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Happy Monday!
It was a whirlwind of legal ethics news last week, so let’s jump right in.
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Headlines
#1 “DOJ Sues All Federal Judges in Maryland Over Deportation Order.” From the Washington Post: “The Justice Department sued all 15 federal district court judges in Maryland on Tuesday over an order that pauses any deportations under legal challenge in the state for 48 hours. Legal experts described the move as an unprecedented attack on judicial independence, while government lawyers said it was necessary to preserve President Donald Trump’s constitutional authority over immigration. Longtime court watchers said they could not recall another instance in which the Justice Department, which usually represents members of the judicial branch in court, sued the entire roster of judges in a district.”
“It is reckless and irresponsible and yet another direct frontal assault on the federal courts of this country,” said retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit from 1991 to 2006.
Read more here (gift link).
#2 “Justice Dept. Leader Suggested Violating Court Orders, Whistle-Blower Says.” From the New York Times: “A senior Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, told subordinates he was willing to ignore court orders to fulfill the president’s aggressive deportation campaign, according to a whistle-blower complaint by a department lawyer who has since been fired. The account by the dismissed lawyer, Erez Reuveni, paints a disturbing portrait of his final three weeks on the front lines of the Trump administration’s legal efforts to ship immigrants overseas, often with little notice or recourse. In Mr. Reuveni’s telling, Mr. Bove discussed disregarding court orders, adding an expletive for emphasis, and other top law enforcement officials showed themselves ready to stonewall judges or lie to them to get their way.” Read more here (gift link). For more commentary, head over to this Substack post by Brad Wendel (Cornell) where, among other observations, he catalogs the eight – yes eight- professional conduct rules implicated. As Brad says: “Don’t take my word for it. Read through the letter and, if you’re a lawyer, ask yourself what you would have done.”
#3 “Lawyer Who Pushed Bogus Trump Elector Scheme Is Disbarred in New York.” From the New York Times: “Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who helped spearhead a brazen legal effort to use phony slates of pro-Trump electors to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was disbarred in New York on Thursday, cementing an indefinite ban issued last year. The decision by a New York State appellate court concluded a strange legal journey for a Harvard-educated lawyer who worked for former Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida and later evolved into a supporter of President Trump. In a seven-page opinion, the court cited a criminal racketeering case centered on the fake electors in Georgia, where in 2023 Mr. Chesebro pleaded guilty.
The New York court said Thursday that Mr. Chesebro’s “criminal conduct — conspiracy to commit filing false documents — is unquestionably serious” and that he had undercut “the very notion of our constitutional democracy that he, as an attorney, swore an oath to uphold.”
Read more here.
#4 “Lawyers Market Big #MeToo Verdicts, but Their Clients Struggle to Collect.” From the Wall Street Journal: “The cases reveal an unpleasant reality about #MeToo verdicts and other civil judgments: Winning is hard enough, but collecting can be even harder. … Plaintiffs, on top of what they pay lawyers handling their lawsuits, must pay for time spent by the judgment enforcers, or give them a cut of any amounts collected. The plaintiffs have to cover some costs upfront, so they sometimes turn to firms that finance such work. Those specialty funders often take a first cut of any recoveries.” Read more here (gift link).
#5 “A Fourth Judge Has Blocked a Trump Executive Order Targeting Elite Law Firms.” From NPR: “A federal judge has struck down President Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Susman Godfrey, delivering the latest in a series of legal wins for firms that have challenged the president’s punitive campaign against Big Law. The ruling Friday from U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan marks the fourth time out of four that a federal judge has permanently blocked one of Trump’s executive orders seeking to punish an elite law firm.” Read more here.
#6 “Former Supreme Court Justice Kennedy Says ‘Democracy is at Risk’.” From Politico: “Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy warned Thursday that acrimonious political discourse and threats to judges are eroding the ability of the United States to serve as an example of democracy worldwide. ‘Many in the rest of the world look to the United States to see what democracy is, to see what democracy ought to be,’ Kennedy said during an online forum about threats to the rule of law. ‘If they see a hostile, fractious discourse, if they see a discourse that uses identity politics rather than to talk about issues, democracy is at risk. Freedom is at risk.’” Read more here.
#7 “Litigation Funders And Lawyers Face 40.8% Tax In One, Big, Beautiful Bill.” From Forbes: “The litigation funding industry—and many lawyers and law firms—are worried about a provision inserted in the pending tax bill. Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) introduced the Tackling Predatory Litigation Funding Act in the Senate, you can read the text here. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Kevin Hern (R-Okla.). The litigation funding tax was not in the House-passed One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, but the Senate’s reconciliation bill includes it. Its ostensible goal as described by Tillis when he introduced it is to prevent foreign influence in the U.S. court system and stem frivolous lawsuits. Some insurers and trade groups support it, you can see a list here. Investors (both foreign and domestic) often help fund lawsuits, and the U.S. is full of lawsuits. But given the elephant gun approach of the proposed new tax, domestic funders are equally worried, as are lawyers and law firms.” Read more here.
#8 “Florida Judge Sided with Trump While Advocating for Nomination.” From Bloomberg Law: “A Florida state judge was angling for a federal judicial nomination from Donald Trump when he sided with the president in a defamation case before his court. Ed Artau, who’s now under consideration for South Florida’s US trial court, met with the White House roughly two weeks after he wrote his February concurring opinion allowing Trump’s defamation suit against the Pulitzer Prize Board to proceed, according to his Senate Judiciary Questionnaire made public by Accountable.US, a progressive watchdog group. The disclosure was first reported Friday by Politico. The timing of Trump’s announcement that he’d tapped Artau for the federal bench soon after the judge’s decision in the case raised concerns about his impartiality in the defamation case and the process by which he was chosen.” Read more here.
#9 “The Future is Now: Why Trial Lawyers and Judges Should Embrace Generative AI Now and How to Do It Safely and Productively.” From JD Supra: “The unprecedented rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI) worldwide presents the legal profession with a pivotal opportunity for transformation. The legal system is deeply rooted in tradition, precedent, and established practices, which is good; however, this does not mean we should avoid technology. The legal practice must be open to change and embrace AI, just as it did with computers and online communications. We can keep our traditions of ethics, justice, and precedent, but also utilize generative AI to make our practices more efficient, consistent, and responsive to the demands of the modern world.” Read more here.
#10 “Maine’s Highest-Ranking Justices Will Not Weigh Complaints Against Peers.” From the Portland Press Herald: “According to new rules, ethics complaints against members of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court instead will be heard by a panel of lower court judges.” 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.
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