Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, here.
Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics.
Happy Monday!
Legal ethics issues were front and center on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night. You can watch the interview of former Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni here. From the episode description: “Reuveni speaks out about the disregard of due process and for the rule of law that he says he witnessed in his final weeks at the Department of Justice.”
Now for your headlines.
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Ethics Headlines
#1 “Attacks on U.S. Legal Profession Reflect Global Slide in Countries It Once Aided.” From Just Security: “Crackdowns on the legal profession — lawyers, judges and prosecutors — are part of a longstanding authoritarian playbook used around the world to silence dissent. … The tactics differ, but the aim is the same: to silence lawyers who represent politically targeted clients, judges who issue rulings that contradict the repressive government’s political – and often personal — aims, and prosecutors who pursue cases against its favored allies. Whether through formal legislation or informal pressure, these measures aim to curtail legal advocacy, judicial independence, and the rule of law itself. The United States has long prided itself on a tradition of public interest lawyering rooted in the civil rights movement and sustained through legal aid, legal clinics, and pro bono representation carried forward by lawyers. By framing access to justice as a professional duty, organizations such like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) institutionalized public interest advocacy. Yet, over time, these organizations have also been criticized for professionalizing and depoliticizing what began as grassroots social movements.” Read more here.
#2 “Regulatory Retrenchment in California: What AB 931 Means for ABS and MSO-Supported Law Firms.” From JD Supra: “California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 931 on Oct. 10, 2025, largely freezing California lawyers’ ability to experiment with and accommodate the development of burgeoning Alternative Business Structures (ABS) for the next four years. Though jurisdictions such as Arizona, Puerto Rico and Utah have adopted innovative programs to permit limited non-lawyer ownership of law firms, the new law signals that California is skeptical and poised to move in the opposite direction.” Read more here.
#3 “Law School Interest Hits New High, Applications Surge.” From the National Jurist: “Law school applications in the U.S. are surging, according to Oct. 16 data from the Law School Admission Council. The numbers show a 27.8% increase in total applications for the 2025 enrollment year compared to last year. The rise is even more pronounced over a two-year span, with applications up 76.2%.” Read more here.
#4 “Reagan Judges Are Unrestrained Critics of Trump’s Legal Moves.” From Bloomberg Law: “Judges appointed by President Ronald Reagan are emerging as vocal critics of the Trump administration’s efforts to circumvent court orders or challenge the law in unprecedented ways, backed by decades of experience and plenty of practice being blunt in other cases. The judges—all in their 80s and located in Washington, Boston, Seattle, and Charlottesville, Va.—have made notable remarks from the bench or in written rulings. Some jurists are more guarded, speaking about the power of the courts and imploring the administration to respect them. Others see little reason to trust the administration at this stage.” Read more here.
#5 “ABA Says Third-Party Lawyer-Mediators Must Be ‘Credibly Neutral’.” From Bloomberg Law “Lawyers acting as third-party neutral mediators need to be careful to ensure that unrepresented parties in negotiations understand the nature and scope of their role, the American Bar Association says in a new ethics opinion. Lawyer-mediators must explain the difference between their role as a neutral and a lawyer’s more typical role representing a client, especially when a party is unrepresented and doesn’t understand the mediation process, says the opinion released Wednesday.” Read more here.
#6 “Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders.” From The New York Times: “More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public.” Read more here (gift link).
#7 “DOJ On Defense: Federal Lawyers Face Ethics Probes For ‘Zealous’ Advocacy.” From the Tampa Free Press: “A political battle is raging in the halls of justice, not in the courtroom, but within the state bar associations. A coalition of left-wing groups and law professors is aggressively filing ethics complaints against high-ranking government lawyers, including US Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleging professional misconduct for ‘zealously’ advocating for the interests of the United States and the president. The controversy highlights a growing trend of ‘lawfare’ where ethics complaints are being used as a political weapon, primarily targeting conservative attorneys serving in or defending the administration.” Read more here.
#8 “Fake AI Citations Produce Fines for California, Alabama Lawyers.” From Bloomberg Law: “Federal courts in California and Alabama have imposed thousands of dollars in fines against two attorneys sanctioned separately for including nonexistent legal citations generated by artificial intelligence in their filings.The sanctions address a wave of AI hallucinations in litigation that’s growing despite training offered by bar associations, legal journal articles, and extensive media coverage of lawyers punished by courts for relying too much on the technology. In recent months, fake citations in federal court filings have resulted in $3,000 in fines for a New Jersey attorney, $1,500 in fines for a California attorney, and a warning for a New York attorney. ‘Somehow the message still has not been hammered home as the epidemic of citing fake cases continues unabated,’ Judge Terry F. Moorer of the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama said in an order issued Oct. 10.” Read more here.
#9 “State Supreme Court Rejects Attempt to Force Florida Bar to Investigate Bondi.” From Florida Phoenix: “The Florida Supreme Court refused Monday to force the Florida Bar to investigate U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for alleged state ethics violations, denying a request made by dozens of attorneys and former judges. The court’s five-sentence rejection sided with the Florida Bar — the overseer of the state’s legal profession — and state Attorney General James Uthmeier in finding that the 70-odd legal experts lacked standing to ask a state-level organization to investigate federal officials, even if they’re certified to practice law in Florida. ‘Because petitioner has failed to show a clear legal right to the relief requested, he is not entitled to mandamus relief,’ the brief denial reads, co-signed by five of the seven Florida Supreme Court Justices.” Read more here.
#10 “Q&A: South Texas College of Law Dean Rey Valencia on SCOTX’s Tentative Move Away from ABA Oversight and Other Changes Facing Law School Leaders.” From Texas Law Book: “This interview on Sept. 30 took place four days after the Texas Supreme Court issued an order stating its ‘tentative opinion’ that the American Bar Association should no longer decide which Texas schools can send graduates to sit for the state bar exam. … Even before taking the helm at STCL, [Rey] Valencia — who was named STCL’s incoming president in January — joined seven other law school deans who, in a June letter to the justices, urged the state’s high court to continue the ABA’s role. In the following Q&A, Valencia discusses his response to SCOTX’s order, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing law schools as they adapt to new technologies, meeting students’ needs and the evolving practice of law.” Read more here.
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Renee Knake Jefferson holds the endowed Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics and is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston. Check out more of her writing at the Legal Ethics Roundup. Find her on X (formerly Twitter) at @reneeknake or Bluesky at legalethics.bsky.social.
The post Legal Ethics Roundup: Legal Ethics On 60 Minutes, Fed Judges Warn Of Crisis, More AI Fines, DOJ Ethics Probes & More appeared first on Above the Law.