David Lat

David Lat
Lat in 2022
Born	David Benjamin Lat (1975-06-19) June 19, 1975 (age 51) New York City, U.S.
Education	Harvard University (BA) Yale University (JD)
Occupations	Lawyer author legal commentator
Spouse	Zachary Baron Shemtob
Children	2
Website	Original Jurisdiction

David Benjamin Lat (born June 19, 1975) is an American lawyer, author, and legal commentator. In 2006, Lat founded Above the Law, a website about law firms and the legal profession. In 2019, he left Above the Law, which is now owned by Breaking Media, a network of business-to-business media brands.

As of 2026, Lat publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on the Substack platform, and hosts its companion podcast of the same name. He also writes a column for Bloomberg Law, which launched in 2023.

Lat attended Harvard University and Yale Law School. After law school, he worked as a law clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, became an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and later was an assistant U.S. attorney for the appeals division in the District of New Jersey.

Lat first began blogging anonymously 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. In 2006, Lat launched Above the Law, a website featuring news, gossip, and commentary about law and the legal profession (including law firms, law schools, and the courts). In December 2014, Lat's debut novel, Supreme Ambitions, was published.

Early life and education

Lat was born on June 19, 1975, in Queens, New York. His parents were physicians who had immigrated to the United States from the Philippines. He grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and Saddle River, New Jersey. While living in Saddle River, his neighbors included former President Richard Nixon. On Halloween, he would get a Halloween card and a handshake from the former president. Lat attended Regis High School in Manhattan, New York, where he participated in speech and debate and excelled in the category of extemporaneous speaking. He won the 1992 New York State Championship and several national tournaments, including the 1990 Wake Forest National Early Bird, the 1991 Villiger Tournament, the 1992 Barkley Forum, the 1992 Harvard Tournament, and, ultimately, the 1992 NCFL Grand National Championship.

After high school, Lat attended Harvard University, where he studied English literature, wrote dozens of columns for The Harvard Crimson, and was a member of the Harvard Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society. He graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He then attended Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and vice president of its Federalist Society chapter. He graduated in 1999 with a Juris Doctor.

Legal career

After law school, Lat was a law clerk for judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1999 to 2000. He interviewed for a Supreme Court clerkship with justice Antonin Scalia, but was not offered a clerkship. He then entered private practice at the Manhattan law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. While at Wachtell, he worked on a fight over insurance payments for the World Trade Center on behalf of Wachtell's client Larry Silverstein. One Wachtell partner noted that he seemed very unhappy in the drudgery of litigation.

After leaving Wachtell, Lat took a job in the appeals division of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and twice argued before Justice Samuel Alito in the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. When his blogging became public, he met with then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who praised his blog. At the end of 2005, Lat left his job at the U.S. Attorney's office. He reported that the resignation was his own choice, though his supervisor encouraged him to take any blogging opportunities afforded by his new celebrity.

Blogging

Author and writing

Lat's writing has also appeared in various newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Slate, New York Magazine, The New York Observer, and Washingtonian.

In 2014, Lat's debut novel, Supreme Ambitions, was favorably reviewed on release. It was the first work of fiction published by Ankerwycke, then a newly launched trade imprint of the American Bar Association. The novel details the rise of Audrey Coyne, a recent Yale Law School graduate who dreams of clerking for the U.S. Supreme Court, mirroring Lat's own former ambitions. After graduating from YLS, Audrey moves to the West Coast to clerk for a highly regarded appeals-court judge. According to a reviewer in The New York Times, "for an elite niche — consisting largely of federal judges and their clerks — Supreme Ambitions has become the most buzzed-about novel of the year."

Personal life

Lat is gay. He is married to fellow lawyer Zachary Baron Shemtob. They have two sons born via gestational surrogacy.

On March 17, 2020, Lat announced on Twitter that he was infected with COVID-19, then proceeded to live-tweet his sickness, hospitalization, and recovery. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Lat’s struggle gripped much of the city, as he and his loved ones updated his condition on Twitter in the early days of the coronavirus, when knowledge was scant but panic was widespread."

Lat was listed in critical condition and intubated in a hospital in New York City as of March 20, but his condition improved substantially by March 28. He was discharged from NYU Langone on April 1.

After his hospitalization, Lat was interviewed on the Today show, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Nightline about his experience. He also wrote about it for publications including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Slate.

Notes

References

External links

• Underneath Their Robes
• Above the Law
• Original Jurisdiction