David Lat

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David Lat
David Lat

David B. Lat (born 1975) is an American blogger and a former federal prosecutor. He wrote under the pseudonym Article III Groupie, as a woman, for the blog "Underneath Their Robes" until he revealed his identity in an interview with The New Yorker. Afterward he left his job as assistant U.S. attorney and joined the blog Wonkette. He now runs the legal blog "Above the Law".

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[edit] Education and legal career

Lat 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 in the District of New Jersey in Newark, where he specialized in Third Circuit appeals.

[edit] "Underneath Their Robes"

In 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",[1] 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.[2] 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 office, without immediate public explanation.

The blog restarted in January 2006 after Lat left the U.S. Attorney's office. After a period of sporadic posting, Lat resumed posting at UTR on a fairly regular basis until September 2006.

[edit] Wonkette

At the end of 2005, Lat left his job at the U.S. attorney's office.[3] He reported that the resignation was his own choice, though his supervisor encouraged him to take any blogging opportunities afforded by his new notoriety.[3] 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.[4] In June 2006, David Lat announced his decision to leave Wonkette in order to form a new law-based blog with Dealbreaker's Elizabeth Spiers.[5] In August 2006, this blog came online at abovethelaw.com.

[edit] References

  1. ^ David A. Kaplan, Judges: Who's Fairest?, Newsweek, July 19, 2004.
  2. ^ Jeffrey Toobin, SCOTUS WATCH, The New Yorker, November 21, 2005
  3. ^ a b Jonathan Miller, He Fought the Law. They Both Won., The New York Times, January 22, 2006.
  4. ^ Letter From the Editors: Politics Makes Strange Blogfellows, Wonkette, January 30, 2006.
  5. ^ Shakeup At Gawker Media: Jesse Oxfeld Out; Shuffle Across Blogs; Two Properties Up For Sale, The Huffington Post, July 2, 2006.

[edit] Further reading