David Lat Trials New Virus Drug And In Critical Condition

AbovetheLaw founder David Lat is in critical condition and has been put on a ventilator as he battles coronavirus and is also placed on an experimental new drug, according to reports.

LawFuel reported on Lat’s illness recently, where he had tweeted about the seriousness of the virus.

Lat’s husband, Zachary Shemtob, told news sources that Lat is in a critical condition at NYU Langone Hospital in Manhattan where he is sedated and the “very experimental” drug therapy is being provided.

“We won’t know for a few more days, whether he’s going to get better—whether this stuff [the drug therapy] is working or not,” said Shemtob.

“We’re hanging in there,” he said. “We’re just waiting and hoping,” Shemtob told the NY Law Journal.

In a phone interview on Saturday evening, Shemtob said that Lat, founder of the legal blog Above the Law and now a well known legal recruiter, was put on a ventilator after “his oxygen levels dropped.”

“He’s not doing great,” Shemtob said, adding that the NYU Langone doctors and other staff “are really attending to him. They’re taking it hour by hour, day by day.”

Lat, who is a Yale Law School graduate, a former federal prosecutor and the author of a legal-appeals-centered novel, is 44 years old.

Asked if the doctors had talked about or know Lat’s prognosis, Shemtob responded, “It’s a bit much for me right now.” He said it was not clear if any prognosis is even known.

“I just want folks to know that he is so strong; he is hanging in there, and we are praying he’ll recover,” Shemtob said. “Any thoughts or prayers people have are much appreciated.”

Shemtob, a former clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Robert Sack and a former associate at Cooley, echoed a message that Lat himself delivered during a phone interview on Wednesday night. “I just want people to know how serious this can be,” Shemtob said.