iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Using that as my new marketing slogan. 💪

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Sorry. I can never tell you apart.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Also picking up 20 footers and calling them good.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Why you always dragging me into it?!?, just kidding. The first question is whether 152‘s appointment power applies to senate vacancies. not clear. I haven't seen any case on that issue. KY Sup Court has held that a senate election does not suffice under first part of 152 though.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Congrats! We move next week. Exciting times.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Please rank the smoked meats. 5, 7, 10–your choice.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Terry Crews could do the funniest thing.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

I can’t wrap my head around how they just dismiss grand jurors who disagreed with their case. How is that disqualifying? I'm afraid to ask if that’s a common practice.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Kentucky Chief Justice just denied request by Bevins to DQ family court judge. Case heads back to family court, where he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for contempt but order was set aside so recusal could be decided.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

We finally got one in Kentucky a couple years ago. Had made a huge difference already.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

If you scroll way to the bottom of the menu you can still get the Sky feed. But only live—all replays are that crew.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

It’s not great here. Most of city on shelter in place. Drove home through black cloud. 280,000 lbs of jet fuel to burn off.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Well, we have a Ky Court of Appeals decisions today with made-up cases in the briefs. Interestingly, it does NOT mention AI hallucination. Counsel claimed they were "placeholder" cites that inadvertently were left in. Hmm. #AppellateSky opinions.kycourts.net/COA/2024-CA-...

opinions.kycourts.net

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Three! Insane. Two back-to-back is my record and I did it twice. Once they were related, once they were totally separate but happened to involve the same underlying tort (which I was awkwardly on both sides of).

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

What if she has roommates?

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Fun exercise: if you have a golf handicap you can go into the GHIN app and calculate your handicap for that course from the tees they’re playing. It thinks I’d struggle to break 100. So do I. And that doesn’t even count the 5” rough.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Ehhh…not sure I read Gorsuch that way. Could easily see him joining an opinion that says you gotta try rule 23 instead.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Proud to be representing the Courier Journal in this new lawsuit against the University of Louisville for violating the Open Meetings Act in firing/hiring its old/new President. The public has a right to know how the Board made its decision and why it believed it had cause to fire her.

courier-journal.com

Courier Journal files lawsuit against UofL over President Kim Schatzel's resignation

The suit, filed May 6, alleges UofL's board of trustees violated state law when making decisions about former President Kim Schatzel.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

20 years ago, when I was a trial lawyer at DOJ, Mark was our opposing counsel in a few cases and he already had a security clearance at that time. I guess no one in the government noticed this supposed national security threat for 2+ decades?

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Have you discovered www.chasingscratchgolf.com? If you want to combine that addiction with a fun podcast filled with music/movie references, you can go way overboard. You're only 7.5 seasons behind!

chasingscratchgolf.com

Chasing Scratch

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Congratulations! Now you're really gonna be addicted, though.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

But what if it’s really good? Would you file that in some case just for fun?

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

No, no. Gotta tie it to “sources and methods.” It’s about the sources of our hatred and the methods of our cruelty. Can’t reveal those or someone might, you know, stop us.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

In our annual Supreme Court review last year, I phrased it as SCOTUS ruling that the Free Exercise clause now renders the Establishment Clause unconstitutional.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

What about a tshirt or golf shirt under a sweatshirt? Is that allowed? Only one is visible at a time.

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Why does Westlaw require 2FA now? Should I be worried someone is going to log in an do my research for me? Have at it, bro!

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

If some drone operator or pilot thought that bombing an apartment building violated the Geneva Conventions and leaked this very same info to a journalist, the government would 100% prosecute that person for disclosing classified information. How stupid do they think the public is?

Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

So I worked on states secrets cases under multiple administrations when I was at DOJ. I will just say this: we always gave the court LOTS of information to explain why a thing couldn’t be disclosed to the parties or publicly litigated—especially if some info seemed to be public. This is….a choice.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

It's a scary time in the legal profession. Hard to know what to do, so I'll just offer this: if you're someone thinking of leaving government, or large firm, or a large market, I've made all of those transitions. I would be happy to share my experience & perspective FWIW. #apellatesky

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

The Senate Sub for HB 520 is a bad bill. This would attempt to let agencies determine whether something should be released. Police departments & other agencies will try to abuse this to create the kind of "blanket" exemption the KYSCT has long rejected. Call Senators and tell them to vote NO.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

What’s interesting to me, a former government appellate lawyer, is that the process would usually involve a memo from the us attorney, one from civil appellate, one from an assistant to the SG, and a recommendation from the deputy SG, plus SG approval. Many of these ppl know appellate jurisdiction.

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In short, the water’s great out here if you want interesting work, more autonomy, and a nice quality of life. But it won’t be the brassiest of rings.

Also, most junior lawyers probably don’t see the long term economics of being a big firm appellate lawyer. Great $$, but they’re usually not your client. And there’s 30+ new SCOTUS clerks hitting the market every year. So you’re signing up for the grind and likely won’t be a rainmaker. /3

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In a way it’s easier to get known as an appellate person in a smaller market. Especially if you had some clerkship or DC experience on the resume. But you also need to accept that it’s much harder to do just appellate. Which isn’t all bad. /2

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I completely agree with the gist of this post. I’m in a significantly smaller market than you (Louisville), but we are able to do lots of very interesting appellate work. Just in the past few years we’ve done cases in 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and DC Cir. Plus state courts of course. /1

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Maybe we were all too quick to make fun of The Drizz?

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

A quibble, if I may. Isn’t that just an over-under? Trump’s career average at SCOTUS is WAY north of 3.

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Mike Abate @mpabate.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

I got “rampage”. Different vibe.