Judicial Notice (11.23.25): Benchslaps And Bonuses
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Voting Rights Act of 1965
16 min read
The Texas redistricting case at the heart of this article involves challenges under voting rights law. Understanding the historical context of the VRA, its Section 2 provisions about minority vote dilution, and how courts have interpreted it in redistricting cases provides essential context for the legal dispute.
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United States v. Microsoft Corp.
13 min read
The FTC v. Meta case discussed represents the latest major antitrust action against a tech giant. The Microsoft antitrust case from 1998-2001 is the most significant precedent for government attempts to break up tech monopolies, and understanding how that case played out provides crucial context for evaluating the Meta ruling.
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On Tuesday morning, I headed into Manhattan to attend 2025’s final Legal Tech Mafia breakfast, hosted as always by the incredibly energetic and well-connected Ari Kaplan. The conversations were lively, and I came away impressed by the diversity and vibrancy of the legal-technology world (reflected in how the LegalTech Fund just closed its latest fund, a $110 million vehicle that will invest exclusively in legal tech).
That evening, I attended the launch party for lawyer turned novelist Reyna Marder Gentin’s new book, Jessica Harmon Has Stepped Away. I’ve enjoyed Gentin’s prior novels—including Unreasonable Doubts and Both Are True, which featured a lawyer and a judge, respectively, as protagonists—and I look forward to reading her latest (which Reyna’s husband, McKinsey general counsel turned Commerce Department GC Pierre Gentin, believes to be her best work yet).
Maybe I’ll have time for some pleasure reading over the next few days. I’m hoping things will be relatively quiet because of Thanksgiving. But my husband Zach, executive editor of SCOTUSblog, is preparing for the Supreme Court to issue something—or perhaps multiple somethings—on Wednesday. We shall see.
Here’s something that will not be appearing on Wednesday: a new episode of the Original Jurisdiction podcast. I’m recording my next episode, featuring a great guest, on Monday afternoon—but I’ll post it on Wednesday, December 3, because I don’t want it to get lost in the holiday shuffle.
Now, on to the news.
Lawyers of the Week: the litigators from Kellogg Hansen and Davis Polk who successfully represented Meta at trial against the FTC.
On Tuesday, Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg issued his eagerly anticipated ruling in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) v. Meta Platforms, Inc. In an 89-page opinion, based on a bench trial that lasted more than six weeks, Judge Boasberg concluded that Meta holds no monopoly in social media. The ruling
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