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.
Hello from San Francisco. I’m writing you as I wrap up my week with the Council for the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, which is the independent body that accredits law schools. If you are curious about our work, you can read about some of it here and learn more about the Council generally here.
In addition to the headlines below, the Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility was recently announced. For more on that, see last week’s LER Bonus Content No. 20. Congratulations again to the winner Matthew Liebman (University of San Francisco) for his article Representing Animals and honorable mention awardees Milan Markovic (Texas A&M) and Nuno Garoupa (George Mason) for their article Legal Market Decartelization.
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Headlines
#1 “Why I Am Resigning.” An op-ed from Judge Mark Wolf in The Atlantic: “In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved. My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.” Read more here.
#2 “McDermott Will & Schulte Considers Outside Investment in Firm.” From Bloomberg Law: “McDermott Will & Schulte said Wednesday it is in preliminary discussions about selling a stake in the law firm to outside investors, a novel move that could advance acceptance of non-lawyer backing of Big Law operations. … The Financial Times earlier Wednesday said the firm is exploring a restructuring that would let it sell a stake to private equity groups, based on reporting from five unidentified people. The approach under consideration would split the firm into a business owned by lawyers that advise clients and a separate operation that would sell administrative services to the lawyer-owned firm, according to the FT. … Such an embrace of non-lawyer investment would represent a sea-change in the traditional business model the legal industry has embraced. Big Law firms in the US are strictly lawyer-owned, which critics say stifles innovation and makes legal services overly expensive.” Read more here.
#3 “Judge Accused of Helping Immigrant Avoid ICE Didn’t Know About Plan, Hearing Officer Concludes.” From the ABA Journal: “A judge accused of helping a defendant avoid immigration detention at her courthouse in Newton, Massachusetts, didn’t know about the escape plan and didn’t mislead court authorities about the incident, according to a hearing officer in the ethics case against her. Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph of Massachusetts should nonetheless receive a public reprimand for inadvertently creating the appearance of impropriety and bias, partly by allowing an off-the-record sidebar in violation of a court rule during the 2018 incident, the hearing officer said in an Oct. 31 report released Nov. 6.” Read more here.
#4 “New Non-Profit Launches First-Ever Public Database Documenting Executive Branch Attorneys’ Conduct.” From Fox News 40: “A team of legal and technology professionals today announced the launch of GLOW – Government Lawyers Oversight Watchdog, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to holding government attorneys accountable to their fundamental duty to the public and the rule of law. Along with the organization, GLOW is unveiling The Government Lawyers Database. Available at glowlaw.org, the database is a freely accessible public record of how government lawyers have conducted themselves while representing, or supporting, U.S. Executive branch legal positions.” Read more here.
#5 “Cleveland Attorney’s Use of AI in Court Filings Raises Ethical Questions for Legal Profession.” From Cleveland.com: “A Cleveland defense attorney is under scrutiny in two counties after submitting court filings containing fabrications generated by artificial intelligence — a case that’s prompting broader questions about how lawyers are ethically navigating the use of AI tools in legal practice. William Norman admitted that a paralegal in his office used ChatGPT to draft a motion to reopen a murder conviction appeal. The document included quotes that did not exist in the trial transcript and misrepresented statements made by the prosecutor. Prosecutors in both Ashtabula and Cuyahoga counties argue that Norman’s failure to supervise the use of AI violated Ohio’s rules for lawyers, particularly those governing truthfulness and oversight of nonlawyer staff.” Read more here.
#6 “Judging The Justice System In The Age Of Trump: Nancy Gertner.” From David Lat in Original Jurisdiction: “How are the federal courts faring during these tumultuous times? I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss this important subject with a former federal judge: someone who understands the judicial role well but could speak more freely than a sitting judge, liberated from the strictures of the bench. Meet Judge Nancy Gertner (Ret.), who served as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts from 1994 until 2011. I knew that Judge Gertner would be a lively and insightful interviewee—based not only on her extensive commentary on recent events, reflected in media interviews and op-eds, but on my personal experience. During law school, I took a year-long course on federal sentencing with her, and she was one of my favorite professors. When I was her student, we disagreed on a lot: I was severely conservative back then, and Judge Gertner was, well, not. But I always appreciated and enjoyed hearing her views—so it was a pleasure hearing them once again, some 25 years later, in what turned out to be an excellent conversation.” Read more and listen to the interview here.
#7 “Law School Admissions Cycle is Red-Hot, Driven by Politics, Says Kaplan Survey.” From the National Jurist: “Kaplan’s recent survey of law school admissions officers said the current law school application boom, fueled by a nearly 20% surge in applicants last cycle, shows no signs of cooling. … Krystin Major, director of LSAT programs at Kaplan, said over the past year the company has seen a massive increase in the number of students preparing for the LSAT, a strong indication that the number of law school applicants will remain at historically high levels, making it imperative for prospective students to put together the strongest application possible.” Read more here.
#8 “Watchdog Group Files Bar Complaint Against Prosecutor Lindsey Halligan Over Comey, James Cases.” From ABC News: “The Justice Department prosecutor handpicked by President Donald Trump to lead the criminal cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey is now the subject of a bar complaint that alleges she is unfit to be an attorney and that her actions constitute an ‘abuse of power.’ The progressive watchdog group Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint against Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan on Tuesday and requested that the state bars in Florida and Virginia initiate investigations into her conduct. The complaint alleges that Halligan repeatedly violated the professional and ethical rules that govern the legal profession, including by making false statements and by bringing cases that are unsupported by probable cause.” Read more here.
#9 “Ex-Judges See ‘Grave Threat’ in Trump Official’s ‘War’ Talk.” From Bloomberg Law: “A group of former federal judges is pushing back against a Trump administration official’s call for attorneys to join the ‘war’ against the judiciary. The Keep Our Republic’s Article III Coalition said Thursday that the language used by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ‘poses a grave threat to the rule of law and the judiciary.’ Blanche said at a Federalist Society conference on Nov. 7 that young lawyers should join the Justice Department ‘because it is a war, and it’s something we will not win unless we keep on fighting.’ The group, which features 50 former federal judges, said that language ‘especially when voiced by high-ranking officials—not only endangers individual judges and court staff, but also undermines the public’s trust in the judiciary as an impartial and co-equal branch of government.’” Read more here.
#10 “The SCOTUS Ethics Code Two Years On: The Justices Can and Must Do Better.” From Fix the Court: “Ahead of tomorrow’s two-year anniversary of the release of the justices’ Code of Conduct, Fix the Court is reflecting on changes to the justices’ ethical behavior in light of the Code and what remains inadequate in terms of their ethical policies and practices. The main deficiency is that there remains no enforcement mechanism. It would not be difficult for Chief Justice Roberts to appoint ‘some sort of committee of highly respected judges with a great deal of experience [and] with a reputation for fairness,’ as Justice Kagan contemplated last year, to do that work. This committee would receive complaints, separate the meritorious from the frivolous and review the meritorious ones, after which they could recommend remedial steps, like recusal, disclosure amendments or ethics training. (More on that here.) Another deficiency is that there’s been no update on whether the Court has conducted an ‘examination of best practices’ in judicial ethics, as mentioned in the commentary to the Code, which implied that the document wasn’t going to be the justices’ final word on ethics.” 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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