Adam S. Rust

Boy in therapy identified as Ilan Wurman: I've created a persuasive theory of originalism. Therapist: Is it originalism or is it just conservative judicial activism? Boy as Wurman: Conservative judicial activism.

Every time.

Text 1/2: "Νο one exemplified the interchange between radical politics and art more than Dora Marsden, a renegade suffragette who would radicalize Ezra Pound and publish James Joyce's first novel. In 1909, Marsden led a march of thirty women to Parliament and was charged with assaulting a police officer by hitting him with her banner (she claimed it was an accident). After spending a month in jail, Marsden broke up a Liberal Party meeting by throwing iron balls through a glass partition. That earned her two more months in prison, where she went on a hunger strike, smashed her cell windows and tore off her prison clothes to protest naked. When the guards forced her into a straitjacket, Dora Marsden, at four foot ten, squirmed her way out. Liberal Party meetings routinely..."

Text 2/2: "became suffragist protest sites. When a young Winston Churchill addressed an audience in Southport in 1909, police officers surrounded the hall so that Churchill could rally support for a budget bill that the House of Lords vetoed. When he argued that the Lords should acquiesce to the House of Commons because it represented the will of the electorate, a voice shouted out from a ceiling porthole, "But it does not represent the women, Mr. Churchill!" The audience flew in an uproar. Dora Marsden had eluded the tight security by hiding in the hall's attic space the previous day and waiting through a night of rain and freezing temperatures. After haranguing Churchill for several minutes, Marsden and two accomplices were dragged off the roof and arrested."

British Suffragettes were so lit.

Still think I wasn't mean enough, all things considered.

The Fight Makes the Meaning: Noah Feldman, James Oakes, and the Lessons of Antislavery Constitutionalism Noah Feldman, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is a frequent public commenter on the state of constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Over the last few years he’s been in a ...

Incidentally the second meanest thing I wrote about prestige members of the legal academy that year. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-fight-ma...

Plaque stating "Adam Rust survived 4.9 years as a DAC attorney."

Just ended my time at my current job representing parents who had their kids taken by CPS. Normally people receive a plaque at five years of service. I was two weeks short of five years. My colleagues had my back.

My Reader's Choice Ballot for NYT greatest movies of 21st century. List is: Evil Does Not Exist (2024) Up (2009) Michael Clayton (2007) Tár (2022) The Act of Killing (2013) Sorry to Bother You (2018) Lady Bird (2017) Inglorious Basterds (2009) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Zodiac (2007)

This was really fun to do.

World Turned Upside down is more a cultural/intellectual history of various radical movements, not a straight narrative history. Both books are good!

Person who has only read the "Imperialism" section in Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" reading the news: "Getting major the "Imperialism" section of Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" vibes from all this."

The first chapter went down so smooth with my morning coffee tho.

Picture of "Buckley: The Life and the Revolution that Changed America" by Sam Tanenhaus, pictured Instagram pretentious next to an espresso.

If you know "Know Your Enemy" you know.

And you are a professional scholar so it is basically the most qualified opinion.

Such a great academic press for law and constitutional law books.

Picture of the book "Thoughtfulness and the Rule.or Law" by Jeremy Waldron

Me: What I really want is a book that will help me be thoughtful about the rule of law.

Jeremy Waldron:

Law professors of a certain type will always make my articles against them evergreen.

Just confirming I am here, Anna.

You can only teach them, they have to decide to learn.

From "The Blazing World" by Jonathan Healey

"The Civil War wasn't a class struggle. It was a clash of ideologies, as often as not between members of the same class. The Royalists were anti-Puritan, they stood by the old hierarchies in the Church, notably bishops. They were nostalgic for 'Merry England' before it was ruined by Puritans moping at their books. Parliamentarians claimed they were fighting for God and the constitution; Royalists did, too, but added loyalty to the king and the fact their Parliamentarian enemies were cuckolds. In fact, they delighted in offending their Puritan foes. 'Come out you Cuckold', challenged one of their banners, in par-ticular reference to the Earl of Essex's notorious marital difficulties. Another showed a Cavalier soldier brandishing a sword and an erect penis, with the motto 'Ready to use both'."

The cuck/chad discourse existed in 1640s England.

This is my favorite Souter fact, which I am glad made his NYT obituary.

. . . It was, for example, a running joke at the Court that outsiders frequently mistook Souter and Breyer for each other. No one could really understand why this happened, because the two bore little resemblance. One day when Souter was making his usual solo drive from Washington to New Hampshire, he stopped for lunch in Massachusetts. A stranger and his wife came up to him and asked, "Aren't you on the Supreme Court?" Souter said he was. "You're Justice Breyer, right?" said the man. Rather than embarrass the fellow, Souter simply nodded and exchanged pleasantries, until he was asked an unexpected question. "Justice Breyer, what's the best thing about being on the Supreme Court?" The justice thought for a while, then said, "Well, I'd have to say it's the privilege of serving with David Souter."

From Jeffrey Toobin's 2008 book THE NINE, this remains the greatest Justice Souter anecdote I can possibly share. RIP.

Any book/article recs regarding the history of ideas about law and the monarchy in 17th century England (with special emphasis on debates during reign of James I/VI, the English Civil War, and the Glorious Revolution)?

Some Giant Law Firms Shy Away From Pro Bono Immigration Cases

We are reaching new lows, we no longer have Big Law firms precapitulating to Trump, we have Big Law firms like Gibson Dunn not reaching precapitulating terms with Trump but acting as if they have and cutting off ties with immigrants rights litigation.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/b...

Conduct yourself so nobody ever refers to you as a “celebrity lawyer”

I applied for a job recently that asked about my law school accomplishments in the application process. I graduated in 2013.

"I will forever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English Bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in court where he daily sits to practice, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end. If the advocate refuses to defend from what he may think of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the judge; nay he assumes it before the hour of judgment; and in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of perhaps a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused, in whose favour the benevolent principle of English law makes all presumptions, and which commands even the very judge to be his counsel."

From Thomas Erskine's closing argument defending Thomas Paine against charges of seditious libel. His defense of Paine cost Erskine his lucrative position as Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales. The job of being an attorney can come with a cost. Much to consider there.

This did not require a Harvard Law Degree to see!

Really cannot recall if it was anyone other than senior partners at the capitulating firms saying this, but if there was anyone else you are the dumbest sacks of bricks possible and you probably aren't even getting Paul, Weiss managing partner money to say it.

Executive order regarding further militarizing law enforcement with a portion highlighted saying "This mechanism shall include the use of private-sector pro bono assistance of such law enforcement officers [doing whatever it is they do in furtherance of this executive order]."

Really love how about a month ago writing for @liberalcurrents.com I was like "Trump won't need to dictate BigLaw's pro bono work they agreed to avoid his displeasure" and Trump is out there today going "sure, but I am going to make it explicit anyway."

Cover of British Edition with the title "The Trial of Charles I" by C.V. Wedgewood. Picture of a melancholic sadboi (King Charles?) stating out a window as he leans against it. Small children (his?) are being led away so he can continue his sadboi musings.

Cover of U.S. edition with title "A Coffin For King Charles" (this title goes so hard) by C.V. Wedgewood. Mysterious badass on the cover (Cromwell?) looking to God, mostly likely for instructions on whether he needs to execute a king (the answer is yes).

Comparing the British Edition and the U.S. edition of C.V. Wedgewood's history of the trial of Charles I really giving me a jolt of Patriotism.

"Not only did every person have financial worth which varied according to status - from king to slave - but every part of them did too, from big toes to testicles. The loss of a big toe cost ten shillings, while severing a foot cost fifty, no mean sum as a shilling was the price of an ox in Kent." The penalty for 'damaging the kindling limb' - the genital organ or penis was set at three 'person prices' or 300 shillings, much more than for any other injury.12 A person price - leodgeld - was a price paid for a life; killing a royal official, for instance, merited merely one person price. 13 The fact that in this instance the injured party got thrice that amount was to compensate not merely for the injury and insult to his manhood but for the children he would not be able to sire, the generation he could not 'kindle'. For a snip to the scrotum, falling short of emasculation, a mere six shillings would suffice."

Learning about the history of our glorious common law system.