Meet Fil-Am Behind Legal World’s Version of ‘Gossip Girl’ Blog
By Don Tagala, ABS-CBN North America Bureau
Posted at 05/13/2015 4:56 PM
NEW YORK – The legal world’s real-life “Gossip Girl” is Filipino-American.
Just like the hit teen drama TV series, the mysterious “Gossip Girl” turned out to be a man–David Lat.
Lat, a Harvard College magna cum laude and Yale Law School graduate became the so-called “Queen” of legal gossip in 2004 through his blog “Underneath Their Robes”.
“It was a gossip blog, kind of you know, ‘tsismis,’ about Federal Judges,” Lat, the son of two Filipino doctors, said.
“I couldn’t really use my name so I pretended to be a woman who was obsessed with a Federal judiciary,” he said.
The blog became widely popular for its pieces on “Judicial Divas” and “Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary.”
“It was like a beauty contest for Federal Judges and what put it on the map was when this Federal Judge in California, Alex Kozinski, decide to nominate himself as a judicial hottie,”he said.
He said the male part of the competition got more attention than the female part.
Lat was then working as a federal prosecutor under then US Attorney for New Jersey Chris Christie.
Legal Gossip Girl’s identity was revealed in New Yorker Magazine in 2005. Some said Lat should have been fired but Christie gave him another chance.
The “Queen” of legal gossip was dethroned and the blog was shutdown, but not for long.
In 2006, Lat came out with a new blog called “Above The Law”. But this time, no pen names just “David Lat”, a journalist and the managing editor.
The blog provided insights at the world of law.
His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New York magazine among others.
Last December, the 39-year-old Fil-Am lawyer, author and legal commentator published his first novel called “Supreme Ambitions” where he deliberately made the main character a Flipina-American.
“It’s kind of like a powerful woman, the Judge, who has this young acolyte who sort of like working under her, I kind of compared it to “Devil Wears Parada” but for the Law,” he said.
A New York Times review said that, “For an elite niche, consisting largely of Federal Judges and their clerks, ‘Supreme Ambitions’ has become the most buzzed about novel of the year.”
Unlike his initial foray into writing, David Lat’s full name is now proudly displayed on his work.