The Super Hotties of the Federal Judiciary in which readers ranked the attractiveness of jurists. He began Above the Law in 2006.
One early reader of Lat’s was Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th Circuit, who also wrote a blurb for “Supreme Ambitions,” and whom Lat credits for helping him gain some early notoriety.
“He was one of the first to speculate that Article III Groupie, my alter ego, was not the woman that she was pretending to be,” Lat said. “He is obviously a brilliant guy. And reading the site, he thought the femininity was too exaggerated to actually be a real woman.”
Posner’s blurb, which says the book provides “disquieting insight” into the federal judiciary, is one of a few Chicago connections in “Supreme Ambitions.”
The book references “The Chicago Clock,” which Lat said exists in a library in the federal appellate courthouse in Pasadena, Calif., and which he describes as “an 800-pound, wall-mounted clock that had been salvaged … from a demolished courthouse in the Windy City.” And one of the main character’s father is described as the managing partner of Jenner & Block LLP.
Ambition is now a key theme that Above the Law covers. For instance, he said when associates at big firms receive bonuses “a few thousand dollars” short of market price, they “get really, really angry” not because of the money, but because they feel disrespected.
“A lot of ambition is comparing yourself to other people and figuring out where you stand,” Lat said.
“If you’re a small-town lawyer in a very specific practice area ... maybe you don’t have that problem as much. Maybe you aren’t plagued by those insecurities. But if you are a lawyer in a big city like Chicago, and there are thousands of people just like you, you kind of want to figure out where you stand and what makes you special.”
So what are Lat’s hopes for his debut novel and his critique on the brass-ring culture?
When asked to describe the best compliment he could receive from a reader, he said, “You know what, actually, maybe my ambition here is not that great. I would want them to say, ‘It was a fun read that also made me think.’ … That’s probably my ambition in writing this.”