Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

On Tuesday morning, I lost my cellphone on a New Jersey Transit train. Fortunately, I was reunited with it around 12 hours later. For the whole saga, as well as practical advice if you ever find yourself in this situation, please see my post on LinkedIn (where I’m always happy to connect with readers, so feel free to add me).

On Thursday morning, I participated in the SCOTUSblog live blog of the Supreme Court issuing new opinions. Please join us for live blogs over the next few Thursdays at 9:30 a.m., as we analyze the justices’ latest rulings in real time. At this point in the Term, the Court generally hands down new opinions on Thursdays—and then, closer to the end of June, it will start scheduling multiple hand-down days a week.

A few hours after the live blog, I joined Sarah Isgur on Advisory Opinions to delve more deeply into the Court’s latest opinions. I had a great time speaking with Sarah, one of the smartest—and funniest—commentators on the Court. (Apologies if I sounded odd; the anesthesia from that morning’s apicoectomy hadn’t fully worn off.)

Speaking of Sarah, she and David French have been added to the line-up for Soapbox, an exciting new conference presented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), where they’ll record a live episode of Advisory Opinions. If you can make it to Philadelphia in early November, please join us. And speaking of free-speech events, if you’ll be in D.C. this coming Tuesday, please attend a lively panel discussion I’ll be moderating, “A More Perfect Union: Free Speech, DEI, and America at 250.” (There’s no charge to attend, but registration is required.)

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: Michael Luttig, Nancy Gertner, and the 33 other former federal judges who filed a motion to reopen Trump v. Internal Revenue Service.

On Wednesday, 35 former federal judges filed a motion to reopen Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, the $10 billion lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. After the parties reached a settlement requiring the establishment of a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” Judge Kathleen Williams (S.D. Fla.) closed the case. But in their motion, the former judges—led by Judges J. Michael Luttig (4th Cir.) and Nancy Gertner (D. Mass.), and represented by Susman Godfrey, Platkin LLP, Democracy Defenders, and Rivero Mestre—argued as follows:

• “[t]he purported ‘settlement’ that the parties never placed before this Court raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the Court and manipulation of the judicial system”;

• “a non-party may raise a challenge of fraud on the court through Rule 60 even when the non-party’s interests are not directly affected by the judgment”; and

• “[t]he Court indisputably has the authority under Rule 60 to reopen a proceeding sua sponte,” i.e., of its own accord.

I’m discussing this under Lawyer of the Week because these former judges—who have retired from the bench completely, as opposed to taking senior status—are no longer judges (even if some folks might address them as such, out of politeness—e.g., as I did when I interviewed Gertner on my podcast). As Professor Orin Kerr tweeted, “Being a judge is an extraordinary public service…. But when a judge retires, they’re just a lawyer again. They’re not judges anymore.”

Their status as former judges, however, gave rise to criticism of their motion. Conservatives such as Michael Fragoso and Jesse Panuccio argued that it’s “unseemly at best” (Fragoso) or even “improper” (Panuccio) for the ex-judges “to be trading on the prestige of their former office for this kind of lazy partisanship,” according to Fragoso. On a more substantive level, commentators like Sarah Isgur (on our episode of AO) and Eric Wessan contended that these former judges, as nonparties, don’t have standing to seek reopening of a closed case—and their trying to get the courts involved in this mess actually politicizes the judiciary.

But not everyone had a problem with the ex-judges’ motion—including, most importantly, Judge Williams (an Obama appointee, in case you were wondering). On Friday, she effectively reopened the case, issuing a four-page order requiring Trump and his administration to address the issues raised in the motion. She then provided that “[t]he non-party movants may, if they choose, file a reply on or before June 19, 2026”—making clear that her order was issued in response to their motion.

Judge Williams’s order doesn’t explicitly enjoin the Trump administration from taking steps to set up the fund. But in Floyd v. Department of Justice—a lawsuit challenging the Anti-Weaponization Fund brought by Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who worked on January 6 cases—Judge Leonie Brinkema (E.D. Va.) ordered that while the parties brief and argue Floyd’s motion for a temporary restraining order, the defendants “are ENJOINED from taking any further action [to advance] the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

As a policy matter, I think paying $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to January 6 rioters and their ilk is outrageous (among many other things). But I share some of the concerns articulated above about looking to the courts for rescue. As Professor Steve Vladeck wrote (before the ex-judges’ brief was filed), “the Anti-Weaponization Fund is not principally a legal problem awaiting a judicial fix.” Instead, it’s “a shockingly egregious political abuse,” and “the Constitution’s answer to political abuses of this kind and magnitude is a political remedy, not a legal one.”

And there are signs that a political solution could be on the way. As reported by The Wall Street Journal (gift link), more than a dozen Republican senators have privately urged the Trump administration to kill the fund—which it might be willing to do in exchange for securing passage of its immigration-enforcement bill.

Perhaps one could say, in defense of both the ex-judges’ motion and lawsuits like Floyd v. DOJ, that by throwing obstacles in the way of establishing the fund, they’re playing a useful role by increasing the pressure on the Trump administration to reach a political resolution. But I very much hope that any political remedy comes quickly—before judges have to engage with any matters of legal substance.

Other lawyers in the news:

• On May 22, Jeffrey Whitley and Mary Harris of Fox Rothschild were shot outside a county courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina. They had just emerged from a hearing in which they represented the city of Rolesville and its police department against Gwendolyn White, a 57-year-old woman with mental-health issues, who has been charged with attempted murder in connection with the shootings. Whitley and Harris were taken to a local hospital and are recovering.

• Congratulations to Jennifer Bennett of Gupta Wessler, my recent podcast guest, who represented the winning worker in Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock. In an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a unanimous Supreme Court held that Flowers Foods couldn’t use the Federal Arbitration Act to force truck driver Angelo Brock into arbitration (i.e., to deny him his day in court). Bennett has now won five SCOTUS cases—all unanimous—on behalf of plaintiffs and workers, while litigating before a conservative, generally pro-business high court.

• Speaking of victories by my former podcast guests, David Oscar Markus and his law partner, Margot Moss of Markus/Moss, won a directed verdict in a racketeering case that Florida hospitals brought against their client, Walmart, and other pharmacies. After a jury deadlocked, Broward County Chief Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips ruled that no reasonable jury could find, by clear and convincing evidence, that the pharmacies’ actions were the direct proximate cause of the hospitals’ increased costs in treating opioid patients. Other firms that prevailed on the defense side included Bartlit Beck, Hilgers, Jones Day, Lawson Huck Gonzalez, and Zuckerman Spaeder.

• There’s no litigation yet, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago) is reportedly investigating the funding behind E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuits against Donald Trump—and the investigation is being overseen by U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, profiled by The New York Times (gift link).

• Speaking of federal prosecutors, NOTUS reported that Phil Alito, son of Justice Samuel Alito, is currently working as a lawyer at the Treasury Department (detailed from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia).

• Daniel Kaiser—counsel to former JPMorgan Chase investment banker Chirayu Rana, who alleges in a lawsuit that a female colleague sexually assaulted him—is trying to withdraw from representing Rana.

In memoriam: Daniel J. Gibbons—a former colleague of mine in the U.S. Attorney’s Office (D.N.J.), where he served as an assistant U.S. attorney for 36 years—passed away at 73. His family is well-known here in the Garden State legal community: his late father, John Gibbons, served as chief judge of the Third Circuit; his sister, Mary Gibbons Whipple, was a New Jersey state appellate judge; and his brother-in-law, John Whipple of Whipple Azzarello, is a top trial lawyer. Dan Gibbons, rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Eleanor Ross.

By now, many of you have heard about the scandal swirling about Judge Eleanor Ross (N.D. Ga.), an Atlanta-based trial judge who was appointed to the federal bench by President Obama in 2014. I chronicled it on Twitter—where I sometimes discuss breaking news, before I get the chance to write it up here—and it was all over the media, from legal outlets like Law.com and Law360 to nonlegal outlets like the Associated Press and The New York Post. (Over at How Appealing, Howard Bashman has been all over this story—like a rumored stain on the judicial couch—and I thank him for flagging many of the stories linked herein.)

For those of you who are just learning about the misadventures of Judge Ross, we must regrettably get “underneath her robes,” if you will. Since launching Original Jurisdiction five years ago—this month marks OJ’s fifth anniversary, at least as a paid newsletter—I’ve been trying to transcend my tabloid past and focus on more high-minded fare. But what can I say? Federal judges—like former judge Joshua Kindred (D. Alaska), still-sitting Judge Thomas Ludington (E.D. Mich.), and now Judge Ross—keep dragging me back into the gutter.

So here’s the background on Judge Ross. After receiving a complaint of judicial misconduct about a U.S. district judge within the Eleventh Circuit, Chief Judge William “Bill” Pryor appointed a special committee to investigate. That committee produced a detailed report of its findings—issued back in December 2025 but made public only now, after the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council issued an order adopting the report’s recommendations, and the Judicial Conference of the United States affirmed that order earlier this month. The committee’s findings are shocking:

[T]he special committee finds that the Subject Judge engaged in three instances of judicial misconduct. Those are: (1) the Subject Judge engaging in an extramarital affair with a high-ranking [law enforcement] officer and, in the course of that affair, having sexual intercourse (and other intimate contact) in the judge’s office, during business hours, and within hearing distance of staff [including multiple clerks]; (2) the Subject Judge’s attendance at a partisan political event; and (3) the Subject Judge’s making false statements to Chief Judge Pryor and to the Chief District Judge that were material to the investigation of misconduct allegations and to the administration of the district court.

Here’s what the committee recommended in terms of discipline, a recommendation adopted by the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council and, ultimately, the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability:

[T]he special committee recommends that the Judicial Council issue the Subject Judge a private reprimand. The Subject Judge informed Chief Judge Pryor that the Subject Judge would not oppose or challenge this sanction. The Subject Judge has also agreed to (1) issue letters of apology to the six former law clerks interviewed by investigation counsel (with the special committee to provide to the Subject Judge a list of those law clerks); (2) forego [sic] service as chief judge should the Subject Judge be otherwise eligible to serve in that capacity; and (3) indefinitely refrain from service on any Judicial Conference committee.

I found this punishment excessively lenient—and I wasn’t alone. Bloomberg Law interviewed multiple experts, and while there wasn’t agreement on whether this warranted impeachment, pretty much everyone opined that at least a public reprimand was warranted.

Of course, keeping a private reprimand truly private in 2026 is difficult, if not impossible. Based on the trove of information in the special committee’s 22-page report, it took only a few days for multiple outlets and observers—from Marco Polo to Professor Josh Blackman to Bloomberg Law—to finger Judge Ross. Meanwhile, my former colleague Joe Patrice explained, in a fascinating Above the Law post, how he figured out it was Judge Ross within a few hours, with the help of AI agents.

What does this suggest? The notion of a private reprimand is, as a practical matter, no longer an option in judicial disciplinary proceedings. If the misconduct is minor, don’t issue a reprimand—which is what happens in the vast majority of judicial-misconduct investigations, for better or worse—and if the conduct is serious, issue a public reprimand. But trying to keep a reprimand private, while at the same time providing enough information to satisfy the public that a thorough investigation was conducted, is virtually impossible in the AI age. (Cf. how consumer DNA testing has made it similarly challenging to guarantee anonymity to sperm or egg donors or birth parents who choose closed adoption.)

What do I think should happen next? First, I agree with Aliza Shatzman of the Legal Accountability Project: Judge Ross should resign. Second, if she doesn’t, I agree with Gabe Roth of Fix the Court: the House Judiciary Committee should at least open an impeachment inquiry (even if it ultimately decides against impeachment).

Having sex in chambers, standing alone, would be one thing; I can live with disrespecting the judicial sofa (although this wasn’t a one-time thing—the affair lasted for years, which is why six clerks, from multiple terms, were exposed to it).1 The far more serious offense, as I emphasized when discussing Couch-gate on Advisory Opinions, is that Judge Ross lied about her misdeeds, to both Chief Judge Pryor and Chief Judge Leigh Martin May (N.D. Ga.). And as Mike Davis pointed out, Judge Ross even badmouthed the whistleblowing clerk, claiming that she “had repeatedly chastised Law Clerk A for performance issues” and that “Law Clerk A might have made allegations as a means of retaliating” against Judge Ross.

Setting the couch to one side—and for the record, the acid phosphate test of the supposedly stained cushion returned a negative result—the investigation into Judge Ross raises an issue of broader import for the federal judiciary. As I explained in a detailed LinkedIn post, clerks also alleged that Judge Ross failed to supervise them adequately, essentially checking out from her civil docket—and causing multiple clerks to tell the committee that “given their inexperience, they were uncomfortable with the level of discretion they appeared to exercise in handling civil cases.”

For my next Bloomberg Law column, I’m writing about the problem of excessive judicial reliance on clerks. If you’re a current or former judge or clerk who'd be willing to speak about this subject, please email me at davidlat@substack.com, and we can set up a time to talk. You can also send me a substantive email if that’s easier than speaking by phone—but in that case, please indicate how you want it attributed (e.g., “a former S.D.N.Y. clerk”).

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• On Tuesday morning, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reported for jury duty at the D.C. Superior Court—but by noon, she was informed that she wasn’t needed.

• Last Wednesday night, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the target of a “swatting” incident, as reported by Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog (and originally by Andrew Leyden on Twitter). Fortunately, the police “quickly realized it was a swatting call,” and nobody was injured. But the fact that judges and justices are subjected to this should be depressing, anger-inducing, or both.

• Speaking of Justice Barrett, after I published my latest SCOTUS clerk hiring roundup—which got nice shoutouts in the newsletters of SCOTUSblog and Adam Liptak, to which you should subscribe if you don’t already—I learned about two more ACB hires, whom I’ll include in the next roundup. But I still have only one Alito clerk for the upcoming Term (which might mean something, or might not).

• In an opinion by Judge Theodore “Ted” McKee, the Third Circuit criticized certain language in an opinion by Chief Judge Matthew Brann (M.D. Pa.)—specifically, Brann’s “inappropriate attempted witticisms” and “ill-conceived attempts at levity,” in an opinion issued in a case arising out of a highway collision in which two children were killed.

In nominations news, Trump announced Judge Matthew Byrne of the Ohio Twelfth ​District Court of Appeals as his pick for a vacant seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Byrne came recommended by Vice President JD Vance, a senator from the Buckeye State before becoming VP.

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I hope you’re reading this Judicial Notice news roundup after a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, during which you had time to relax with family and friends—and to reflect on our courageous compatriots whose sacrifices made it possible. Our family spent much of the weekend in Middletown, Connecticut, where we attended Zach’s 20th college reunion at Wesleyan. We took the kids and had a great time, even if the weather left something to be desired.

Speaking of a great time, I thoroughly enjoyed the Broadway play Becky Shaw, which I caught on Wednesday afternoon. As noted in the rave review of The New York Times (gift link), the show “tends to be described as a comedy about a blind date gone bad, but it’s more sprawling than that, with more on its mind.” It’s definitely worth seeing—but act fast, since its limited Broadway run concludes on June 14. (FTC-required disclosure: after I praised Second Stage Theater’s productions of Mother Play and Purpose, I was offered a complimentary ticket to Becky Shaw, which I happily accepted. Who knew that free theater was a perk of being a legal journalist?)

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: William “Bill” Savitt, Sarah Eddy, Russell Cohen, and John “Jay” Jurata.

Speaking of drama, for three weeks, the tech world—and the world more generally—watched the high-stakes, high-profile jury trial in Musk v. Altman. The case is complicated, but the simplified version is that Elon Musk sued fellow billionaire Sam Altman; OpenAI, which Altman leads as CEO; and Microsoft, a strategic investor in OpenAI. Musk challenged OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company, arguing that the defendants “stole a charity” (in Musk’s words).

In the Oakland courtroom of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (N.D. Cal.), high-powered lawyers and law firms did battle. Musk’s team was led by Steve Molo of MoloLamken and Marc Toberoff of Toberoff & Associates. Altman and OpenAI were represented by a team of Wachtell Lipton and Morrison & Foerster lawyers that was led by William Savitt and Sarah Eddy. Microsoft was defended by a team from Dechert headed by Russell Cohen and Jay Jurata.

Last Monday, the case went to the jury. And after deliberating for less than two hours, the jurors rejected Musk’s $150 billion lawsuit—on statute-of-limitations grounds. The jury’s verdict was merely advisory, but Judge Gonzalez Rogers quickly accepted its conclusion as her own and dismissed the case. Musk said he plans to appeal.

We’ll see what happens at the Ninth Circuit. But for now, the obvious Lawyers of the Week are the lead lawyers for Altman, OpenAI, and Microsoft: Bill Savitt and Sarah Eddy of Wachtell Lipton, and Russ Cohen and Jay Jurata of Dechert. For a behind-the-scenes look at their trial strategy, check out Am Law Litigation Daily, where Ross Todd featured and interviewed the foursome as his Litigators of the Week. (I’d also give a shoutout to Josh Dubin and his colleagues at DRC Litigation Strategies, who worked with Wachtell Lipton and MoFo on jury research and selection—a fascinating process in its own right, which I wrote about back in 2024.)

Other lawyers in the news:

• The other big legal story of last week was the establishment of Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” I discuss it in more detail below, under Litigation of the Week. But for now, I’d like to give a quick shoutout to Brian Morrissey, who stepped down as general counsel of the Treasury Department—almost immediately after the fund was announced. Morrissey didn’t give a public reason for his resignation, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche raised the possibility that it might be “a coincidence”—but I doubt it.

• Speaking of Blanche, senators weren’t buying what he was selling regarding the Anti-Weaponization Fund. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans had a closed-door meeting with Blanche about the fund—and according to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the senators “were pissed… screaming at the acting attorney general.”

• In happier news for the Trump administration out of the Senate, the chamber used its relatively new “en bloc” process and confirmed 13 nominees for U.S. attorney positions, by a party-line vote of 46-43.

• Speaking of federal prosecutors, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a former assistant U.S. attorney, Carmen Lineberger (S.D. Fla.), with stealing records related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

• Goldman Sachs hired Terakeet, an exclusive (and expensive) “reputation management” firm, to go online and minimize the ties of its chief legal officer, Kathryn “Kathy” Ruemmler, to the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Alas, things didn’t go as planned, as reported by The Times (gift link).

• Winning a criminal appeal as a defendant is pretty difficult. But Tom Goldstein—the former high-court advocate who was convicted of tax and other financial crimes, related to his side hustle as a high-stakes poker player—just improved his odds significantly. How? He hired former U.S. solicitor general and current Cooley partner Elizabeth Prelogar, one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court and appellate practitioners, to handle his expected appeal to the Fourth Circuit.

In memoriam:

• Former congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.)—who graduated from Harvard Law School and served for 32 years in Congress, where he was a leading LGBTQ legislator and co-sponsored the Dodd-Frank Act—passed away at 86.

• Harry Olivar—who graduated from Harvard Law and was a partner for more than 25 years at Quinn Emanuel, where he chaired the national securities practice and served as general counsel—passed away at 62, after a car crash in Georgia.

May they rest in peace.

Judges of the Week: Justices Sarah Warren and Charles Bethel.

Last Tuesday, Justices Sarah Warren and Charles “Charlie” Bethel won reelection to the Georgia Supreme Court, as reported by The New York Times and Georgia Recorder. Both Republican appointees, Justices Warren and Bethel fended off two Democratic challengers, state senator Jen Jordan and personal-injury lawyer Miracle Rankin, respectively. Warren won almost 60% of the vote in her race, while Bethel had a much narrower victory: around 51% of the vote, to Rankin’s 49%.

The elections are officially nonpartisan—but as I recently wrote in discussing the similarly nonpartisan elections for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, voters in Georgia are well aware of which candidates are Republicans and which are Democrats. And not only that, but this latest election was especially partisan: the Republicans received support from figures like Governor Brian Kemp and conservative organizations like Frontline Policy Action, while the Democrats enjoyed endorsements from former president Barack Obama, former vice president Kamala Harris, and various national organizations that support abortion rights.

This move in the direction of more partisan judicial elections raises an interesting First Amendment issue: what are judicial candidates allowed and not allowed to say when running for office, consistent with the canons of judicial ethics? For example, to what extent can a candidate describe herself as pro-life or pro-choice while campaigning, while not violating ethical rules against committing to rule in a certain way as a judge?

In Fischer v. Thomas, which arose out of a 2022 judicial election in Kentucky, the Sixth Circuit took what might be described as a pro-First Amendment approach. From the opinion of Judge Amul Thapar:

Ultimately, speech like the [Republican] candidates’ [generally pro-life] comments about abortion is simply part of the bargain that states strike when they choose to make judges elected directly by the people. During judicial elections, candidates must be allowed to communicate their views so that voters know which candidates align with their own values. And sometimes, communicating those views can get close to the line of candidates signaling to voters how they will vote in an upcoming case. But as long as candidates don’t cross that line, their speech is protected by the First Amendment.

But then in Jordan v. Darrisaw, the Eleventh Circuit gave the green light to Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission to enforce the Code of Judicial Conduct against Jordan and Rankin, the Democratic candidates in the recent Georgia Supreme Court election. The per curiam opinion cited both Eleventh Circuit and out-of-circuit precedents upholding such judicial-ethics rules as passing constitutional muster.

For more, check out Advisory Opinions. Sarah Isgur and David French note the tension between the Sixth and Eleventh Circuit rulings, but don’t come out clearly on one side or the other—and that’s where I land for now as well. I’ll continue to follow this issue in the courts—and I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. Supreme Court ends up having to weigh in and provide a framework for how to weigh the competing values.

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• In public remarks that received widespread media coverage (collected by Howard Bashman at How Appealing), Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized her colleagues’ decision to immediate finalize their decision in Louisiana v. Callais. As she argued in her dissent, this move—which would help Louisiana draw a new map in time for the 2026 elections—made the Court look partisan, in her view.

• Last Friday, Kevin Warsh was sworn in as Federal Reserve chair. The swearing-in took place at the White House, with Donald Trump in attendance—a departure from recent tradition, where the ceremonies happened at the offices of the Fed, without the president present. Justice Clarence Thomas conducted the swearing-in, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh attended. (Warsh graduated from Harvard Law School, and while he was an undergraduate at Stanford, he worked as an intern on Thomas’s confirmation to the Court.)

• The title of Professor Josh Blackman’s Volokh Conspiracy post (via How Appealing) is a good summary of its content: “Chief Judge Kimberly Moore Commissions Bizarre AI Cartoon About The Federal Circuit Without Judge Pauline Newman.”

• Professor Robert Anderson tweeted about what he described as “concerning new evidence of bias in the Delaware Chancellor's handling of Elon Musk’s cases in the Chancery Court”—specifically, “a LinkedIn ‘reaction’ by Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick to a post about a case involving Musk.” And not just any case, but one “the Chancellor herself was actively presiding over at the time of the reaction—the $55 billion Musk compensation case.” (I’m puzzled as to why this hasn’t garnered news coverage; am I missing something?)

In nominations news, the Senate confirmed former federal prosecutor and current Nelson Mullins partner Sheria Akins Clarke to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, 52-38—with eight Democrats voting yes. Clarke is the first Black woman to be nominated for a judgeship in Trump’s second term.

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Every now and then, you need a week like the one I just had. I didn’t have any speaking engagements or other work trips, so I stayed at home—allowing me to do copious amounts of laundry, clean out our home office, plow through piles of old mail, go to three doctors’ appointments, take both cars to the car wash, and knock out a massive amount of administrivia. I got in lots of exercise (more than 1,000 zone minutes on my Fitbit), plus ample sleep (seven-plus hours a night). It was glorious.

But I’ll be back on the road before too long. If you’ll be in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, June 2, please join me for “A More Perfect Union: Free Speech, DEI, and America at 250.” I’ll be moderating a lively panel discussion about the First Amendment and free speech featuring Professor Mary Anne Franks of GW Law School, Emerson Sykes of the ACLU, and Eugene Volokh of the Hoover Institution. For more information, please see the event page.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: John Quinn.

Last Sunday, John B. Quinn, founding partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, made an unexpected announcement. In an email to his partners, he declared that he was stepping down as executive chairman and departing from firm leadership—effective immediately. First reported by The American Lawyer, the news also received coverage in Above the Law, Bloomberg Law, and Law360.

(Note my use of John B. Quinn’s middle initial, which I use because there are a number of other John Quinns in the legal world—e.g., John C. Quinn of Hecker Fink, Professor John R. Quinn of Touro Law, the two John Quinns of Quinn & Quinn, the late White House counsel John “Jack” Quinn—and because Quinn of Quinn Emanuel was known internally at the firm as “JBQ.”)

How surprised should we be by this news? On the one hand, John Quinn is 74 and richer than Croesus, so the idea of him stepping back from leadership—while remaining a partner of the firm, continuing to help out with promoting the firm brand and business development—makes perfect sense.

On the other hand, as noted by Joe Patrice of Above the Law, JBQ said—as recently as 2024—that he had no plans of relinquishing his leadership role. And the timing of his announcement email, on a Sunday, was odd and “abrupt[],” as noted by Am Law. (Last Sunday also happened to be Mother’s Day—leading one Redditor to remark, “I heard he hates mothers, and that’s why he chose today to announce.”)

To his credit, Quinn turns over a firm that appears to be in excellent shape. Since its founding in Los Angeles in 1986, Quinn Emanuel has become the world’s largest litigation-focused firm—with around 1,300 lawyers across 35 offices, almost $2.8 billion in revenue, and more than $9.5 million in profits per equity partner. And having assembled a remarkable group of leading litigators and top trial lawyers—including Alex Spiro, William “Bill” Burck, and Michael Carlinsky—John Quinn has, unlike some founders, built an institution poised to outlast his departure.

So even though he once quipped that “when I’m gone, I don’t give a s**t what happens,” Quinn appears to have done a solid job on succession planning. Four years ago this month, he added Bill Burck and Michael Carlinsky as co-managing partners, handing some of his leadership responsibilities off to them. Integrating Burck and Carlinsky into leadership built on the firm’s establishment of a 12-person executive committee in 2020—gradually moving away from the first few decades of Quinn Emanuel’s history, when Quinn himself famously ran everything. (I once heard that back in the days of the JBQ dictatorship, if a partner wanted to write down a bill—which partners do all the time at most Biglaw firms—they had to run it by John Quinn.)

In an interview with The American Lawyer, Quinn dismissed what Am Law referred to as “rumors regarding tension between him and co-managing partners Bill Burck and Michael Carlinsky,” saying, “We have worked together in the present structure for four years. They’re friends as well as colleagues.” But to the extent that the rumors have a factual basis, Quinn’s latest move should alleviate them.

In addition to the rumors mentioned above, I’ve heard that certain other members of the 12-person executive committee had tensions with JBQ—and had been trying for a while to get him to reduce his leadership role. But this was not, as I understand it, a recent development—i.e., they had been trying to ease him into a reduced role for quite some time, without much success—so I’m guessing that Quinn’s decision to step down as executive chairman really was his own.

Even if not all his partners will miss him in leadership, you know who will miss having John Quinn in the spotlight (besides John Quinn)? Journalists. The eminently quotable Quinn “made good copy,” as the expression goes.

Most Biglaw leaders are unfailingly diplomatic; JBQ, not so much. Exhibiting a refreshing candor, he wasn’t afraid to publicly say what many were privately thinking. Back in 2020, for example, he tweeted that one contemplated Biglaw merger amounted to “two rocks that think if they hug each other tight enough, they won’t sink.” Earlier this year, as noted by Vivia Chen, he publicly dissed Cravath—the firm where he started his own legal career—as “the classic example of a market leader that failed to adapt.” He’s far from the only person wondering about the future of Cravath—but John Quinn is willing to say the quiet part out loud.

Is John B. Quinn the last of a dying breed—iconic Biglaw leaders who had ambitious visions for their firms, successfully executed on them, and weren’t afraid to say what was on their minds? Are the Biglaw leaders of today a bunch of boring, personality-challenged, McKinsey consultant types—overly focused on the bottom line, while paying insufficient attention to the bigger issues facing the legal profession?

I don’t know that I would want—or could keep up with, as a journalist—an Am Law 100 filled with dozens of John B. Quinns. But as JBQ himself hands over the reins, I do hope we’ll have at least a few JBQ types left in the ranks of Biglaw.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche “is consciously moving with speed and decisiveness as he vies for the top job” of AG, according to Sadie Gurman and Ryan Barber of The Wall Street Journal (gift link)—and it is “now his to win or lose.”

• One way Blanche is trying to advance his AG candidacy is by pushing high-profile cases that are important to Donald Trump—such as the prosecution of Cole Tomas Allen, the California man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But Elie Honig of New York Magazine argues that Blanche, as both a potential witness and intended victim, should recuse from the case—and that refusing to recuse could give Allen “a legitimate argument on appeal that his prosecution was tainted by conflicts of interest.”

• I added several postscripts to my story about Neal Katyal of Milbank and his controversial tweet and TED Talk (including comment from Professor Michael McConnell). To check them out, go back to my post, “Supremely Cringe: Neal Katyal And ‘TED-Gate,’” and do a “find” on the page for the word “UPDATE.”

In memoriam:

• Longtime Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, the principal drafter of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), passed away at 90—as confirmed by his son, Judge John “Jack” Blakey (N.D. Ill.). You can read obituaries for Professor Blakey in The New York Times and The Washington Post (gift links).

• Michael “Mike” McEneney—a lawyer who spent almost four decades serving as an administrator in the New York State court system, which he helped transform and modernize—passed away at 93.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Justice David Wecht.

Both the political right and the political left have been dealing with the problem of antisemitism. And on the left side of the aisle, one prominent jurist declared that he’s had enough.

Last Monday, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht announced that he had departed from the Democratic Party, officially changing his registration so that he is “no longer registered within any political party.” In a statement—issued in his personal capacity, not his capacity as a judge—he lamented that “[a]cquiescence to Jew-hatred is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party.” Justice Wecht’s move received widespread media coverage, in the Pennsylvania press and beyond (which Howard Bashman, also a resident of the Keystone State, collected at How Appealing).

Justice Wecht’s move was notable because—as he mentioned in his statement, and as he shared with me on my podcast—he actually worked in Democratic politics for many years, rising to become the vice chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic ⁠Party. And last November, he successfully ran for reelection to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, while being publicly known as a Democrat. (Note my careful wording: because Pennsylvania Supreme Court elections are officially nonpartisan, Wecht didn’t “run as a Democrat,” but ran while being publicly known as a Democrat—and with support from the Democratic Party, which poured millions into his race.)

Justice Wecht is 63, turning 64 this coming Wednesday—early wishes for a happy birthday, Your Honor—so after he completes his current ten-year term, he’ll be close to the mandatory retirement age of 75. He could run again in 2035 and, if reelected, serve two more years. But as he told me on the podcast, “my wife might tell me long before that, ‘Hey, buddy, you’re done. Go make some money doing mediation.’”

My guess is that Justice Wecht won’t run again in 2035. If so, he no longer has to worry about getting the Democratic Party’s support for a reelection bid—which means he can be more independent, speaking out about issues of concern to him.

Of course, Justice Wecht must balance his desire to address issues of public concern with the impartiality required of him as a judge. And observers can certainly debate the propriety of any given judicial statement or collection of statements—about antisemitism or, perhaps more controversially, Israel (the subject of federal judge Roy Altman’s new book, Israel on Trial—now a New York Times bestseller).

But it’s hard to criticize Justice Wecht’s decision to “un-register” as a Democrat, standing alone. In the abstract, it would probably be better for state judiciaries if more jurists had no party affiliation. Or as Justice Wecht put it in his statement, “I am confined to a judicial role, and in that role, I maintain independence at all times and in all respects. My voting registration now reflects my independence as well.”

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Earlier this month, Justice Clarence Thomas became the second-longest-serving justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, as noted by Adam Feldman of SCOTUSblog and Damon Root of Reason. If Justice Thomas sticks around through the end of Trump’s term, as I have predicted he will, he will break the record of the late Justice William O. Douglas. In a conversation with his former clerk Kasdin Mitchell at last week’s Eleventh Circuit Judicial Conference, Justice Thomas acted as if he wasn’t keeping track—but I’m guessing the archconservative Thomas will be pleased to displace the ultraliberal Douglas at the top of the ranking.

• Speaking of SCOTUS, should a supermajority be required when the high court holds an act of Congress unconstitutional? Jesse Wegman explores this idea at his new Substack, Major Questions (discussed on Advisory Opinions).

• Turning to judges of what the Constitution calls “inferior” courts (no offense), Judge Thomas ‌Ludington (E.D. Mich.) was sentenced to probation after pleading “no contest” to a single charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

• In other news of judges (allegedly) behaving badly, former Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Edward Harold King was arrested last Tuesday, accused by federal prosecutors (E.D.N.Y.) of participating in schemes to defraud investors in commercial real-estate deals.

• In happier news from the state courts, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court delivered an update on the state of the judiciary here in the Garden State, and here’s the headline: over the past year, more than 30 new judges were installed, reducing the number of judicial vacancies from 52 to 19.

In nominations news, the Trump administration announced six new judicial picks:

• For seats on the Eighth Circuit and Tenth Circuit, Trump selected two district judges he appointed in his first term, Judges Daniel Traynor (D.N.D.) and Daniel Domenico (D. Colo.)—as I predicted.

• For four district-court seats, Trump picked Angela Colmenero (S.D. Tex.), currently serving as deputy chief of staff to Governor Greg Abbott (R-Tex.); assistant U.S. attorney Michael Martin (E.D. Mich.), chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit; a former Thomas clerk and current Kirkland & Ellis (equity) partner, Kasdin Mitchell (N.D. Tex.); and former AUSA Antonio Pozos (E.D. Pa.), now a partner at Faegre Drinker.

In memoriam: Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr. (S.D. W. Va.), who was appointed by President Ford in 1976, passed away at 100. May he rest in peace.

Job of the Week: an opportunity for a corporate associate in Philadelphia.

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I hope all of the moms among you had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Our family had a lovely time celebrating with my mother and mother-in-law over brunch yesterday.

The highlight of last week for me was an event on Wednesday morning, a breakfast panel that I moderated about Biglaw firms moving into plaintiff-side and contingency litigation. Hosted by Burford Capital (a longtime sponsor of OJ), it featured two leading litigators, Eva Cole of Winston & Strawn and Avi Weitzman of Paul Hastings, and Burford’s own Evan Meyerson. The discussion was excellent, as I knew it would be—and the attendance was robust, which was a relief. (Whenever I’m involved with a live event, I never believe people will actually show up, until they do.)

In a prior edition of Judicial Notice, I alluded to some minor health issues. Thanks to those of you who reached out to express concern—but fear not, they’re quite minor. And they’re being addressed: I found an endodontist to deal with my root canal retreatment, as well as a physical therapist to help me with my Achilles tendonitis.

Now, on to the news. As usual when I publish Judicial Notice on Monday morning, this roundup covers news through Sunday, May 10; subsequent developments will appear in the next edition of JN.

Lawyer of the Week: Neal Katyal.

Since Wednesday night, everyone has been talking about acclaimed Supreme Court advocate Neal Katyal, a former acting U.S. solicitor general and current partner at Milbank. Why? Because of a tweet and subsequent TED Talk, discussing how he harnessed the power of Harvey to win the Supreme Court tariffs case, which were poorly received—for reasons I covered in my story from yesterday.

Despite my overall admiration for Katyal, I opined that his tweet and TED Talk were ill-advised, and it appears I’m not alone. In a reader poll, around 70% of you expressed a “very negative” or “negative” view of his tweet and TED Talk, with only 15% on the positive side. But if you haven’t done so already, check out my post and read the substantive, thoughtful statement that Katyal shared with me, explaining the message he wanted to convey in his tweet and talk. What he was trying to communicate was entirely sensible, even wise; the execution just left something to be desired.

Other lawyers in the news:

• In remarks made last month at a private club in Washington, D.C., former special counsel Jack Smith criticized the U.S. Department of Justice under Donald Trump, alleging that the DOJ had been “corrupted” by Trump loyalists.

• After he argues in defense of the Trump administration’s executive orders against four Biglaw firms, before the D.C. Circuit this coming Thursday, Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli will depart from the DOJ (for an unknown position in the private sector).

• Reflecting the Justice Department’s challenges in attracting and retaining talent, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate announced retention bonuses for lawyers willing to stick it out at the Civil Division—as well as $25,000 signing bonuses for lawyers willing to join certain (especially controversial) sections of the Civil Division, such as ones focused on investigating youth transgender treatments and advancing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

• U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is also paying out retention bonuses, in the range of roughly $5,000 to $7,000, to federal prosecutors in D.C.

• Kevin Bolan, who leads the Civil Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Rhode Island, is being investigated by a special counsel, Professor Niki Kuckes. Bolan reportedly failed to inform Judge Melissa DuBose that an undocumented immigrant was wanted for homicide in the Dominican Republic—and after Judge DuBose ordered his release, the Trump administration issued a press release criticizing Judge DuBose, a Biden appointee, for ordering the release of a “criminal illegal alien… with an international warrant for homicide.”

• If you’re fascinated by the improbable career trajectory of George Conway—the Wachtell Lipton partner turned Trump antagonist turned Democratic candidate for Congress—check out Timothy Bella’s profile of Conway for The Washington Post (gift link).

• The Georgia Supreme Court sanctioned assistant district attorney Deborah Leslie, previously mentioned in these pages for an AI-related snafu, by suspending her privilege to practice before that court for six months.

• Congratulations to Robert Boxie III, a Harvard Law School graduate and former associate at Vinson & Elkins, who this summer will become the youngest bishop in the United States. Pope Leo announced Boxie’s promotion last Friday, as reported by The Washington Post (gift link). From Biglaw associate to Your Excellency—pretty excellent!

In memoriam: Abraham Foxman—who graduated from NYU Law and used his legal training to fight antisemitism, as a lawyer and then the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League—passed away at 86. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge James Ho.

Last Wednesday, at a Federalist Society event in Los Angeles, Judge James Ho (5th Cir.) called out some of his fellow judges. Or as former Ho clerk Eric Wessan put it (in sharing a video of his former boss), Ho criticized “conservative judges for ‘punching right’ but not left,” while “call[ing] out his colleagues for cowardice in the face of unpopular decisions.” For a write-up of his comments, see Bloomberg Law.

After reminding the audience of his boycott against hiring clerks from Yale Law School—after free-speech problems at YLS, and the administration’s unacceptable response thereto—and complaining that no judges joined him in that boycott (other than Judge Lisa Branch of the Eleventh Circuit), Judge Ho complained about what he described as a “double standard[]”:

Just last year, when the Heritage Foundation was charged with antisemitism, a number of judges made clear that they would refuse to associate with the Heritage Foundation. And they specifically boycotted an event that would have featured the Heritage Foundation’s work. There was even a whole panel of judges to talk about these issues during the most recent Federalist Society convention.

So just to review the bidding: It’s okay to boycott Heritage. But you can’t boycott woke law schools. Let’s just be very honest about what’s going on here. Let’s be candid about the double standards that plague the judiciary. It’s okay to boycott Heritage, because you’ll never be punished for attacking conservatives. It’s okay to boycott Heritage, because it’s okay to virtue signal to cultural elites. It’s okay to boycott Heritage, because judges who punch left are excoriated—but judges who punch right are celebrated.

For the full text of Judge Ho’s remarks, as well as supportive commentary, see this Volokh Conspiracy post by Professor Josh Blackman. For criticism of Judge Ho’s speech—and it really was a speech, even though he was nominally a moderator—see this Dorf on Law post by Professor Eric Segall.

I do wonder: will Judge Ho announce a boycott against hiring clerks from UCLA Law, after a recent disruptive protest of an appearance by James Percival, general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security? And at what point will Judge Ho reconsider his boycott against Yale Law? [UPDATE (5/11/2026, 4:10 p.m.): I linked to a post about the UCLA event by Professor Josh Blackman. For a very different account, see this Dorf on Law post by Professor David Marcus, who attended.]

The disruptive protest of Kristen Waggoner at YLS took place in March 2022, more than four years ago. In the intervening period, YLS introduced a number of reforms to protect free speech. To improve intellectual diversity, it hired two right-of-center faculty members, Professors Garrett West and Keith Whittington. And Heather Gerken, the dean of YLS during “The Troubles,” left last year for the Ford Foundation.

It seems to me that the administration of UCLA Law—whose response to Percival-gate was problematic on several levels, for reasons outlined in a letter sent to Dean Michael Waterstone by Jessie Appleby of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)—is a bigger offender against free-speech principles than the (new) administration of Yale Law, now led by Dean Cristina Rodríguez (who has not, as far as I know, done anything problematic on speech issues).

So although I personally object to judicial boycotts—both the YLS boycott specifically, as well as the notion of judges going around boycotting X, Y, or Z (which strikes me as outside the judicial role)—if you’re going to do a boycott, do it right, Judge Ho. Take YLS off the list, at least on a “probationary” basis, and replace it with UCLA.

Could it be that YLS, because it’s a higher-ranked school than UCLA, makes for better headlines and more media attention? If that’s the issue, allow me to point out that Yale Law is no longer the #1 law school—so perhaps it can have the “consolation prize” of having its graduates eligible to clerk for Judge Ho. ;-)

By the way, Judge Ho suggests that judges who silently decline to hire clerks from certain schools, such as lower-ranked schools, are “boycotting” those schools. Personally speaking, I don’t consider that much of a boycott, which Black’s Law Dictionary defines as “an action designed to achieve the social or economic isolation of an adversary, especially by the concerted refusal to do business with it” (emphasis added). It seems to me that speaking out publicly against said adversary, by encouraging or pressuring others to join you in a concerted refusal to do business, is an important part of a boycott. (For example, I might be a gold-star gay, but I do not consider myself to be engaged in a “boycott”—or “girlcott,” as the case may be.)

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Picking up on the theme of when judges stop being polite and start getting real, Justices Samuel Alito and Ketanji Brown Jackson traded barbs in a quick coda to Louisiana v. Callais (or actually, as a technical matter, Callais v. Louisiana). Last Monday, as Amy Howe reported at SCOTUSblog, the Supreme Court granted a “granted a request to immediately finalize its opinion in [Callais], in which it struck down that state’s congressional map, to allow Louisiana to draw a new map in time for the 2026 elections.” Justice Jackson dissented, claiming that her colleagues’ decision “to issue the judgment forthwith”—i.e., to give immediate effect to its ruling—represented “principles giv[ing] way to power.” Justice Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, criticized the dissent’s arguments as “baseless and insulting”—and said that instead of the majority going hog wild, it is “the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint.” For more on the Callais dust-up, read this editorial in The Wall Street Journal (gift link), titled “Justice Alito’s Intriguing Footnote,” or listen to the latest episode of Advisory Opinions. And for a fascinating historical look at when justices have turned on each other, see this SCOTUSblog post by Nora Collins.

• In happier news about the justices, congratulations to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who placed fifth among federal judges in last Wednesday’s Capital Challenge. He completed the three-mile road race in an entirely respectable 26:23, as reported by Bloomberg Law (via Howard Bashman’s How Appealing).

• Justice Kavanaugh wasn’t happy with his time, telling Bloomberg Law that he should have trained more—and next Term, he might be able to spend less time in robes and more time in running shorts. At last week’s Third Circuit Judicial Conference, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the Court’s current oral argument format has “blown up”—which he apparently meant not as a compliment, but as what happens when you go off Ozempic—and he added that the justices might revisit it this summer (via Lawrence Hurley on Twitter).

• Why is a California judge in the pages of The New York Post? In a barnburner of a brief, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Los Angeles shines the spotlight on Judge Fernando Olguin (C.D. Cal.), describing his history of dismissing serious criminal charges against undocumented immigrants. The government contends that Judge Olguin is engaged in an improper effort “to push back against ICE’s detention of aliens charged with federal crimes, if not against ICE itself.”

• In other news of judges upsetting conservatives, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui (D.D.C.) apologized at a hearing last Monday to Cole Tomas Allen, the California man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, for the treatment Allen received inside a D.C. jail. Specifically, Judge Faruqui objected to Allen being placed on suicide watch, after he told FBI agents that he didn’t expect to survive the attempted assassination.

• Turning to the state courts, Justice Diana Hagen resigned from the Utah Supreme Court, after her ex-husband accused her of sending “inappropriate” text messages to an attorney who helped challenge a Republican-friendly map in her court. (Justice Hagen had previously recused herself from cases involving the lawyer in question, David Reymann.)

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Over the past few weeks—thanks to popular stories like my deep dives into the most prestigious law firms and the most profitable firms, as well as my discussion of a recent AI fail by a top firm—I’ve picked up many free subscribers here at Original Jurisdiction. If you’re a new OJ subscriber, welcome!

What you’re now reading is Judicial Notice, my handy, time-saving summary of the past week in legal news. JN allows paid subscribers to read (or skim) a single post—sometimes a long one, hence the reference to skimming—and get caught up on what’s going on in the law and legal profession. Busy lawyers find it very useful (and occasionally entertaining, depending on the news cycle).

I typically begin JN with a brief personal update, but this week I don’t have much to report (other than a series of annoying health issues, of interest to no one except my loving physician parents). I’ll just say a quick thanks to chief legal officer Jonathan Leiken and his colleagues in the legal department at Danaher, who invited me and Professor Kevin Ashley to discuss how AI is transforming the legal profession. I love hearing about how innovative corporate legal departments are harnessing the power of AI (see also my recent podcast interview with Salesforce CLO Sabastian Niles).

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: James Comey.

Last year, the Trump administration obtained an indictment against former FBI director (and Trump adversary) James Comey, charging him with false-statement and obstruction offenses. But that case was dismissed by Judge Cameron McGowan Currie (D.S.C.), who ruled that Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan (E.D. Va.), the prosecutor who single-handedly secured the indictment, wasn’t validly appointed.

Last Tuesday, the Trump administration landed a new indictment against Comey, this time charging him with making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat across state lines. Comey allegedly did so by “publicly post[ing] a photograph [on Instagram] which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47,’ which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President.” As explained by The New York Times (gift link), “86” is a slang term “often used to mean dismiss or remove.”

As eight experts told The Washington Post (gift link), the new Comey indictment appears to be on shaky legal ground—especially in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Elonis v. United States (2015), which held, per The Post, “that prosecutors seeking to convict someone of sending a dangerous message must prove the person intended to make a violent threat—or at least knew there was a substantial chance it would be viewed as threatening.” Here, according to The Times, "[a]fter an uproar ensued over the post, Mr. Comey deleted it, saying that he did not know that it could be seen as having a violent connotation and that he opposed violence of any kind.”

Elonis isn’t the only precedent that’s problematic for this prosecution. As David French pointed out on Advisory Opinions, there’s also Watts v. United States (1969), in which the Court ordered the acquittal of a defendant who said this about then-president Lyndon B. Johnson: “I have already received my draft classification as 1-A, and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.”

Trump supporters might dismiss The Post and David French as less than objective, given their past criticisms of the president. But even Professor Jonathan Turley, who frequently defends Trump, wrote a piece for Fox News arguing that “this indictment is facially unconstitutional, absent some unknown new facts.”

Raising that possibility, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC News that the case rests not just on the Instagram post, but on “a body of evidence that [prosecutors] collected over the series of about 11 months.” And the indictment does indicate that “the unredacted version of this document has been filed under seal.” [UPDATE (8:13 p.m.): Actually, it appears that the redaction pertains only to the signature of the jury foreperson being deleted—just as it was with last year’s Comey indictment.]

So it’s theoretically possible that there’s more here. But based on the cases brought so far against Comey and other Trump foes, there’s reason to be skeptical. Indeed, there’s reason to think that Trump DOJ officials—including Blanche, who’d like to go from acting AG to presidentially nominated, Senate-confirmed AG—feel a certain amount of pressure “to execute [Trump’s] increasingly extreme demands without much pushback,” in the words of The Times (gift link).

If the seashells indictment ends up getting dismissed—or 86’ed, if you prefer—that doesn’t spell clear sailing for Jim Comey. The DOJ is also investigating Comey for possibly leaking classified information, according to Bloomberg Law. When it comes to going after Trump enemies, the motto of the administration seems to be, “If at first you don’t succeed, try—and try, and try, and try—again.”

Other lawyers in the news:

• The seashells indictment was signed by W. Ellis Boyle, currently serving as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina—and nominated to serve as the permanent U.S. Attorney. Although he’s a Trump loyalist, Boyle at least has some relevant experience, having previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney (on the civil side). Other Trump U.S. attorney picks have been more problematic, as discussed by Jeffrey Toobin in The Times (gift link).

• Is William “Bill” Burck, the global co-managing partner of Quinn Emanuel, back in the good graces of the Trump family? As reported by Bloomberg Law, Burck—who was fired last year by the Trump Organization as an outside ethics counsel, after he started defending Harvard in litigation against the administration—is now representing World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture co-founded and co-owned by Trump family members (among other investors).

• As I mentioned last week, trial in Musk v. Altman—Elon Musk’s lawsuit against fellow billionaire Sam Altman, OpenAI, and Microsoft, challenging OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company—is now underway, before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (N.D. Cal.). I expect to have more to say about this trial, which should go on for a few weeks; for now, I’ll just highlight the breakout star of the proceedings so far: William Savitt, co-chair of the executive committee and co-chair of litigation at Wachtell Lipton. For more on Bill Savitt and his contentious cross-examination of Musk—with whom Savitt has a history, having successfully sued the gazillionaire to follow through on his purchase of Twitter (now X)—see this Business Insider profile by Jacob Shamsian.

Judge of the Week: Justice Elena Kagan.

One of the biggest legal news stories of last week was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, a major ruling concerning the interaction between Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment. It’s an incredibly controversial and consequential case—and I discuss it in more detail below, as Litigation of the Week. [UPDATE (5/4/2026, 9:31 p.m.): For a clear and concise explanation of what the Court held in Callais, see the first seven or so paragraphs of this analysis by Henry Wray.]

For now, I’d like to highlight Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the liberals’ dissent in this 6-3 case, taking on the majority opinion of Justice Samuel Alito (who was Judge of the Week quite recently, so I’m not featuring him again today). Because Justice Kagan is the most moderate and least confrontational of the liberal justices, she sometimes takes flak from the left. But her Callais dissent got her major props, in progressive circles and beyond—as did her reading it from the bench (for 14 minutes), the her first oral dissent of the Term (as noted by Mark Walsh of SCOTUSblog). [UPDATE (8:08 p.m.): As pointed out by Nikki in the comments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson read from her dissent from the bench in Chiles v. Salazar, the conversion therapy case out of Colorado.]

As Elie Mystal wrote in The Nation, “Justice Elena Kagan brings clarity to what Alito tries to hide.” Professor Richard Hasen, at Election Law Blog, commended her “strenuous” dissent for getting the analysis “exactly right.” At The Bulwark, Professor Kim Wehle praised the justice’s “fierce, eloquent 48-page dissent” (which was, as noted by Adam Feldman over at Legalytics, “52% longer than the majority”).

Here’s the dissent’s eminently quotable conclusion (and yes, many commentators noted the absence of the traditional “respectfully”):

[T]he Court’s gutting of Section 2 puts [the] achievement [of the Voting Rights Act] in peril. I dissent because Congress elected otherwise. I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.

Whether you agree or disagree with Justice Kagan on the merits, you can’t deny her writing chops. There’s a reason legal writing guru Ross Guberman once told me—half-jokingly, but only half—that BriefCatch, his powerful legal writing and editing tool, was “sort of normed” on Justice Kagan (who “consistently earns the highest BriefCatch writing-quality scores of any living Justice,” per Guberman).

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Justice Kagan and her two fellow liberal justices didn’t attend last Tuesday’s White House state dinner honoring King Charles. It’s not clear whether they were invited—but their six conservative colleagues were, since they all showed up.

• Last week’s featured jurist, Judge Alan Albright (W.D. Tex.), recently announced his plan to retire this coming August. He said he wanted to return to litigating—but one can’t help wondering whether he also wanted to escape his massive backlog of cases. As reported by Ryan Autullo of Bloomberg Law, Judge Albright had 446 undecided motions on his latest “six-month list,” the list of civil motions ripe for a decision for six months or longer but not yet resolved. Many district judges I know aim for a six-month list of zero, or maybe a number in the low single digits—so 446 is staggering. (For perspective, Judge George Daniels (S.D.N.Y) wound up on the front page of The Times (gift link) back in 2004 because he had, as reported by Ben Weiser, 289 motions on his six-month list.)

In memoriam: Judge James Lawrence King—who served on the federal bench for some 55 years, including a stint as chief judge for the Southern District of Florida—passed away at 98. May he rest in peace.

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Last week was uneventful for me, mainly spent dealing with domestic matters. But I did work on a detailed outline for the panel I’ll be moderating in Manhattan on May 6, focused on Biglaw’s move into plaintiff-side litigation.

Why the need for a detailed outline? Attendees can now receive Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit for New York or New Jersey. For details and to express interest in attending, please check out the event page. Free breakfast and CLE credit—what’s not to like? Thanks to my friends at Burford Capital, for hosting what should be a great event, and Lawline, for making the CLE possible. [UPDATE (4/27/2026, 2:49 p.m.): Apologies—an earlier version of this post erroneously mentioned Pennsylvania CLE—this has been corrected.]

Now let’s turn to the news—of which there was a ridiculous amount, making the threshold for getting mentioned higher than usual. If I fail to discuss something newsworthy in this edition of Judicial Notice—or if you find my treatment of any development to be lacking in any respect, because I had to go shorter than usual to cover everything I wanted to cover—please add your thoughts in the comments.

I wrote that last paragraph before the Saturday night exchange of gunfire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, attended by Donald Trump and several of his Cabinet members—who were rushed to safety and unharmed. A 31-year-old man from California, Cole Tomas Allen, was taken into custody. Cole will be charged with federal crimes, including using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon. (A Secret Service agent was shot, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived.) [UPDATE (4/27/2026, 11:30 p.m.): After obtaining additional information about Cole, including an anti-Trump manifesto that appears to describe his plans, federal authorities charged Cole with attempting to assassinate the president, transporting a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.]

Lawyer of the Week: Paul Clement.

In a little over two weeks, the D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument in the Trump administration’s appeal of its four losses in the Biglaw executive-order cases. Because the cases were consolidated for argument, only one lawyer can appear for the firms. Who would it be? The competition was stiff: the lead attorneys for the four firms consisted of three former U.S. solicitors general—Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy, Elizabeth Prelogar of Cooley, Donald Verrilli of Munger Tolles & Olson—and Dane Butswinkas, a leading litigator and former chair of Williams & Connolly.

Who did the law firms choose? I don’t know what process they employed—but as reported by Bloomberg Law and Reuters, they’ll be represented by Clement, one of the best appellate advocates in history. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice lawyer with the unenviable task of going up against Clement is Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli (profiled by Justin Henry of Bloomberg.)

Paul Clement is a busy man. Tomorrow, he’ll argue before the Supreme Court in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, a major case about federal preemption—with billions of dollars on the line. Lisa Blatt, another renowned SCOTUS litigator, pointed out the following fun fact to me: “Monsanto will be Paul’s ninth argument of the Term, which is surely a modern record for lawyers in private practice (plus he had ten, but the student loan case settled). Just a further reminder that he is the GOAT.” (And Blatt is in a good position to know; she has argued more times before the Court than any woman in history and is the FOAT of SCOTUS advocates, the Funniest Of All Time.)

For more about Clement, listen to our podcast conversation—he was my second guest, because I wanted to kick off my podcast with big names—or read my prior post, 3 Tips For Appellate Advocates—From Paul Clement.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Speaking of boutique founding partners and former podcast guests, Steve Molo of MoloLamken also has a lot on his plate. He represents Elon Musk in the gazillionaire’s lawsuit against Sam Altman over the origins of OpenAI, which is about to be tried before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (N.D. Cal.). And lawyers in a major financial aid price-fixing case have asked for Molo and his firm to be brought into the case, to “ensure that the proposed class has excellent representation” (after another firm was removed for ethical issues).

• What’s the latest in the horse race to lead the DOJ as attorney general? Right now, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears to be the frontrunner, and the job is his “to win or lose,” according to The New York Times (gift link). One potential rival, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro (D.D.C.), apparently isn’t interested. Another possible contender, Civil Rights Division leader Harmeet Dhillon, has told Blanche she’s a “team player” who wants to help him succeed—and might be more interested in the #3 job at the DOJ, associate attorney general.

• James Percival, general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, spoke at UCLA Law School—where he was the subject of a rowdy protest by more than 150 demonstrators. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), an organization committed to defending free speech, explained that “[s]tudents have every right to object, question, and peacefully protest invited speakers. But sustained disruption preventing others from hearing a speaker has no place at a university committed to free inquiry.”

• In other news related to the top lawyer of a federal agency, Pierre Gentin is stepping down as general counsel of the Commerce Department. A former CLO of McKinsey and partner at Cahill Gordon, Gentin told me he hasn’t settled on what he plans to do next, other than travel and spend some time with his wife, lawyer turned novelist Reyna Gentin (whose latest novel, Jessica Harmon Has Stepped Away, was published a few months ago).

• In another speech-related controversy, Berkeley Law’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine received criticism for hosting an event featuring video remarks by Israa Jaabis, a Palestinian woman who was convicted of detonating a car bomb in Israel in 2015. Jaabis was released from prison in November 2023, in exchange for hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 of that year.

• In other news from the Golden State, here’s an interesting profile of Bill Essayli—who’s currently leading the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles (C.D. Cal.), as First Assistant U.S. Attorney—by Matt Hamilton for L.A. Material.

• Yikes: Jeanne Christensen, a partner at Wigdor and prominent plaintiff-side employment litigator, was sanctioned by Judge Jessica Clarke (S.D.N.Y.). In her order, Judge Clarke wrote that Christensen “lied repeatedly to the Court and to opposing counsel in this litigation about what was happening in a related action.”

In memoriam:

• Sonia Pressmen Fuentes—an early women’s rights lawyer, and the first female attorney in the general counsel’s office at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—passed away at 97.

• George Ariyoshi—Hawaii’s (and America’s) first governor of Asian descent, who earned his law degree from the University of Michigan and worked in private practice before and after his political career—passed away at 100.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Alan Albright.

On Tuesday, Judge Alan Albright (W.D. Tex.), 67, announced that he’s stepping down at the end of August. The news was covered by outlets including Bloomberg Law (which broke the story), Law.com, Law360, and Reuters—a lot of media coverage, especially for a district judge. But Judge Albright is no ordinary district judge.

A former IP litigator, Albright was appointed to the bench in 2018 by Donald Trump. By 2021, Albright was handling around 25 percent of all federal patent cases, turning his Waco courthouse into a national hub for IP litigation. How did this happen? Judge shopping: Albright was the only district judge in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas, so filing in Waco guaranteed your case went to him.

As a result, plaintiffs flocked to Waco—perhaps because of Albright’s expertise in patent law, perhaps because he was friendly to plaintiffs, or perhaps because he moved cases quickly (which tends to be good for plaintiffs), depending on whom you asked. After complaints about this arrangement, then-Chief Judge Orlando Garcia changed assignment procedures to require any new patent cases filed in Waco to be randomly assigned among the district’s dozen or so judges, which brought down Albright’s patent docket. (For pushback on claims that Albright was “plaintiff-friendly,” see this LinkedIn post by commercial and IP litigator Michael C. Smith.)

Where is Albright headed? He didn’t announce his destination, but news reports claim that he’s returning to private practice—which makes sense. He’s resigning rather than retiring—i.e., he’s not taking senior status, because he’s not eligible yet—so his new opportunity is presumably lucrative enough to make up for not getting his salary for life (a nice benefit of federal judicial service for judges who take senior status). Good luck to Judge Albright in his next endeavor. [UPDATE (4/27/2026, 11:30 p.m.): And good luck to Albright’s soon-to-be-former colleagues, who will have to deal with a massive backlog of cases that he probably won’t get through before he departs.]

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Last week, I mentioned leaked memos (gift link) relating to the Supreme Court’s emergency/shadow/interim docket, which were published by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak in The Times (gift link). The so-called “Shadow Papers” provoked the equivalent of a WWE “battle royale” among law professors and legal commentators—a fascinating debate, but way too meaty for me to delve into here. To read some of the takes, see footnote 4 of my recent post, When Justices Stop Being Polite—And Start Getting Real (updated to include additional commentary from Steve Vladeck, Chris Geidner, and Will Baude).

• In remarks on Tuesday at Harvard University, retired Justice Stephen Breyer weighed in on the emergency docket. He acknowledged the “danger” involved in the Court deciding too many issues with too little reasoning—but he also said, in defense of his former colleagues, “I do not believe that the members of the Supreme Court are there to carry out some political agenda.”

• Speaking of SCOTUS, former law clerks and retired judges submitted amicus briefs urging the high court to review Judge Pauline Newman’s (thus far unsuccessful) challenge to her suspension from the Federal Circuit.

• Human judges can be influenced by their political priors—as critics of the shadow docket allege. Human judges get old—like Judge Newman, who will turn 99 in June. Would we be better off with AI courts? Writing in The Nation, Elie Mystal makes the case against robot judges.

In nominations news, the Senate confirmed Andrew Davis, a partner at Lehotsky Keller Cohn, to a district-court seat (W.D. Tex.).

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Last Wednesday, I flew up to Ithaca to speak about Trump v. Biglaw to the Cornell Federalist Society. I didn’t know they had invited the controversial conservative lawyer John Eastman to address them on Thursday—and on Wednesday night, just hours after his disbarment was upheld by the California Supreme Court, Eastman joined me and some of the FedSoc officers for dinner.

I was nervous about the prospect of dining with Dr. Eastman, since I have criticized him somewhat harshly in the past. But we wound up having a perfectly pleasant dinner, despite our differences on everything from January 6 to birthright citizenship.

While I understand that many Eastman critics would be unwilling to break bread with him, I believe it’s important to spend time with people we disagree with. I also used the occasion to do some reporting, asking him about his disbarment. He told me he plans to appeal—and he believes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, aka the conversion-therapy case, supports his claim that his election-related legal work for Donald Trump was a proper exercise of his free-speech rights as a lawyer. As Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in Chiles, “the First Amendment’s protections extend to licensed professionals much as they do to everyone else.”

A housekeeping note (based on reader correspondence I’ve recently received): if you need to update the email address where you receive OJ, simply follow these instructions (or email support@substack.com with the old and new addresses, and they’ll fix it). If you subscribe, I want to make sure you’re getting your full value.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: Jeffrey Kessler, Eva Cole, Jen Parsigian, Josh Hafenbrack, Johanna Hudgens, Jonathan Hatch, Adam Gitlin, and the entire trial team in United States v. Live Nation.

Not many Biglaw partners get profiled and interviewed by Rolling Stone. But not many partners qualify as legal “rock star[s],” to use the sobriquet that publication bestowed upon Jeffrey Kessler, co-executive chairman of Winston & Strawn, and—when he’s not busy running that 1,000-lawyer firm—a top trial lawyer, focusing on antitrust as a practice area and sports and entertainment as an industry.

Given his expertise in trying cases, antitrust, and sports and entertainment, Kessler was a perfect choice to pick up the plaintiffs’ case in United States v. Live Nation, the sprawling, complex, years-long antitrust case against the world’s largest live-entertainment company (and owner of Ticketmaster, the concert giant that merged with Live Nation in 2010). Why did Kessler and Winston need to step in? As I explained last month, the U.S. Department of Justice was leading the charge in this case—but after the Trump administration and six states reached a surprise settlement with Live Nation in early March, the 33 other states (and D.C.), which wanted to continue pursuing Live Nation, needed a new quarterback for the trial team.

Kessler had only eight days to get up to speed with the case, which was already being tried before a jury and Judge Arun Subramanian (S.D.N.Y.). Kessler and his colleagues pulled off that feat, then went on to score an across-the-board win for the plaintiffs in this landmark antitrust litigation. As you can see from the lengthy verdict form, the jury found liability on all claims—a combination of federal and state antitrust, unfair trade practices, and consumer protection laws. (In a statement, Live Nation emphasized that the jury’s verdict “is not the last word,” and the company will be disputing both liability and damages in post-trial motions and on appeal.)

In an interview with Ross Todd of Am Law Litigation Daily, which named him Litigator of the Week, Kessler shared the victory with the members of his “trial SWAT team.” That group included Eva Cole, Jen Parsigian, Josh Hafenbrack, and Johanna Hudgens, from Winston; Jonathan Hatch and Adam Gitlin, from the New York and D.C. AG’s offices, respectively; and, in Kessler’s words, “a group of hard-working lawyers from the 34 states that remained in the case.”

In light of her role in this epic, plaintiff-side win, I’m looking forward to speaking with Eva Cole on May 6. I’m moderating a panel about Biglaw’s move into plaintiff-side litigation, featuring Cole, Paul Hastings partner Ryan Phair, and Burford managing director Evan Meyerson. For details and to RSVP, head over to the event page.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Speaking of top trial lawyers, Hailey Fuchs penned a fun profile of David Oscar Markus for Politico. His highest-profile client right now isn’t as sympathetic as states going after Ticketmaster: Markus represents Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex offender and ex-paramour of Jeffrey Epstein. (If you enjoy Fuchs’s piece, give a listen to my podcast interview of Markus.)

• Speaking of lawyers who great results for clients, kudos to Roberta Kaplan and her team at Kaplan Martin—including Brandon Trice, Max Crema, Avita Anand, Thomas Lloyd, and Olivia Berci—for getting the Trump administration to release $60 million in withheld funding for Manhattan’s Second Avenue subway extension. (As a straphanger myself, I’m personally thankful for this win.)

• Maria Medetis Long (S.D. Fla.), an experienced career prosecutor, is no longer part of the investigation into former CIA director turned Trump critic John Brennan. According to CNN, which first reported on her departure, she was removed by the DOJ; according to The Times (gift link), she withdrew over concerns about the viability of the potential case against Brennan. The investigation into Brennan—which reportedly focuses on allegations that he made willfully false statements about the DOJ investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, during a 2023 congressional deposition—will now be led by former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova, an outspoken critic of the Russia probe.

In memoriam:

• Ishmael Jaffree—the plaintiff in the famous school-prayer case of Wallace v. Jaffree, as well as a lawyer himself—passed away at 80. He actually died in 2024, but his passing didn’t become public until last week, when it was reported by The New York Times (gift link, via SCOTUStoday).

• Former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax killed his wife, Cerina — and then himself—in their home on Thursday morning, as reported by The Washington Post (gift link). A graduate of Columbia Law, former federal law clerk and prosecutor (E.D. Va.), and Biglaw alum, Fairfax was a rising star of the Democratic Party, until his career was derailed by sexual-assault allegations. He and Cerina, a dentist who was devoted to her patients, were divorcing.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Richard Leon!

Last weekend, the D.C. Circuit remanded the legal challenge to Trump’s White House ballroom project to Judge Richard Leon (D.D.C.), who had ordered a halt to the controversial construction project. The panel majority, consisting of Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia, directed Judge Leon to take another look and clarify certain aspects of his ruling. Judge Neomi Rao dissented; she would have stayed the preliminary injunction entirely, allowing the construction to proceed.

On Thursday, Judge Leon issued a new ruling, which Reuters described as “peppered with his trademark exclamation marks and sarcasm.” He once again ordered a halt to construction, but stayed his order to allow time for appeal. Donald Trump, a fellow devotee of the exclamation point, promptly took to Truth Social to trash Judge Leon:

The White House doesn’t have a Ballroom (No Taxpayer Money!), which Presidents have desperately wanted and desired for over 150 years, but a Trump Hating, Washington, D.C. District Court Judge, a man who has gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built, is attempting to prevent future Presidents and World Leaders from having a safe and secure large scale Meeting Place, or Ballroom….

This highly political Judge, and his illegal overreach, is out of control, and costing our Nation greatly. This is a mockery to our Court System! The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security, and no Judge can be allowed to stop this Historic and Militarily Imperative Project. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

The D.C. Circuit gave its attention to this matter. In a two-page order, the panel expedited the appeal, with oral argument set for June 5, and administratively stayed Judge Leon’s preliminary injunction—i.e., construction can continue for now.

This isn’t Judge Leon’s first entanglement with the Trump administration. Last year, he ruled against the administration in WilmerHale’s challenge to the executive order against it, as well as the Pentagon’s attempt to reduce Senator Mark Kelly’s retired military rank and pension pay (after Kelly urged troops to reject unlawful orders).

As noted by Reuters, Judge Leon, 76, has “conservative bona fides.” Prior to his 2002 appointment by George W. Bush, he worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the DOJ during the Reagan administration. He also counseled now-Justice Clarence Thomas, a college classmate, during his contentious confirmation—and I can’t help wondering what Judge Leon thinks of his old friend’s votes and opinions in Trump-related cases. (As for Judge Leon’s own writings, I’m with Advisory Opinions: “No more exclamation points in judicial opinions!!!”)

In other news about judges and the judiciary (with my usual thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing, who was quite busy this weekend):

• As reported by Fox News and confirmed by Jan Crawford of CBS News, Justice Samuel Alito is not retiring from the Supreme Court this year (nor is Justice Clarence Thomas, but we already knew that). I’m relieved by the reported correctness of my predictions—and by not having to cover a SCOTUS retirement and confirmation in this already exhausting year, barring something unforeseen. (But if we do have a surprise vacancy, Donald Trump said he’s ready, with a list of potential candidates already prepared.)

• Speaking of the Court, Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak published a fascinating article in The New York Times (gift link), based on leaked memos (gift link), about a 2016 case that they and some legal scholars view as “the birth of the modern shadow docket.” (But see, e.g., this thread by Sarah Isgur—author of Last Branch Standing, and my most recent podcast guest—noting pre-2016 examples of newsworthy rulings on the interim docket.) I’ll have more on this later; I agree with Ed Whelan that the significance of the memos’ substance is debatable, but “the fact that someone leaked them to NYT is very newsworthy.”

• To her credit, Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologized for what she described in a statement as “inappropriate” remarks about a colleague—unnamed in the statement, but known to be Justice Brett Kavanaugh. (I’ve updated my stories discussing her comments, last week’s Judicial Notice and my Isgur interview.)

• To his credit, Chief Justice John Roberts, while at the University of Virginia to receive an award, made surprise visits to two UVA Law classes—to the disbelief of students, one of whom “thought it was a prank at first.”

• Congratulations to Judges J. Paul Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) and Jesse Furman (S.D.N.Y.)—not on their track records as Supreme Court feeder judges (although they are), but on being named the #1 and #2 favorite federal judges of New York litigators. Kudos also to Chief Judge Laura Swain (S.D.N.Y.) and Judge Frederic Block (E.D.N.Y.), who took third and fourth place in the poll by Bloomberg Law.

In nominations news, the Senate confirmed two state-court judges to district-court seats, Judges John Shepherd (W.D. Ark.) and Chris Wolfe (W.D. Tex.). Fun fact: John Shepherd is the son of Eighth Circuit Judge Bobby Shepherd, one of around 18 Republican-appointed circuit judges who’s eligible to take senior status but hasn’t.

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Last Monday, I traveled down to lovely Lexington, Virginia, to speak at Washington and Lee University School of Law. I delivered the latest version of my talk about Donald Trump’s executive orders against law firms and the litigation and settlements that followed, which I’ve given to law school chapters of the Federalist Society, the American Constitution Society, and the ACLU (with this particular event sponsored by W&L’s small but active FedSoc chapter). Thanks to the Trump administration for continuing to fight this (losing) battle and giving my talk a longer shelf life.

While down in Old Dominion, I discussed whether Justice Samuel Alito might retire with Ann Marimow of The New York Times (gift link). Sources told Marimow that although Alito hasn’t completed his clerk hiring for October Term 2026, he’s interviewing. Why is this noteworthy? If you look at the last five justices to retire, four of them failed to hire a full slate of clerks right before retiring. (Speaking of SCOTUS clerk hiring, if you’re aware of anyone hired since my last roundup—especially by Alito—please email me at davidlat@substack.com or text me at 917-397-2751.)

And this past weekend, Zach and I made a quick trip to D.C. to attend a launch party for our friend Sarah Isgur’s new book, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today’s Supreme Court (gift link). I’ll have more coverage later; for now, I’ll just urge you to buy the book, which will appeal to Original Jurisdiction readers (who appreciate thoughtful, nuanced, fair-minded commentary).

Otherwise, my week was focused on producing content for OJ. I published stories three days in a row: a write-up of the 2026 U.S. News law school ranking, in which Stanford Law replaced Yale as the #1 school; a podcast interview with Jennifer Bennett of Gupta Wessler, a rising star of the Supreme Court bar with a 4-0 record (while representing workers and employees, who don’t always win before the current Court); and a story about Biglaw firms moving into plaintiff-side work, a collaboration with my friends at Burford Capital (a longtime sponsor of OJ and my co-host for an upcoming breakfast event, for any of you in Manhattan on Wednesday, May 6).

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Todd Blanche.

After Pam Bondi was terminated by Trump as attorney general, the spotlight shifted to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. He’s now the Acting Attorney General—as well as a leading candidate to be nominated as the long-term, Senate-confirmed AG.

On Monday, Blanche held his first press conference as acting AG, where he focused on the Department of Justice’s fraud-fighting efforts—to be led by Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, recently confirmed to lead the DOJ’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division. When asked about why Bondi was fired, Blanche disputed media reports—which focused on her lack of success in prosecuting Trump’s political foes, as well as her handling of the controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein files—and said, “Nobody has any idea… except for the president.”

As for his own elevation to acting AG and interest in serving as the permanent AG, Blanche gushed: “I love working for President Trump… If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’” (Contacted for comment, First Lady Melania Trump quipped, “That makes one of us.”)

Commentators criticized Blanche’s comments as unseemly, arguing that they call into question his ability to objectively oversee prosecutions of Trump allies accused of wrongdoing. What might have motivated Blanche’s profession of “love” for The Donald? Former U.S. attorney John Fishwick told Fox News, “Blanche seems to be trying out for the top job today in his opening press conference—and surely trying to catch Trump’s attention with his criticism of many of the questions by the press.”

With Blanche as acting AG, who will assume the crucial responsibilities of deputy attorney general, which basically involve running the Department’s day-to-day operations? Blanche announced that conservative litigator Trent McCotter will serve as principal associate deputy attorney general—a powerful position, vacant since Emil Bove left for the Third Circuit—and in that capacity, McCotter will discharge the duties of DAG (with help from the newly confirmed Colin McDonald).

In other news involving lawyers and the Trump administration:

• Staying on the DOJ, Professor Dan Rodriguez published an interesting analysis of a proposed rule that would potentially displace state bars in policing ethics violations by Department lawyers. Noting that the rule has been widely criticized as lying beyond federal authority, he concluded that it’s “not clear that [critics of the rule] are right in these claims,” but it’s “not clear that they are wrong.”

• Immigration judges are actually part of the Justice Department, not the judiciary—and since the start of Trump’s second term, around 100 have been dismissed and 140 have been appointed. In the wake of this reshaping of the ranks, asylum grant rates have dropped from almost 50 percent to under 10 percent.

• In other Trump-related turnover, the Securities and Exchange Commission named David Woodcock, currently a partner in the Dallas and D.C. offices of Gibson Dunn, as the next director of the Division of Enforcement. He’ll succeed Margaret “Meg” Ryan, who stepped down after only six months on the job (reportedly over objections that the SEC was going too easy on Trump allies).

Judge of the Week: Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

In our SCOTUS-obsessed household, we talk a lot about Justice Sonia Sotomayor. According to our son Harlan—who recently delivered a presentation to this second-grade class about Justice Sotomayor, the notable woman he picked to profile for Women’s History Month—Zach and I talk about her “42,774,681 times a day.”

And many OJ readers have been buzzing about Justice Sotomayor as well. At an event hosted by the University of Kansas School of Law last Tuesday, while discussing Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo—a case from September 2025, in which the Court issued an interim order giving the green light to certain immigration stops in the Los Angeles area, over Justice Sotomayor’s forceful dissent—she said, “I had a colleague in that case who wrote [that] these are only temporary stops. This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”

She didn’t name this colleague, but she didn’t have to. The only justice who explained his Perdomo vote was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a concurrence stating that while “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” it can be a “relevant factor… along with other salient factors.” Based on this concurrence, progressives started referring to such immigration stops as “Kavanaugh stops.”

Justice Sotomayor wrote a passionate dissent in Perdomo, which at 21 pages was more than twice as long as the Kavanaugh concurrence, and ended it with “I dissent” (as opposed to the more common “I respectfully dissent”). She criticized the concurrence as “all but declar[ing] that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time.”

Yes, justices go after each other in opinions—but they typically “leave it on the page,” i.e., don’t bring up their grievances in other contexts. So it was striking to see a justice criticize a colleague outside a written opinion, in a public appearance, and in somewhat personal terms. This led the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal (gift link) to accuse Justice Sotomayor of “profil[ing]” Justice Kavanaugh, in terms of making assumptions about him based on his demographic background as a white male from a well-to-do, professional family. (And her assumptions might not be correct; as a teen, Kavanaugh had summer jobs in both construction and lawn care, where he might have met people who work by the hour—and not $4,000 an hour.)

Perdomo was decided last September—another reason it was so notable to see Justice Sotomayor bring it up now, many months later. I wouldn’t be surprised if Justice Kavanaugh regrets his Perdomo concurrence: in December, he wrote a concurrence in Trump v. Illinois in which he explicitly emphasized that immigration officers “must not make interior immigration stops or arrests based on race or ethnicity.” Maybe The Wise Latina, with the benefit of hindsight, might similarly see her pointed comments about a colleague as unwise?

Or maybe not. Two days later, in a Thursday appearance at the University of Alabama School of Law, Justice Sotomayor said that with “virtually all” of her fellow justices, she has “a civil relationship,” and with “many of them,” she has “a friendship.” One can’t help wondering whether Justice Kavanaugh might be in the first category. As noted by Jimmy Hoover, last week’s remarks appear to diverge from her 2018 comment in which she said that Justice Kavanaugh, recently confirmed after a bruising confirmation process, was now part of the Supreme Court “family.”

What could be going on here? Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern suggested that this could be strategic behavior on Justice Sotomayor’s part, perhaps aimed at pressuring Justice Kavanaugh into voting her way in future immigration-related cases. Another possibility is that behind the scenes, Justice Kavanaugh did something recently to incur Justice Sotomayor’s ire—e.g., voted in a certain case against her position, or circulated a draft opinion she found objectionable. With October Term 2025 entering its home stretch, we might know something sooner rather than later.

[UPDATE (4/15/2026, 9:23 p.m.): As reported by Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog, Justice Sotomayor issued the following statement earlier today: “At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”]

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Last week’s featured jurist—Judge Nathan Milliron of Harris County, Texas, who was widely criticized for mistreating court employees and counsel—was apparently unhappy with Houston lawyer James Stafford, an attorney who spoke negatively about Milliron to the media. He accused Stafford of sending an improper “ex parte” communication to the court—even though Stafford doesn’t have, and never has had, any matters before Milliron—and ordered Stafford to show up to court and explain himself. Stafford ignored the order, refusing to appear—and that might be the end of it, since Milliron hasn’t followed up.

• Another judge previously mentioned in these pages, Judge Thomas Ludington (E.D. Mich.), pleaded “no contest” to a single charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated (and a second charge, of operating a vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of 0.17 or more, was dismissed). He’ll be sentenced on May 13. It appears Judge Ludington plans to remain on the bench; his lawyer, Jonathan Steffy, said that His Honor “looks forward to continuing to serve the Federal Court at the highest level and focus ​on his work, along with his wife and family.”

• Judge Chris Taylor won election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, defeating Judge Maria Lazar, one of her colleagues on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. Judge Taylor will replace a conservative, Justice Rebecca Bradley, and give liberals a 5-2 majority on the Wisconsin high court.

• In other news from the Badger State, former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, whom a jury found guilty of obstruction of federal agents, filed motions seeking acquittal or a new trial; Judge Lynn Adelman (E.D. Wis.) denied them.

• Judge Roy Altman (S.D. Fla.) wrote a new book, Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law.

In nominations news (with thanks to Howard Bashman’s How Appealing):

• Donald Trump announced two new circuit court nominees: former Ohio solicitor general Benjamin Flowers (6th Cir.) and Sullivan & Cromwell partner Matthew Schwartz (2d Cir.). Both clerked for conservative members of SCOTUS—Flowers for the late Justice Scalia, Schwartz for Justice Alito—and Schwartz currently represents Trump in both civil and criminal appellate proceedings.

• Judge Ralph Erickson (8th Cir.) became the first Trump appellate appointee to reveal his retirement, announcing that he’ll take senior status upon confirmation of a successor. And who might that be? Per Mike Fragoso, contenders include Judge Daniel Traynor (D.N.D.), North Dakota Solicitor General Phil Axt, and Justice Jerod Tufte of the North Dakota Supreme Court. I give the edge to Judge Traynor—as a sitting federal judge, he’d be easy to confirm, and his elevation would open up a district-court spot for the administration to fill—with Axt as a dark-horse candidate. (As a 2018 graduate of Yale Law, Axt would be criticized by some for not having enough experience—see next bullet.)

• For the first time in Trump’s second term, the American Bar Association rated one of his judicial nominees “not qualified” (by a split vote of the committee): RNC senior counsel Katie Lane, nominated to the District of Montana. ABA committee chair Pamela Roberts praised Lane as “a talented lawyer, indeed at the top of her peer group,” but said that with less than nine years of post-law-school experience (including clerkships), she didn’t have the twelve years of experience that the committee generally seeks.

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Happy Passover and Easter to all who celebrate. Our family attended two Seders for Passover, where I consumed copious amounts of matzo ball soup, and spent Easter with my parents, who took us to brunch at their country club. (Chase turned in a subpar performance during the Easter egg hunt, but he seemed unperturbed.)

We’re now into the season of spring and the second quarter of the year, so 2026 is just flying by. November might seem far away, but it will be here before we know it. If you’re free in early November, please consider joining me in Philadelphia for Soapbox, an exciting new conference presented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), to celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary. I’ll be speaking, and I’m also looking forward to attending many of the great panels.

Speaking of speaking, I’m traveling over the next two weeks to three different cities, mainly for speaking engagements. I’m pretty booked for the spring, and the summer tends to be light on events—but I do have availability in the fall, so please feel free to contact me if interested in learning more.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Pam Bondi.

On Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump took to Truth Social and announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi would be leaving his administration. After praising her as “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend,” he said that “she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector.” (This led Stephen Colbert to quip, “It’s a much-needed job at a very important farm upstate. There’ll be lots of room for her to run around. Unfortunately, we can’t go visit her.”)

Bondi, 60, is the second Cabinet member to be terminated by Trump in his second term (after former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem). Bondi’s ouster didn’t come as a surprise: Trump’s displeasure with her as AG had been well-known for weeks, and outlets including CNN and The New York Times reported that her firing was likely shortly before it became public. According to The Wall Street Journal (gift link), Trump “was frustrated she didn’t do more to contain fallout from the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files and incensed that she had not successfully prosecuted a number of his political enemies.”

Bondi will officially depart from the Department of Justice in about a month. Who might replace her as AG? On X, Mike Davis—a well-connected figure in Trumpworld, who has the president’s ear on legal matters—mentioned 10 contenders:

• Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as Trump’s personal attorney in various criminal cases before becoming DAG, and who will serve as Acting Attorney General until the arrival of the next Senate-confirmed AG;

• Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon;

• U.S. Attorney Judge Jeanine Pirro (D.D.C.);

• EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin;

• Federal Trade Commission Andrew Ferguson;

• General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget Mark Paoletta;

• Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau;

• Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.);

• Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah); and

• Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.).

Some of these folks are quite smart, so don’t be surprised if they pass on AG if offered the position. As suggested by the (conservative) editorial board of The Wall Street Journal (gift link), it’s quite possibly the worst job in D.C.—especially under Donald Trump, who might not have realistic expectations of what an AG can do. Pam Bondi was actually quite zealous in prosecuting Trump’s political foes—but grand juries and judges rejected the cases she brought, and Trump can’t blame Bondi for the factual and legal weaknesses in those prosecutions.

As for Pam Bondi’s next act, it will be interesting to see where she lands. She has at least one consolation prize probably heading her way: she’s the odds-on favorite to win Above the Law’s March Madness contest, which seeks to crown The Trump Administration Lawyer Who Most Deserves To Lose Their Law License.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Speaking of the DOJ, it’s not only Main Justice that’s experiencing leadership challenges. At least 10 districts are now being led indefinitely by a lawyer other than a U.S. attorney, according to an analysis by Politico.

• Deborah Leslie, the assistant district attorney who got called out in the Georgia Supreme Court for citing non-existent cases, is in trouble. According to a letter of apology that Clayton County District Attorney Tasha Mosley sent to Chief Justice Nels Peterson, Leslie has been suspended from her job, and a grievance against her has been filed with the State Bar of Georgia.

• Former Supreme Court litigator Tom Goldstein, who was found guilty in February of tax evasion and other charges, received court permission to move out of his house and into an apartment somewhere in the District of Maryland.

• Litigator Jay Lefkowitz, who will be retiring from the partnership of Kirkland & Ellis later this spring, represented Jeffrey Epstein quite zealously—and tried to affect the selection of lawyers handling victims’ civil cases against Epstein.

• William & Connolly filed a lawsuit against former employee Dante K. Chambers II, accusing the Stanford Law graduate of posting confidential client information and threats against firm partners on Instagram.

In memoriam: litigator Mark Fredrick Bideau, co-managing shareholder of the West Palm Beach office of Greenberg Traurig, passed away at 68. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Nathan Milliron.

The end of the current Supreme Court Term will be here before we know it. Once we get into that final month, SCOTUS news will dominate—and we’ll have one week after another featuring a justice as Judge of the Week. But we’re not there yet, so we can instead focus on less highbrow fare—like misbehaving state-court judges.

Meet Judge Nathan Milliron of Harris County, Texas. He berated an IT worker who was simply trying to help him—for the crime of being, well, insufficiently solicitous while doing so—and after video of the interaction made it to social media, Judge Milliron went viral.

I actually read about Judge Milliron’s transgressions, in places like Above the Law and The New York Post, before I had the chance to play the video—so when I finally watched it, I was a little disappointed. The judge was incredibly rude, and using profanity on the bench is not a great look—but I guess I was expecting more from the half-minute clip. (Given my two decades of following and writing about judicial misconduct, I admit I might be a bit jaded; it takes a lot to impress me.)

Alas, unfortunately for Judge Milliron, being in the spotlight unearthed all sorts of other embarrassing information about him. It turns out he has, in the words of The Post, a “long history of obnoxious, entitled behavior,” involving mistreatment of lawyers, staffers, and even a fellow Republican who didn’t make it to his investiture.

It was also reported that Judge Milliron filed for personal bankruptcy—with “nearly $70,000 in debt,” including around “$30,000 to Amex and other balances to Chase, Discover, and Bank of America.” But his case was apparently dismissed in June 2025, after he failed to make certain required filings. As one person quipped on X, “Not saying financial struggles define a person, but failing to follow court orders while enforcing them on others is just wild.”

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a hospital on March 20 after becoming ill at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia, as reported by Joan Biskupic of CNN. The previously unreported incident was confirmed by Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe, who said in a statement that the justice “agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home,” received fluids for dehydration, and returned home that night.

• Should SCOTUS have a social-media presence, which it could use to issue orders, opinions, and official statements (like the one above)? Yes, according to Cortez Collins of Fix the Court.

• If you’re interested in possible reforms to the Supreme Court, subscribe to Major Questions, the new Substack newsletter by Jesse Wegman (now a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, which he joined after serving on the editorial board of The New York Times for a dozen years).

• Last week’s Judge of the Week, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery, reassigned the shareholder litigation she was overseeing against Elon Musk, after she was accused of “supporting” an anti-Musk post on LinkedIn (which she denied). Although she reiterated that she is not biased against Musk, “disproportionate media attention surrounding a judge’s handling of an action is detrimental to the administration of justice,” making reassignment to a colleague appropriate.

• Yes, social media can create problems for judges—just ask Judge Milliron or Chancellor McCormick—but the benefits shouldn’t be overlooked. As Judge Stephen Dillard of the Georgia Court of Appeals wrote in an article for the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, Democratizing the Judiciary: Why Judges Should Engage ‘We the People’ Through Social-Media Platforms, “when judges and courts use social media in a responsible and educational way, it increases the public’s confidence and faith in the judiciary.” (As someone who shares Judge Dillard’s positive view about social media’s potential for good, I was surprised by how lopsided the result of last week’s poll was: 75 percent of you have a “negative” or “very negative” view of social media, while only 13 percent have a “positive” or “very positive” view.)

• Moving from social media to another controversial technology, more than 60 percent of federal judges are using at least one AI tool in their judicial work, according to a new study published by the Sedona Conference. (But note that 78 percent of judges who received the survey didn’t respond—an issue I discussed on X with one of the paper’s authors, Professor Dan Linna.)

In nominations news, the Trump administration announced four new nominees for district courts: Acting U.S. ​Attorney John Marck (S.D. Tex.), Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Arthur “Rob” Jones (S.D. Tex.), Ohio Chief Deputy Solicitor General Michael Hendershot (N.D. Ohio), and Fourth District Court of Appeal ​Judge Jeffrey Kuntz (S.D. Fla.).

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Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

I spent last week trying to get back into the swing of things after vacation. It was a low-key week—and after a hectic start to 2026, I welcomed it.

Even after a productive week, though, I’m still playing catch-up on many things in my life, both professional and personal—and as a result, I’m doing what I call “exercising my ‘no’ muscle.” I’ve always been someone who tries to say “yes” as much as possible. But this caused me to overextend myself—and by the time I left for vacation, I was burned out. So for now, I’m setting some boundaries and saying “no” to most requests (with the exception of speaking engagements in fabulous destinations).

Before shifting into “no” mode, I accepted an invitation to join Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis on the California Appellate Law Podcast—and I’m glad I did, since I enjoyed our conversation. I also agreed to participate in a New York City Bar Association webinar about accelerated Biglaw recruiting of law students, which yielded media mentions for me in Law.com articles about (1) five-figure stipends being paid to 1Ls during recruiting and (2) whether the whole process has turned into a “race to the bottom.”

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Robert Frazer.

Here in New Jersey, we’re used to being mocked—much of the time, unfairly—by people from other states. But some recent jokes about my former office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey (D.N.J.), have been justified. Things over at 970 Broad Street in Newark have been a bit of a mess over the past year.

One of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyers, Alina Habba, led the office for a time. After her term expired, the judges of the district selected a successor—Desiree Grace, an experienced prosecutor—but the Trump administration fired Grace immediately, reinstalling Habba. After Habba’s new appointment was held unlawful by Chief Judge Matthew Brann (M.D. Pa.), whose ruling was affirmed by the Third Circuit, a triumvirate of lawyers—Ari Fontecchio, Jordan Fox, and Philip Lamparello—assumed leadership of the office. But Judge Brann rejected this arrangement as well, and it probably would have met the same fate in the Third Circuit.

Last Monday, Chief Judge Renée Bumb (D.N.J.) announced that she and her colleagues had appointed a new U.S. attorney: Robert Frazer, who has served in the office for 20 years. The Trump administration didn’t fire Frazer—because, as explained in a letter to Judge Brann by supervisory assistant U.S. attorney Mark Coyne, Frazer’s selection “followed consultations between the District Court and the Department of Justice’s senior leadership.” And New Jersey’s two Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, issued a statement that praised the picking of Frazer (while getting in some digs at the Trump administration).

A veteran prosecutor, Frazer has handled more than 700 cases during his two decades in the office, as reported by The New York Times. He’s highly respected both within the office and the defense bar, with D.N.J. alumni turned defense lawyers like Henry Klingeman and Charlie McKenna praising Frazer to the New Jersey Law Journal. He graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1991, previously worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2006.

A number of D.N.J. defendants have challenged their prosecutions by questioning the lawfulness of the leadership structure at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. So the office will seek superseding indictments, signed by Frazer, to dispel any doubts.

I wish Robert Frazer a long and successful tenure in his new role. Based on his excellent reputation, I’m guessing that if the Trump administration were to ask Frazer to do anything he viewed as unethical or unlawful, he’d resign. But given all the drama of the past year, as well as all the other things on its plate, hopefully the Trump administration will leave Jersey alone—at least for now.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Why did Margaret “Meg” Ryan resign as director of the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)? As reported by Reuters, she “clashed with agency leaders over the direction of its enforcement program, including the handling of cases with ties to Donald Trump and his family.”

• Colin McDonald was confirmed by the Senate, 52-47, to serve as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s new fraud enforcement division.

• Speaking of AAGs, Harmeet Dhillon has received some criticism for her leadership of the DOJ Civil Rights Division. But she stands by her record—which she vigorously and enthusiastically defended, in an interview with Tunku Varadarajan of The Wall Street Journal (gift link).

• The WSJ also had this interesting profile (gift link) of Mark Lanier, the prominent plaintiff’s lawyer who won one of two verdicts against leading social-media companies (discussed below as Rulings of the Week).

• Speaking of leading litigators, but moving from the civil to the criminal side, David Oscar Markus got to cross-examine Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Markus represents Esther Nuhfer, one of two defendants in a federal corruption case now being tried in Miami (S.D. Fla.); the other defendant, former congressman David Rivera, is a longtime friend and former roommate of Secretary Rubio.

• Another top trial lawyer, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel—the go-to lawyer for Elon Musk, the richest person in the world—had a busy week. On Tuesday, Spiro filed a motion asking for Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick to recuse herself from shareholder litigation against Musk, based on her allegedly clicking to “support” a LinkedIn post critical of Musk (discussed in more detail below).

• Then on Thursday, Spiro sent a detailed letter to Judge Charles Breyer (N.D. Cal.), alleging that jurors who found against Musk in a recent securities-fraud trial were biased against his client—and let it show, by making a “420” joke on the verdict form. As explained by Reuters, “[t]he number 420 is associated with marijuana culture,” and Musk “has often ⁠mentioned 420 in interviews and tweets, and used it in business activities”—e.g., buying Twitter for $54.20 per share. (Having Musk as a client isn’t easy: on the same day that Spiro sent his letter to Judge Breyer, Musk took to Twitter to mock the judge’s penchant for bowties.)

• By now, many of you have seen the viral video featuring Rob Hopkins, a transgender lawyer in Oklahoma, getting arrested for contempt of court in the middle of a hearing. For an analysis of what went down in legal terms, including a discussion of the jurisdictional issues being argued, see this Twitter thread.

In memoriam: Daniel Krisch, an appellate litigator and partner in the Hartford office of Harris Beach Murtha, passed away at 52. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick.

Lawyers can be skittish about social media. But LinkedIn, full of anodyne posts of attorneys congratulating their colleagues (or themselves) for getting recognized by this or that ranking, tends to be a “safe space.”

Alas, LinkedIn might not be safe enough—at least not for Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. As mentioned above, Elon Musk filed a motion asking Chancellor McCormick to recuse from shareholder litigation against him, based on her apparently “supporting” a LinkedIn post that mocked Musk and his lawyers after their loss in a securities-fraud trial in California federal court. The news was covered by Bloomberg Law, Law.com, Reuters, and even The New York Post.

Chancellor McCormick responded to the motion in a two-page letter. She claimed that (1) she does not actually “support” the post; (2) she either didn’t click the “support” icon, or she did so accidentally; (3) she “reported the suspicious activity to LinkedIn”; and (4) when she tried to log into her account to check the status of her suspicious-activity report, she found that her account was locked.

This is rather… strange. Accidentally “liking” a LinkedIn post, which is the default reaction, is easy. But as explained in Musk’s motion, expressing “support” is harder to do by mistake, since it requires the user to hover over “like,” slide over to the “support” icon, and then click. So if Chancellor McCormick didn’t do it, who did?

(I don’t believe McCormick has young children—but if she does, or even if she has young nieces or nephews, I’d bring them in for questioning. I once let Harlan, who was five at the time, play with my phone for a few minutes, while I was trying to work—and before I knew it, he had ordered $107.68 in Japanese food on DoorDash.)

My guess is that Chancellor McCormick will deny the motion—and, if so, Spiro and Musk will try to appeal. Denial of a recusal motion isn’t a final order—it’s an interlocutory order, issued in the middle of a case—so there’s no automatic right to appeal. But given the high profile of this litigation, this could be the rare case where the Delaware Supreme Court gets involved, either because McCormick certifies an interlocutory appeal or because the Delaware high court issues some type of extraordinary writ (e.g., a writ of mandamus or prohibition). Stay tuned.

[UPDATE (3/30/2026, 12:20 p.m.): In a letter to counsel sent this morning (via Eric Wessan), Chancellor McCormick denied the motion for recusal, but granted the motion for reassignment. She reiterated that she is not biased against Musk, but went on to observe that “disproportionate media attention surrounding a judge’s handling of an action is detrimental to the administration of justice. Fortunately, the Court of Chancery is far greater than any one person. I have complete faith in the Vice Chancellors’ abilities to adjudicate these matters. And three of them will.”]

In other news about judges and judging:

• Donald Trump continues to criticize the judiciary. In a speech at a Republican fundraising event on Wednesday, Trump lashed out at “rogue judges,” calling them “criminals” whose rulings are “hurt[ing] our country.”

• In light of such attacks, the desire of judges to defend themselves—and to push back against the Trump administration—is entirely understandable. But when it comes to their judicial opinions, are some judges taking anti-Trump rhetoric too far? Quite possibly, according to judges and legal commentators who spoke with Mattathias Schwartz of The Times (gift link).

• If judges want to make themselves heard, they can do so outside their opinions. A new advisory opinion from the Judicial Conference of the United States provides that judges may make “public statements about the need for judicial security and funding,” as well as “the independence of the judiciary [and] the rule of law in general, including why both values are crucial to our system of government.”

• Speaking of the Judicial Conference, its Judicial Conduct and Disability Committee rejected Judge Pauline Newman’s challenge to her (seemingly endless) suspension from the Federal Circuit. For news coverage and a link to the decision, see Howard Bashman’s How Appealing.

• Why was Chief Judge Kimberly Moore so intent on getting Judge Newman off the bench? One theory I’ve heard is that Judge Moore, who takes a more aggrandized view of her chiefly role than other chiefs, viewed Judge Newman—”The Great Dissenter” of the Federal Circuit—as disrupting the order of what Moore views as her court. And there’s now empirical evidence showing that since Newman’s departure, dissent rates on the court have “collapse[d],” and “[t]he Federal Circuit has become, in the space of two years, one of the most consensus-oriented appellate courts in the federal system” (in the words of Professor Dennis Crouch of Patently-O). Mission accomplished?

• Judges in Los Angeles County Superior Court, perhaps the busiest trial court in the country, are now using an AI tool called Learned Hand—great name—to help with their heavy workloads. Responding to concerns about AI fails (which OJ readers never get tired of reading about), Learned Hand’s CEO, Shlomo Klapper, pointed out that it has a proprietary tool for verifying citations and avoiding hallucinations (similar to the ones offered by BriefCatch and Clearbrief).

In nominations news, last week brought no new nominations or confirmations. But the Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation hearings for four nominees—Kathleen “Katie” Lane (D. Mont.), Sheria Clarke (D.S.C.), Evan Rikhye (D.V.I.), and Kara Westercamp (C.I.T.)—and things got testy at times. Lane, who graduated from law school in 2017, had to field questions about her lack of trial experience; Westercamp, who currently works in the Trump White House, “sincerely apologize[d]” for tweets attacking senators (including Republican ones). But my guess is that they’ll all ultimately win approval from the SJC and get confirmed by the full Senate.

In memoriam:

• New York State Supreme Court Justice William Erlbaum, who served in the New York state courts since 1979, passed away at 89.

• Judge James Harberson—who served as a city judge in Watertown, New York, from 1986 to 2011—passed away at 85.

May they rest in peace.

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I wrote much of this edition of Judicial Notice while on our flight back home from spring break in Costa Rica yesterday. We had a great time; after a few days at the beach in Guanacaste, we headed to the La Fortuna and Arenal area, where we enjoyed the hot springs, did some hiking, and saw plenty of wildlife. As usual after a vacation, our main challenge now is getting back into the work and school mindset.

We did deal with some work while away. On Tuesday, I participated in the (excellent) New York City Bar Association webinar about (insanely early) Biglaw recruiting of law students. And on Friday, Zach and I hopped online for the SCOTUSblog live blog (although it wasn’t terribly exciting—with all due respect to Justice Elena Kagan, author of the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion in Olivier v. City of Brandon).

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Deborah Leslie.

In recent weeks, I’ve written about a (now former) federal prosecutor who found himself in hot water after possibly using AI to draft a court filing. The same problem might have affected a state prosecutor—and the moment went viral.

Unfortunately for Deborah Leslie of the Clayton County District Attorney's Office, she got called out by Chief Justice Nels Peterson of the Georgia Supreme Court, for a filing that contained nonexistent cases. The exchange was caught on courtroom cameras and posted to X by Anna Bower—where it has, as of this writing, been viewed 5 million times.

The offending filing was a draft order denying a new trial that was filed by the prosecution and adopted by the trial court. At oral argument, Chief Justice Peterson pointed out to Leslie that the trial court’s order denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial, which was based on the prosecution’s proposed order, contained at least five citations to nonexistent cases, at least five citations to cases that didn’t support the proposition for which they were cited, and three nonexistent quotations.

What did Leslie have to say for herself? She acknowledged preparing a draft order, but said it was revised by the court prior to issuance—i.e., she threw the trial judge, Judge Jewel Scott, under the bus. But Chief Justice Peterson, who had clearly done his homework, immediately pointed out that “[t]hose nonexistent cases were cited in your initial brief opposing the motion for a new trial.” After rifling through her papers at the lectern, Leslie said, “I’m not aware of that, but I would be glad to research and provide the court with a supplement.”

Don’t worry about it, Ms. Leslie; Court TV did your work for you (much like an AI tool). After comparing the 37-page proposed order prepared by the state with the 33-page order ultimately issued by Judge Scott, Court TV found that the citations lined up. So Leslie can’t get out of this pickle by blaming the judge (although as Professor Carissa Byrne Hessick pointed out, Judge Scott isn’t blameless here either, since she apparently adopted the prosecution’s citations without verifying them independently).

In an age where you can use technological tools to catch hallucinated cases, AI fails are increasingly difficult to defend. But they will continue to happen, because AI assistants are not infallible. So if you make such a mistake, don’t deny or deflect; instead, acknowledge it openly and apologize (as did this Biglaw partner—and as did I, after using an embarrassing AI-generated image that I didn’t bother to review).

Other lawyers in the news:

• If you need something from the Trump administration, your first phone call should be to Mike Davis. He claims to be “the best fixer in Washington, period”—and based on the reporting of The Wall Street Journal (gift link), he seems to have the track record to back this claim up.

• In the wake of the many lawyers who have quit their jobs with the federal government (or have been fired), the Justice Department needs more than a few good men (and women). So the DOJ is waiving its longstanding policy requiring newly hired federal prosecutors to have at least one year of experience.

• Speaking of lawyers leaving the Trump administration, Margaret “Meg” Ryan resigned as director of the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). She stepped down after only six months in the position, without giving a reason; if you have info as to why, feel free to drop me a line.

In memoriam:

• Robert S. Mueller III—who served as director of the FBI for 12 years, then later as the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election—passed away at 81. He had a long and distinguished legal career that included, in addition to his most high-profile roles, service as a federal prosecutor in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.; leadership of the Criminal Division at the DOJ; and multiple stints in private practice at WilmerHale. I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting Bob Mueller, at a dinner in 2014, and came away impressed. (For a photo of me holding forth while Mueller listened intently—or at least pretended to—see this LinkedIn post by Bob Ambrogi.)

• John J. Park, Jr.—who spent much of his legal career in public and government service, including with the U.S. Army JAG Corps and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office—passed away at 71.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Chief Justice John Roberts.

Is Chief Justice John Roberts like Obi-Wan Kenobi? Does he grow more powerful the more you strike him down?

Adam Liptak—writing in The Docket, his legal newsletter for The New York Times (gift link)—highlighted a Truth Social post that Donald Trump issued about the Court last Sunday. It amounted to an extended diatribe against the justices for voting contrary to Trump’s interests in the 2020 election and again in the recent tariffs case—but in Liptak’s view, it amounted to “a gift” to the Chief and his fellow justices, since it “inadvertently made the case for the Court’s independence.”

In terms of his official title, Chief Justice Roberts is actually the chief justice not of the Supreme Court, but of the United States. As the leader of the entire federal judiciary, his job includes protecting judges from unwarranted hostility and threats—which are sadly on the rise, as five lower-court judges discussed at a virtual event.

During a Tuesday event at Rice University, Judge Lee Rosenthal (S.D. Tex.) asked Chief Justice Roberts how he deals with criticism. After noting that it comes with the job if you’re a judge, he added that sometimes “the criticism can move from the focus on legal analysis to personalities.” Such “personally directed hostility,” according to the Chief, “is dangerous—and it’s got to stop.” Chief Justice Roberts’s remarks generated extensive media coverage, collected at How Appealing by Howard Bashman (along with video—the key discussion begins around the 23-minute mark).

The Supreme Court has received criticism for not being sufficiently supportive of lower-court judges, especially when they rule against the Trump administration. So I think the Chief’s remarks—which didn’t call out Trump by name, but clearly implicate him and his supporters—are noteworthy. As Judge Rosenthal put it, “On behalf of trial judges everywhere, I want to personally thank you because while we know that you may not always agree with us, we always know that you have our backs, and that means a great deal. So, thank you—and I hope it continues.”

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Sorry, he’s not sorry: in a speech delivered after his controversial “swinging dicks” dissent, Judge Lawrence VanDyke argued that his Ninth Circuit colleagues are the ones who should apologize, for “routinely impos[ing] their personal policy preferences on the law.” He then offered them a deal: “You stop breaking the norm of how our system was designed to work, and I’ll stop breaking those norms that promote collegiality and the perception of legitimacy.” For anyone who isn’t tired of this story—i.e., can’t get enough “dick,” à la Blanche Devereaux of The Golden Girls—check out Sarah Isgur and David French’s discussion on Advisory Opinions. (And for anyone who skimmed my story about that dissent too quickly, please note that this sentence was a joke: “Not to be outdone, Judge James Ho subsequently issued a Fifth Circuit opinion that opened as follows: ‘This is a case about huge, throbbing cocks.’”)

• Judge Zahid Quraishi (D.N.J.) is quite upset over the leadership structure at my former workplace, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, currently being run by a “triumvirate” after the departure of Alina Habba—and he took it out on two assistant U.S. attorneys, Daniel Rosenblum and Mark Coyne, who appeared before him for a sentencing. After reading the transcript, my own view is that Judge Quraishi was unnecessarily harsh toward the two AUSAs, who didn’t come up with this (admittedly bizarre) scheme but are stuck defending it. (Disclosure: I’m not unbiased, since Mark Coyne is a friend and former colleague of mine.)

In nominations news, the Senate confirmed Anna St. John to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, by a vote of 51-45. St. John currently serves as president and general counsel of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a nonprofit public-interest firm (mentioned in last week’s Judicial Notice for filing a proposed class action on behalf of a putative class of drivers who got stuck for hours in a massive traffic jam caused by a pro-Palestinian protest).

In memoriam: Judge E. Grady Jolly, who served on the Fifth Circuit for more than 40 years, passed away at 88. For personal reflections on Judge Jolly from a former clerk, see Ilya Shapiro’s tribute over at City Journal.

Job of the Week: an opportunity for an appellate litigator in Houston.

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Hola from Costa Rica, where we’re spending our oldest son Harlan’s spring break. I’m still writing and podcasting—but if posts don’t appear on the usual timetable …

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The news cycle continues to be dominated by U.S. military operations in Iran aka Operation Epic Fury. This story has important legal aspects—but as I mentioned last week, I’m not well-equipped to address them. For thoughtful discussions of whether Donald Trump needs congressional authorization for his strikes against Iran, I refer you to Sarah Isgur and David French of Advisory Opinions, as well as the analyses collected by Howard Bashman at How Appealing (from a quartet of leading legal commentators: Ruth Marcus, Jill Lepore, Charlie Savage, and Scott Anderson).

Given all that’s going on, it feels a little strange or self-indulgent to talk about what’s going on in my life. But sometimes during challenging times for the nation or the world, it can help to focus on what lies within our own control—so here goes.

Last week, after a few weeks of traveling for speaking engagements—which I enjoy doing, even though it can be exhausting—I stayed at home. And it was great: I exercised five days in a row, got six consecutive nights of decent sleep, and handled some projects around the house. And potty-training of our two-year-old son, Chase? Handled (well, almost—I endorse three-day (naked) potty training, but don’t be surprised if getting to 100 percent compliance takes a little longer).

Speaking of speaking gigs, I’ve come up with a fun idea for those of you involved in planning summer programs: invite me and my husband, SCOTUSblog executive editor Zach Shemtob, to speak to your summer associates. We can do a recap of the Supreme Court Term or discuss the Court in general—with more candor and humor than still-practicing SCOTUS advocates—and then chat about other topics that might be of interest, such as career alternatives for attorneys or LGBTQ family building through surrogacy (which we know about from both a legal and personal perspective). If that sounds like it might be of interest, please email me (davidlat@substack.com), subject line “Speaking Invite.” We’re also happy to present at firm retreats, partner meetings, and children’s birthdays (sorry, no balloon animals).

A programming note: our eight-year-old son Harlan began his spring break yesterday, so for the next two weeks, I’ll be a bit distracted (and traveling—if anyone has recommendations for Costa Rica, please send them my way). I will be online and producing content, but if you have something for my consideration, I’d suggest holding off until the week of March 23 (assuming it can wait).

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: John Cornyn, Ken Paxton, and Jasmine Crockett.

As a general matter, I pick Lawyers of the Week based on what they’ve done as lawyers, as opposed to featuring newsmakers who happen to be attorneys. But this week, I’m diverging from that practice and highlighting three lawyers who are in the news primarily for their involvement in politics—because (1) the U.S. Senate primaries in Texas were such a huge news story, (2) these lawyers’ stories have implications for legal issues, and (3) to be honest, there wasn’t much competition this week.

Last Tuesday, Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton were the top two vote-getters in the Republican primary, with around 42 percent and 41 percent of the vote, respectively—but because neither won a majority, they’ll compete in a May 26 runoff. Both are lawyers, and their legal backgrounds are important to their political careers: Cornyn is a former Texas attorney general, former Texas Supreme Court justice, and current member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Paxton is the sitting Texas AG—a position he has aggressively leveraged to advance his political ambitions, by filing more than 100 lawsuits against the Obama and Biden Administrations (regarding issues like immigration or environmental regulation).

Meanwhile, in a battle between two rising stars of Democratic politics, Texas state legislator James Talarico defeated Representative Jasmine Crockett. A former educator and current Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico prevailed over Crockett—a former public defender who then went into private practice, where she focused on civil rights and criminal defense—by offering a message focused on unity and love.

Unlike many legal journalists, I have no desire of branching out into political commentary, so I’ll turn the floor over to my former Above the Law colleague, Elie Mystal. We have our disagreements, but I concur in the bottom line of his latest piece for The Nation: if you’re a Democrat in Texas, you shouldn’t be rooting for the scandal-plagued Ken Paxton to win the Republican runoff, on the theory that “Paxton is one of the most odious public figures around, and… he can be more easily beaten in the general election than the stuffed suit that is Cornyn.” As noted by Mystal, Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Texas since 1994—and are unlikely to do so anytime soon. I will turn straight—or, more likely, die—before Texas turns blue.

Other lawyers in the news:

• On Friday, the Florida Bar walked back an earlier statement that it was investigating Lindsey Halligan, who took flak for criminal cases against political adversaries of Donald Trump during her short-lived tenure as head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

• That retreat came two days after the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a proposed regulation that would, whenever a DOJ lawyer is the subject of a state bar complaint, give the Department “the right to review the allegations in the first instance and [to] request that the bar disciplinary authority suspend any parallel investigations until the completion of the Department’s review.” As noted by The New York Times, the DOJ “has no apparent legal authority over state bar disciplinary organizations,” but “legal experts said that even a request like that by the administration could be interpreted by bar associations as a threat.”

• Former special counsel Jack Smith, famously tight-lipped while prosecuting Trump, is now back in private practice—and speaking more about what’s going at the Department of Justice. In a recent lunch event at his alma mater, Harvard Law School, Smith said that “[w]hat we are seeing today [at the DOJ] is not normal.” (He also shared the fun fact that he got into HLS off the waitlist.)

• In other DOJ news, a pro se litigant called out assistant U.S. attorney Rudy Renfer (E.D.N.C.) for allegedly submitting a court filing with fake quotations and misstated case holdings. Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II then issued a show-cause order, asking Renfer and his office to explain themselves.

• Mark your calendars for April 21: that’s when Kathryn Ruemmler, the outgoing general counsel of Goldman Sachs, will testify to the House Oversight Committee about her ties to the late financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein—an opportunity that Ruemmler’s spokesperson claims she “welcomes.”

• Ruemmler was one of several star litigators who made their names by prosecuting massive fraud relating to the long-defunct Enron Corp. Of the 30 or so individuals who were charged in the Enron scandal, only two were acquitted. One was represented by Barry J. Pollack, now defending ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as discussed in this Bloomberg Law profile of Pollack (who worked as a certified public accountant before enrolling at Georgetown Law, where he almost overlapped with Kathy Ruemmler).

• Alabama prosecutors allege that solo practitioner Sara Baker, 74, attempted to murder her husband of 30 years—by trying to poison him with fentanyl, on three separate occasions last September.

In memoriam:

• Alan Trustman—who graduated from Harvard Law and was a partner at Nutter McClennen & Fish in Boston, before going on to a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter—passed away at 95.

• Gregory P. Joseph—a prominent trial attorney, former past president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and founding partner of Joseph Hage Aaronson—passed away at 75.

• Jason Daria, a shareholder at Feldman Shepherd and president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, passed away at 56, after a four-and-a-half-year battle with metastatic melanoma.

May they rest in peace.

Judges of the Week: Judges Kenneth Lee and Brian Murphy.

Last month, I mentioned Judge Brian Murphy (D. Mass.), who was profiled in Law360 after issuing a number of newsworthy rulings against the Trump administration. Judge Murphy is back in the headlines—and not just in the legal media. As Adam Liptak recently reported in The Docket, in his new legal newsletter for The Times (gift link), Judge Murphy now finds himself in a “battle royale”—with both the Trump administration and also the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last summer, in two separate orders on its emergency or interim docket, the Supreme Court blocked rulings by Judge Murphy against so-called third-country deportations—the practice of sending immigrants to nations other than their country of origin, often to destinations seen as unwelcoming or dangerous. After last year’s SCOTUS rebukes, most jurists in Judge Murphy’s shoes (or robes) probably would have gotten out of the way of third-country deportations—but not Judge Murphy, who just issued an 81-page opinion once again holding third-country removal to be unlawful.

Near the end of this opinion, Judge Murphy acknowledged that he was “forced to wrestle with the fact that the Supreme Court did previously stay the preliminary injunction” and that he “could be missing something in the final analysis.” But in the end, as Liptak explained, Murphy “concluded that his latest decision was meaningfully different from the earlier one, addressing a broader array of claims and resulting in a final judgment for the challengers rather than preliminary relief.” (He did, however, stay the judgment in the case for 15 days, to give the government time to appeal.)

In defense of Judge Murphy and other lower-court judges who seem to go against the “gist” of certain SCOTUS rulings on the interim docket, almost 200 former federal and state judges recently filed a noteworthy amicus brief in a Supreme Court case involving Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—another subject that has been the subject of interim-docket litigation. (The names of the signatories take up the last ten pages or so of the filing, so I’ll mention just the first two names on the list, which my readers will recognize: former Fourth Circuit judge J. Michael Luttig and former District of Massachusetts judge (and OJ podcast guest) Nancy Gertner.)

Here’s an excerpt from the former judges’ brief in Noem v. Doe, concerning (now former) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to terminate TPS for migrants from Syria (emphasis in the original):

Whatever the force of the orders this Court issues in cases on the emergency docket that explain the basis for the Court’s decision, its unexplained emergency decisions are not binding, or even especially informative, when lower courts exercise their judicial power in a different case involving different facts and circumstances. Absent reasoned direction from this Court, lower courts must determine the applicable law in the cases before them and apply that law to the different facts in those cases.

My read of this language: emergency-docket rulings from the Supreme Court provide district judges with little to no guidance on the law, so SCOTUS and other appellate courts should give trial judges—who are trying their best to deal with a deluge of difficult cases, under challenging circumstances—the benefit of the doubt.

Now let’s hear a different perspective about the relationship between trial and appellate courts, reflected in a recent solo opinion by Judge Kenneth Lee (another former podcast guest). In Pacito v. Trump, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Trump administration has the authority to indefinitely suspend admissions ​of foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States under the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Judge Lee agreed on the key issue, praising the “magisterial” analysis of Judge Jay Bybee’s majority opinion, but wrote separately to add additional thoughts:

I also write separately to highlight what happened in the district court because it reflects a recent trend that I fear will erode the credibility of the judiciary. To be clear, courts can and should intervene if the President oversteps legal bounds. We, however, must not be seduced by the temptation of judicial resistance: District courts cannot stand athwart, yelling “stop” just because they genuinely believe they are the last refuge against policies that they deem to be deeply unwise. Otherwise, we risk inching towards an imperial judiciary that lords over the President and Congress.

Not surprisingly, Judge Lee’s opinion was well-received among conservatives—such as Ilya Shapiro, who opined that “Judge Ken Lee shouldn’t be overlooked in SCOTUS nom discussions” (I agree, for whatever it’s worth.)

Judge Lee isn’t alone in being concerned about allegedly overreaching judges. For opinions with a similar “reining in renegade district judge” vibes, see Judge Marvin Quattlebaum’s order for a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit in In re Musk, which issued a writ of mandamus directing Judge Theodore Chuang (D. Md.) to grant a protective order shielding Elon Musk from being deposed in a USAID-related case, and Judge Edith Jones’s dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc in Voice of the Experienced v. LeBlanc, a Fifth Circuit case involving Louisiana inmates being assigned to farm work in difficult summer weather conditions.

Joined by four conservative colleagues, Judge Jones objected to her court’s failure to “forcefully rebuke the district court’s gamesmanship that avoided the requirements of federal law”—here, the Prison Litigation Reform Act. This led Judge Stephen Higginson, joined by three fellow liberals, to clap back in a concurrence: “It is a disservice to our branch for any inferior officer to speak of ‘rebuk[ing]’ or ‘policing’ another. In that spirit, we would all do well to remember our late colleague Judge [Thomas] Reavley’s kind and gentle reminder that ‘[t]he trial judge is the key to the administration of justice…. [I]t is a function of the circuit judge to be an enabler of the trial judge, because the trial court is the point of delivery of justice.”

Turning to judicial nominations, last week brought no new nominees or confirmations. But here’s a fun fact, reported by Bloomberg Law: in Trump’s second term to date, he has nominated five graduates of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School for federal judgeships. That’s more second-term nominees than from any other law school, equal to Yale Law (3), Chicago Law (2), and Harvard (0)—combined. In the words of Professor Rob Luther, who worked on nominations at the White House during Trump’s first term, he and his colleagues at Scalia Law are training lawyers who are “willing to take on the hard cases.”

Job(s) of the Week: in-house opportunities for transactional and litigation lawyers in Phoenix.

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As I write this, the United States and Israel are attacking Iran, and Iran is retaliating. This is huge news—but as OJ readers know, I stay in my legal lane. And while the strike on Iran implicates international law and the law of war, these are doctrinal areas where I don’t have enough knowledge to opine. So I’ll leave this topic to others—such as Professor Thomas Lee, who argues that Donald Trump is on shaky ground in trying to justify the attack legally, or Professor Jack Goldsmith, who contends that law is not really relevant here—because “the truth is that there are only political constraints.”

So what can I discuss intelligently? Certainly the world of large law firms aka Biglaw, a focus of my presentation this past Friday at the 2026 annual conference of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants (NALSC). Thanks to Melissa Peters, president of NALSC, for being such a delightful interlocutor in our “fireside chat” (sans fire, since we were in New Orleans and the weather was warm).

I also have expertise in a topic that lies at the intersection of Biglaw and legal education, namely, the increasingly early recruiting process—in which some firms are recruiting 1Ls in their first semester of law school. On March 17, I’ll be participating in a webinar sponsored by the New York City Bar, Law Student Recruitment Chaos: Possibilities for Reform? If you’re interested in this subject, please join us.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: Shawn Rabin, Bill Carmody, Michael Kelso, and all the lawyers from Susman Godfrey, Edelson PC, Keller Rohrback, and Stoll Berne who won a $305 million verdict for Oregon wildfire survivors.

When I recently wrote about star trial lawyers Bill Carmody and Neal Manne charging $4,000 an hour for their time, I pointed out that their firm, Susman Godfrey, does much of its work on a contingency or fixed-fee basis. This often works out to be more lucrative than hourly billing—and I wouldn’t be surprised if that ends up being the case in Susman’s latest win, a $305 million verdict issued by an Oregon jury.

Susman partners Shawn Rabin, Bill Carmody, and Michael Kelso—along with associates at Susman Godfrey, as well as attorneys from Edelson PC, Keller Rohrback, and Stoll Berne—represent 16 plaintiffs who suffered devastating losses in the 2020 Labor Day wildfires in Oregon. They sued PacifiCorp in Oregon state court, alleging that the utility company’s negligence—including failing to cut power during a windstorm, despite warnings from fire officials—caused their losses. After a trial before Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Steffan Alexander, an Oregon jury awarded $242 million to the plaintiffs—an amount expected to grow to around $305 million, after doubling economic damages under Oregon law and adding a 25 percent multiplier for punitive damages.

This isn’t the end of the road for the case. PacifiCorp is appealing, and when all is said and done, the plaintiffs could end up with significantly less—as a result of the appellate proceedings, settlements, or some combination thereof. But as Shawn Rabin put in a statement, “This verdict is a meaningful acknowledgement of the devastation [our clients] have endured, and it reaffirms the irreversible losses they’ve suffered as a result of the fires.”

Other lawyers in the news:

• More than three weeks after Brad Karp’s resignation as chair of Paul Weiss, people are still talking about him. Clients are largely standing by Karp, as Patrick Smith reported for The American Lawyer. And as I mentioned when I joined Smith for the Legal Speak podcast, Karp might actually be able to focus on and grow his practice as a litigator, freed from all the responsibilities he had as chair.

• Karp stepped down after the latest Epstein files revealed more interactions between him and Jeffrey Epstein than we previously knew about. Should these files have been released in the first place? Professor Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor, wrote a thoughtful guest essay for The New York Times (gift link), in which he argued that the Epstein files should never have been released.

• William Christopher Swett, a former lawyer at Motley Rice, agreed to plead guilty to federal charges arising out of an alleged scheme that defrauded the firm and its clients of at least $1.5 million (but we don’t yet know the specific charges, since Swett’s plea hearing remains to be scheduled).

In memoriam: Michael Caga-anan Aguhar, a Chicago lawyer and community organizer who advocated for immigrants’ and workers’ rights, passed away at 42 after a sudden medical emergency. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Aileen Cannon.

Judge Aileen Cannon (S.D. Fla.) is a “fan favorite” here at OJ: the #1 and #3 stories in the history of this newsletter are about the controversial jurist, who has issued several rulings highly favorable to Donald Trump during her five-plus years on the bench. And now Judge Cannon is back in the headlines—after ruling in Trump’s favor yet again.

In July 2024, Judge Cannon dismissed the classified-documents case against Trump and two co-defendants, after concluding that special counsel Jack Smith had not been properly appointed. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed that dismissal—but after Trump returned to the White House, the DOJ dropped the case.

Smith prepared a two-volume report about his work on the Trump cases, as required by the special-counsel regulations. Volume I covered the election-interference case that was brought in the District of Columbia (D.D.C.), and it was publicly released in January 2025. Volume II covered the documents case overseen by Judge Cannon—and that report has never been shared with the public.

Trump and his co-defendants opposed the release of Volume II. In January 2025, before Trump took office, Judge Cannon issued a temporary order blocking the report’s release, based on the fact that the criminal proceedings were still pending (at least as a technical matter). After the Trump administration officially took over and dismissed the cases, removing that technical impediment, Cannon left her order in place while she considered a different argument for blocking Volume II’s release: it shouldn’t be made public because Smith was improperly appointed.

Last Monday, Judge Cannon entered an order to permanently block release of Volume II. Judge Cannon referred to the motions as “unopposed” and to the parties as holding the “uniform view” against releasing Volume II, because the government—now controlled by Trump—also opposes release. In her 15-page order, she lit into Jack Smith for even working on Volume II after her dismissal of the case, accusing him of engaging in a “brazen stratagem” to “circumvent” her dismissal of the case.

What happens next? The Knight Institute and American Oversight tried to formally intervene in the case to argue in support of disclosing Volume II, and after Judge Cannon denied their motion to intervene, they appealed that denial to the Eleventh Circuit. So it’s possible the Eleventh Circuit could rule in their favor—although it’s a long shot, since these types of calls are often left to a district judge’s discretion.

As Andrew McCarthy of National Review argued in two columns, however, the Democrats could subpoena the report if they take control of Congress next year—and it’s not clear that the Cannon order could be properly invoked to block such a subpoena. According to McCarthy, although “Cannon had full authority to suppress evidence in connection with proceedings in [the Trump criminal] case,” that case is now closed—and “a judge has no general supervisory authority over the DOJ’s operations.” Or as former federal prosecutor Ken White put it on Serious Trouble, “[g]enerally, a judge would not get involved in dictating that the Department of Justice cannot release any part of its investigative record…. [I]f there was contrary law, whether it’s a congressional subpoena or whether it’s an obligation of a special counsel to prepare a report, you wouldn’t expect a judge to get involved in this.”

So it’s theoretically possible that, Judge Cannon’s order notwithstanding, Volume II of Jack Smith’s report could someday see the light of day. But I wouldn’t bet on that happening anytime soon.

In other news about judges and the judiciary (and with my customary thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing for flagging many of the articles linked below):

• On Tuesday night, four justices—Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—attended the State of the Union. As someone who watched the State of the Union (until I nodded off), I was prepared for Donald Trump to insult the justices to their faces. So I was relieved to witness what wound up being, in the words of The New York Times, “a fairly cordial encounter.” Upon entering the chamber, Trump shook hands with all four justices—three of whom voted against him in the tariffs case. And when he got to the discussion of tariffs in his speech, he called the Court’s ruling “disappointing” and “very unfortunate”—downright diplomatic by Trump’s standards, as Sarah Isgur and David French noted on Advisory Opinions.

• Chief Justice Roberts was perfectly friendly toward Trump on Tuesday, with the cameras rolling. But might the Chief be losing patience with the president behind the scenes? In a Times guest essay (gift link), Linda Greenhouse highlighted one (largely overlooked) passage from the Chief’s opinion in the tariffs case that could be read as a subtle sign that he’s losing patience with Trump.

• Turning to the lower courts, federal judges around the country are definitely getting fed up with the Trump administration. Per The Times, there have been “at least 35 instances since August in which federal district court or magistrate judges issued an order requiring the government to explain why it should not be… punished for violating court orders.”

• And that count didn’t include the benchslap dispensed by Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz (D. Minn.) on Thursday. In his order—which ran to 41 pages, when you include two lists of habeas cases where the administration allegedly did not comply with judicial orders—Judge Schiltz wrote, “The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt—again and again and again—to force the United States government to comply with court orders.”

• I wonder what Justice Clarence Thomas would make of some of the orders and opinions expressing exasperation with the Trump administration. In a recent event hosted by American University’s law school—which Justice Thomas had to attend virtually, after an unspecified security concern—he expressed disapproval of opinions that are “too edgy.” He explained, “I don’t like those kinds of opinions simply because it isn’t about me. It isn’t about my emotions. It isn’t about my critique of your style. It is about my argument, trying to get it right….” (Come to think of it, I’m hard-pressed to think of any Thomas opinions containing benchslaps directed at colleagues; he doesn’t hesitate to attack doctrines or ideas that he views as wrongheaded, but he doesn’t get personal.)

• I’ve never understood why federal courthouses are controlled by the General Services Administration (GSA), which is part of the executive branch—and it now appears that the judiciary wants that to change. In a letter to Congress, Judge Robert Conrad, director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, proposed draft legislation that would establish a new “Judiciary Buildings Service.” This new entity would gradually assume responsibility over courthouses and other judicial facilities, taking it out of GSA’s hands.

Turning to federal judicial nominations, last week I mentioned that Chief Judges Jeffrey Sutton (6th Cir.) and Debra Ann Livingston (2d Cir.) announced their plans to take senior status—and now they’ve been joined by a third distinguished jurist, Judge Timothy Tymkovich (10th Cir.). He’ll go senior upon confirmation of his successor; as for who that might be, see these tweets from Mike Fragoso.

So the Trump administration has three new appellate vacancies to fill—and there could be more, with roughly 20 Republican circuit judges currently eligible to go senior (per Bloomberg Law and Professor John P. Collins). But with midterm elections approaching, the window for a judge to announce their retirement and have a successor confirmed—at least by the current Senate, in which Republicans enjoy a 53-seat majority—is starting to close.

Job of the Week: an opportunity for a litigation associate in New York.

Lateral Link is assisting a Chambers-ranked, New York-based boutique with an unposted search for a complex litigation associate. The ideal candidate is a 2022 graduate with Biglaw or DOJ litigation experience and excellent academic credentials. The role offers the opportunity to work with high-end clients on newsworthy matters, with lean staffing that provides more substantive experience than at larger firms. The firm offers a clear path to partnership, strong mentorship, business development support, and top-of-market compensation. If interested, submit your résumé or email Vered Krasna at vkrasna@laterallink.com. Interviews are already underway.

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Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

Hello from snowy suburban New Jersey. We didn’t get as much snow during the day as we expected, but now it’s coming down—and sticking. And that’s fine: we have nowhere to go and no people to see, and both of our sons’ schools have already declared snow days for tomorrow.

Last week was busy for me—and fun. On Tuesday, I spoke about Original Jurisdiction, as well as the Substack platform more generally, at an event for Law Firm Media Professionals (LFMP). I was joined onstage by fellow Substacker Vivia Chen—with whom I collaborated on Friday, for an online dialogue about our coverage of Brad Karp. Thanks to Xenia Kobylarz for organizing and moderating the conversation and to Mayer Brown for hosting LFMP in their (beautiful) Manhattan offices.

On Thursday, I enjoyed speaking at the 2026 CPG Legal Forum, hosted by the Consumer Brands Association (CBA) at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort north of Dallas. Thanks to Joseph Aquilina for an excellent conversation and to CBA for the warm welcome (literally—it was in the 70s and sunny for pretty much my entire visit).

I appeared in some news stories, including Maureen Groppe’s USA Today piece about retirement speculation surrounding Justice Samuel Alito (discussed below) and Erin Mulvaney’s piece for The Wall Street Journal (gift link) about billable-hour rates, which was subsequently picked up by The New York Times in DealBook. I’ll take this as a sign that I should keep writing about both courts and law firms—consistent with the result of last week’s poll, in which 66 percent of you voted for me to take that path.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: the lawyers who challenged Trump’s tariffs before the Supreme Court.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its eagerly anticipated ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump—aka the tariffs litigation. I discuss it below, as Ruling of the Week (because of course it is). For now, I’d like to confer kudos upon the counsel who took on the Trump tariffs—and brought the litigation all the way to SCOTUS.

There were actually two cases here, which the Court consolidated for briefing and oral argument: Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, litigated before Judge Rudolph Contreras (D.D.C.), and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., filed in the Court of International Trade (CIT) and then appealed to the Federal Circuit. The Supreme Court granted “cert before judgment” in Learning Resources—i.e., it agreed to hear the case before the D.C. Circuit could take a whack at it—and it granted straight-up certiorari to the Federal Circuit in V.O.S. Selections. The Court then consolidated the cases for briefing and oral argument.

I prefer to be generous when it comes to congratulations, so I’d like to give shoutouts to the lawyers in both Learning Resources and V.O.S. Selections. As you can see from the petitioners’ brief in Learning Resources, they were represented by a team from Akin Gump led by Pratik Shah. As for V.O.S. Selections, the private respondents were represented by four groups: lawyers from Milbank (including Neal Katyal), Wilson Sonsini (including Michael McConnell), the Liberty Justice Center (including Jeffrey Schwab), and Professor Ilya Somin of Scalia Law. Meanwhile, the state respondents in V.O.S. were represented by Dan Rayfield and Benjamin Gutman—the attorney general and solicitor general, respectively, of Oregon.

If you want to be stingy and technical about it, you could argue that only the V.O.S. lawyers deserve congrats. Why? As noted in the first footnote of Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion, “We agree with the Federal Circuit that the V.O.S. Selections case falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the CIT”—i.e., the Court of International Trade was the correct court for challenging the tariffs. Accordingly, the Supreme Court remanded Learning Resources, “with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.” (All nine justices agreed on this jurisdictional issue: the footnote was joined by all six members of the majority, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in the primary dissent joined by the remaining three justices, agreed with footnote 1—in his footnote 25.)

But here’s the funny thing. Because the Court decided both cases in a single decision—instead of issuing one ruling in V.O.S., addressing the substantive issues, and a companion decision in Learning Resources, ordering dismissal for lack of jurisdiction—the name at the top of the first page is “Learning Resources.” As is the name at the top of every page. And the name on the Court’s website. So this case will be known in the history books—and yes, it’s a history-making case—as Learning Resources.

So we owe a debt of gratitude to the lawyers who represented Learning Resources before the Court, too. Because even if they technically didn’t “win” their case, which will get dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, they gave the world a much better name for this landmark ruling than V.O.S. Selections. Pratik Shah and Akin Gump, thank you.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Congratulations to the lawyers, on both sides, who worked on the monumental—and monumentally complex—$7.25 billion class-action settlement in the Roundup weedkiller litigation (discussed below as Litigation of the Week). The lawyers to the class representatives include Chris Seeger of Seeger Weiss, Joe Rice of Motley Rice, Peter Kraus of Waters Kraus, John Eddie Williams of Williams Hart, Eric Holland of the Holland Law Firm, and Michael Ketchmark of Ketchmark & McCreight. The lawyers for the defendants, Monsanto / Bayer (which acquired Monsanto in 2018), include Jeff Wintner and Elaine Golin of Wachtell Lipton and Daniel Nelson and Derek Kraft of Gibson Dunn.

• The Epstein files are the gift that keeps on giving… bad publicity, to outgoing Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. When Jeffrey Epstein learned that a key co-conspirator, Jean-Luc Brunel, was thinking about meeting with prosecutors, Epstein emailed Kathy Ruemmler, laying out his concerns. We don’t know what happened next or what role (if any) she might (or might not) have played—but in the end, Brunel never talked (and Epstein remained free for another three years), as reported by The Wall Street Journal (gift link).

• Remember the prostitution scandal involving Secret Service agents down in Colombia? It happened during Kathy Ruemmler’s tenure as White House counsel—and in 2014, after she left the Obama administration, journalists and lawmakers started looking into it. This made Ruemmler unhappy. So, per Bloomberg Law, she did what any of us would do in such a situation: “she complained to Epstein about ‘this secret service crap’ and forwarded to him a draft email that contained detailed, nonpublic information about the behind-the-scenes role the White House Counsel’s office played in investigating the 2012 prostitution scandal.”

• In positive Epstein news—yes, there is such a thing—victims of the late financier turned sex trafficker could receive an additional $25 million to $30 million in compensation, thanks to a team from Boies Schiller led by partners David Boies, Sigrid McCawley, and Andrew Villacastin. They negotiated a proposed class-action settlement between Epstein’s former lawyer and accountant, who allegedly aided him in his sex-trafficking scheme, and the plaintiff class, Epstein victims who have not already accepted settlements and signed releases. (The settlement does require approval by Judge Arun Subramanian (S.D.N.Y.).)

• Trump administration officials have been investigated for possible contempt of court—e.g., by Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg (D.D.C.)—but has any official actually been held in contempt, at least until last week? If not, we’re looking at a first: on Wednesday, Judge Laura Provinzino (D. Minn.) held special assistant U.S. attorney Matthew Isihara in contempt, after the government’s alleged failure to comply with her order. Judge Provinzino had ordered a detained migrant to be released in Minnesota, with all of his property returned; instead, he was released in Texas, without his property. (It appears that he’s now back home in Minnesota, and his property has been, or is in the process of being, returned.) [UPDATE (2/23/2026, 7:32 p.m.): Judge Provinzino lifted her contempt order, after the government sent the detainee’s lawyer an overnight FedEx package with his client’s missing identity documents, and she imposed no fines on Isihara.]

• In other federal prosecutorial news, the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday appointed James Hundley, an experienced defense lawyer, as U.S. attorney—but a few hours later, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche fired him.

• If you’re a U.S. attorney who’s unable or unwilling to follow the directives of Donald Trump, who is your “chief client,” then you should resign—in the view of Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, “the Trump Justice Department’s brashest enforcer when it comes to clamping down on U.S. attorneys’ autonomy” (according to this profile of him in Bloomberg Law).

• Speaking of profiles, here’s a fun one of legendary entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman, by Holly Peterson for The Wall Street Journal (gift link).

In memoriam: Norman Francis—the first Black student to integrate the law school at Loyola University, before going on to an illustrious career in civil-rights work and later education, culminating in his service as president of Xavier University for 47 years—passed away, at 94. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Justice Samuel Alito.

It’s kinda funny that the most talked-about individual member of the Supreme Court was one of the two who didn’t write a separate opinion in the tariffs litigation: Justice Samuel Alito (Justice Sonia Sotomayor, his fellow Princeton and Yale Law alum, was the other). But Justice Alito was in the news for at least two other reasons.

First, the Supreme Court announced that it will now be using “newly developed software that will assist in identifying potential conflicts for the Justices,” with an eye to helping them recuse themselves when necessary. Some commentators, such as Joe Patrice of Above the Law, wondered why it took so long. That’s a fair question; but speaking for myself, I’m just glad that they’re taking this step.

What does this have to do with Justice Alito? As noted by Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, “only two justices, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, own individual stocks, with the former holding shares in two companies and the latter holding shares in more than two dozen.” Justice Alito’s extensive stock holdings have required him to recuse on multiple occasions over the years, per Jimmy Hoover of Law.com—which even the justices themselves acknowledge as suboptimal, since “[t]he loss of even one Justice may undermine the ‘fruitful interchange of minds which is indispensable’ to the Court’s decision-making process.”

I agree with Gabe Roth, Professors Will Baude and Dan Epps of Divided Argument, Chris Geidner of Law Dork, and the many other observers who support a very modest ethics reform: prohibiting justices from owning individual stocks. This wouldn’t prevent them from reaping the benefits of investing or saving for retirement, since they could still own any other investments—such as low-cost index funds, which many investment experts recommend over individual stock ownership anyway.

I appreciate the ability to own individual stocks as much as the next guy or gal (especially as someone who bought Apple in 2004 and Amazon in 2010)—but I’m just a random citizen, not a justice of the United States Supreme Court. As Gabe Roth put it, “Public service requires certain sacrifices in the name of ethics, and going stock-free should be one of them for all branches of government.”

If Justice Alito really wants to own individual stocks—and if his wife really wants to fly her flags—he could step down from the Supreme Court in 2026, his twentieth anniversary as a justice. This brings us to the second reason he was in the news: he was the subject of retirement speculation, “particularly among liberal commentators,” as reported by Maureen Groppe of USA Today. I hold a different view—but I’ll stop here, since I plan to tackle this topic in a forthcoming post. [UPDATE (2/28/2026, 10:39 p.m.): Here’s the follow-up post, Justice Samuel Alito Won’t Hang Up His Robes Anytime Soon.]

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Speaking of the justices, I’m a big fan of Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett—and so is Professor Cass Sunstein, who praised them in a Substack post titled “The Lawyerly Virtues” (via Howard Bashman’s How Appealing).

• Speaking of fanboys, might Judge Thomas Ludington (E.D. Mich.) be a fan of Gayle, the songstress behind the hit single “abcdefu”? When pulled over after crashing his Cadillac and asked to perform a field sobriety test, he allegedly responded as follows when asked to recite the alphabet: “A, B, C, D, F, U.” A post-crash test showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.27—far above the legal limit of 0.08—but His Honor has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor DWI charges, with a jury trial scheduled for May 8 in Michigan state court.

• Speaking of judges accused of misconduct, we now know more about the accusations against former judge Mark Wolf (D. Mass.)—who stepped down before the investigation could conclude. He allegedly “yelled at his staff, made demeaning comments, and threw papers in frustration in chambers,” according to former law clerks and other staff who spoke to Bloomberg Law.

In nominations news:

• On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced four new judicial nominees. For the Eighth Circuit, he nominated Justin Smith (8th Cir.), who represented Trump in Trump v. United States aka the SCOTUS immunity case (and who also served as deputy counsel to the governor and deputy attorney general in Missouri, but I’m guessing the Trump work played a bigger role in his selection). For the District of Kansas, Trump picked Kansas Solicitor General Anthony Powell, Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Tony Mattivi, and civil litigator Jeffrey Kuhlman.

• On Friday, we learned that two leading lights of the federal judiciary, Chief Judges Jeffrey Sutton (6th Cir.) and Debra Ann Livingston (2d Cir.), will take senior status—effective October 1 and July 1, respectively. Judges often announce such plans well in advance, so their successor can be in place by the time they’re ready to step down. But from Trump’s perspective, getting these announcements now is helpful because he can fill the seats before the midterm elections—and while the Republicans still hold 53 seats in the Senate. If you’re interested in reliable intel on possible nominees, follow Mike Fragoso, who worked on nominations for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.)—and who has already floated names for these Sixth Circuit and Second Circuit seats.

Job of the Week: an opportunity for a midlevel M&A associate in Atlanta.

Lateral Link is partnering with an Am Law 25 firm seeking a midlevel M&A associate with three to five years of experience (sixth-year max) to join its Chambers-ranked corporate practice in Atlanta. This team handles sophisticated public and private M&A transactions, with strategic deals averaging approximately $500 million, along with broader corporate and governance matters. The ideal candidate will have excellent academic credentials and meaningful experience at a large law firm advising on complex M&A deals, with exposure to cross-border transactions as a plus. If you’re interested in handling top-tier deal work outside New York, without sacrificing platform or prestige, please send your résumé and law school transcript to Marion Wilson at mwilson@laterallink.com.

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I wish you a Happy Presidents’ Day. Some of you are fans of our current president, and some of you are not. If you are not, I remind you of a saying that was popularized by an indisputably great president, Abraham Lincoln: “And this, too, shall pass away.”

I also hope you had a great Valentine’s Day. Or as outgoing Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler wrote to her longtime pal Jeffrey Epstein, “I hope you enjoy[ed] the day with your one true love. :-)”

Speaking of Epstein, I spent much of last week reporting and writing two stories related to the late financier/sexual predator, Paul Weiss’s Firm Culture Fell Victim To The Vampire Rule and 5 Takeaways From Brad Karp’s Emails With Jeffrey Epstein. If you haven’t read them, I do think they’re worth your time, especially if you missed the footnotes (which didn’t appear in the Bloomberg Law version of my “vampire rule” column). I’ve also added updates to both stories that you should check out.

Here at OJ, which isn’t focused on breaking news, I’m rarely the first to cover a story. But I like to think that when I do cover something, I add a depth of reporting and analysis that’s hard to find elsewhere. To my subscribers, your support makes that possible—otherwise, I’d be juggling my writing with a day job—so I thank you.

On a related note, perhaps you can give me some career advice. I write about both the courts and law firms, but sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off focusing on one or the other. Please take my poll:

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Kathryn Ruemmler.

Last Thursday, Kathy Ruemmler (finally) announced that she will resign as GC of Goldman Sachs (eventually—effective June 30). “My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs’s interests first,” she said in a statement. And the interests of Goldman were clearly being disserved by the Epstein-related controversies swirling around Ruemmler, who appears more than 10,000 times in the Epstein files.

The mentions are often embarrassing—such as thanking “Uncle Jeffrey” for lavish gifts, like a $9,350 Hermès handbag, or asking for his advice about an affair she was allegedly having. “[Y]ou did nothing wrong,” Epstein wrote to her, after she sent him a Times Ethicist column asking whether “a woman who has chosen not to marry [is] responsible for acting as a custodian of another woman’s marriage.”

In fairness to Ruemmler, it’s not clear that any of her Epstein interactions—even the most problematic ones, such as advising him on legal or media problems related to his sex crimes—violated any legal or ethical rules (as discussed by Jenna Greene of Reuters). And all of Ruemmler’s contact with Epstein, who died in August 2019, predated her arrival at Goldman in April 2020.

But as a person close to a Goldman board member told The Financial Times, the Epstein-related revelations about Ruemmler amounted to “a distraction, and it’s embarrassing. It’s not the board’s job to hire and fire people. That is the CEO’s role.”

Goldman CEO David Solomon, however, was a big fan of Ruemmler—who won his trust after helping him prepare to testify before Congress in 2021. Solomon defended Ruemmler for weeks, praising her as an “excellent” and even “extraordinary” lawyer—and when she finally tendered her resignation, he said he accepted it “reluctantly,” declaring that “she will be missed.”

When her time at Goldman concludes on June 30, Ruemmler, 54, could have a hard time finding a new job—but she definitely won’t need one, financially speaking. According to The New York Times, her Goldman stock options are due to vest over the next two years, putting her in line to collect about $80 million—on top of the many millions she’s already earned, as a top Goldman exec and Latham & Watkins partner before that. If I were in Ruemmler’s shoes (or Epstein-gifted boots), I’d retire—and spend the rest of my days enjoying my vast wealth, volunteering at a nonprofit that helps victims of sex trafficking, and finding myself a man (ideally an unmarried one).

Other attorneys in the news:

• Speaking of lawyers leaving high-powered posts, Gail Slater stepped down as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division—the top antitrust job at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)—and some observers fear this could lead to weaker and more unpredictable antitrust enforcement. What led to Slater’s departure? According to Bloomberg, Mike Davis—a top Trump adviser and founder of the Article III Project, a conservative legal advocacy group—played a key role. After Slater announced her resignation, Davis tweeted, “Good riddance.”

• The Epstein files loomed large when Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Asked to apologize for the mishandling of certain documents (where victims’ names were erroneously left unredacted), Bondi refused—even with Epstein survivors in the room. As usual, she insulted various Democrats on the panel—such as Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), whom she called a “washed-up, loser lawyer.”

• In other Justice Department news, lawyers are leaving the DOJ in droves—especially assistant U.S. attorneys, with U.S. attorneys’ offices losing 14 percent of their headcount between November 2024 and November 2025.

• One high-profile lawyer who recently quit his job as an AUSA was Joseph H. Thompson, former acting U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota. Now in private practice, he’s representing journalist Don Lemon, who’s fighting federal charges arising from his presence at a disruptive church protest.

• Still on U.S. attorneys’ offices, federal judges in upstate New York appointed Donald Kinsella, a former criminal chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York (N.D.N.Y.), as the new head of that office—but hours later, he was fired by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

• Because they don’t require blue slips or other support from Democratic senators, appointments at Main Justice can still happen. On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Daniel Burrows, 52-46, to lead the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy.

• Burrows isn’t the only lawyer with a new job. Liz Magill—who resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania in December 2023, after an ill-fated congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses—was announced as the new dean of Georgetown Law. In an interview with Evan Mandery of Politico, she reflected on the events of 2023 and the lessons she learned.

• At least two American lawyers are participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy: Rich Ruohonen, a Minnesota personal-injury lawyer who competes for the U.S. in curling, and Jared Firestone, a South Florida lawyer who competes for Israel in skeleton (a type of sledding).

• Regarding last week’s Lawyer of the Week, Julie Le—the federal government lawyer who declared that her (former) job responding to habeas petitions from detained immigrants “sucks”—62 percent of OJ readers approved of her in-court comments, while 28 percent disapproved. For a thoughtful discussion of Le’s remarks by Sarah Isgur and David French, check out Advisory Opinions.

In memoriam: Ray Mouton—a lawyer who represented one of the first Roman Catholic priests to be criminally charged with child sexual abuse, then tried to warn the church about the crisis—passed away at 78. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby.

Are law clerks starting to become more comfortable filing complaints against allegedly abusive judges? We’ve learned about three complaints of judicial misconduct over the past three months—involving Judge Sarah Merriam (2d Cir.), former judge Mark Wolf (D. Mass.), and now Judge Lydia Griggsby (D. Md.)

A former law clerk to Judge Griggsby accused her of maintaining an “abusive workplace” in chambers, as described in news coverage from NPR and Bloomberg Law, as well as an order issued by Fourth Circuit Chief Judge Albert Diaz (via Howard Bashman at How Appealing). Consistent with protocol, Chief Judge’s order doesn’t name Judge Griggsby—but sources told Carrie Johnson of NPR and Jacqueline Thomsen and Suzanne Monyak of Bloomberg that the judge in question is Griggsby.

Most of the allegations amount to claims of verbal abuse—e.g., “berat[ing],” “interrupt[ing],” “belittl[ing],” “rais[ing her] voice,” and “verbal browbeating.” This is, if true, improper and inappropriate—but when dealing with claims of this nature, there’s admittedly a subjective element.

Some of the accusations amount to claims of a harsh communication style—e.g., referring to a particular piece of work product as “crap.” I don’t know that this is abusive per se. When I worked at Wachtell Lipton, the partners could be quite candid in their feedback—which some people appreciate, and some don’t. Being constantly told that your output is “crap,” in a raised and angry voice, would be abusive. But imagine a workplace where you’re praised for good work product, and called out candidly for subpar work—e.g., “David, normally your bench memos are fantastic—but let’s be honest, this one was crap.” Is that abusive?

One of the allegations involves the judge “expect[ing] law clerks to give updates on the more than 200 cases assigned to them”—and administering a “verbal browbeating” if the clerks “were unable to provide, at a moment’s notice, the exact details [the judge] wanted.” Verbal browbeating is unacceptable, obviously. But having to provide updates on many, many cases is simply part of your job when you’re clerking for a busy district judge. Does Judge Griggsby have unreasonable expectations? Or is the complaining clerk being a little snowflake-y?

Here are some of the more colorful allegations from Chief Judge Diaz’s order—all direct quotations, but I’m not putting them in quotation marks to avoid the double quote marks—followed by commentary from me, in brackets:

• When complainant’s co-clerk “asked the judge if she could be excused to eat lunch [one] afternoon, the judge told her she would have to bring her lunch into the judge’s office and eat standing up in front of the judge if she wanted to take a lunch break.” [Bad, but it appears the judge denies this—and according to Chief Judge Diaz, “I’m satisfied that the subject judge did not literally order the co-clerk to eat lunch standing up.”]

• While his co-clerk was using the chambers bathroom, the judge banged on the door and yelled, “That’s my bathroom!” Neither complainant nor his coclerk were aware of any restrictions on the use of the bathroom. [This should have been made clear to clerks at the outset of the clerkship—but I will say that during my clerkship, it was crystal clear that we were not to use the judge’s bathroom.]

• The subject judge remarked that [she] “no longer wished to hire any ‘diversity candidates’” after expressing dissatisfaction with an intern’s performance. [Interesting—Judge Griggsby is a Black woman, but maybe she doesn’t want advancing diversity to result in any compromises on work product. In response to this allegation, she “emphasized strong support for diversity in the federal judiciary, in both word and deed.”]

What did Judge Griggsby have to say for herself, and how was the complaint resolved? From Chief Judge Diaz’s order:

Although the subject judge disputes some of the allegations in the judicial complaint, the judge accepts that the environment and atmosphere in the chambers at that time resulted in an abusive workplace. The subject judge deeply regrets the impact of the judge’s actions on the chambers staff.

Importantly, the subject judge acted to improve the workplace environment in chambers after the resignations of complainant and his co-clerk by (1) meeting with a mentor judge to discuss best practices for chambers management, (2) implementing informal coffee hours with staff, (3) scheduling periodic informal outings for chambers staff with the judge, (4) extending the time for weekly docket review meetings, (5) conducting informal exit interviews, and (6) allowing incoming law clerks to shadow the outgoing clerks.

Judge Griggsby also agreed to additional steps, such as attending regular meetings with Chief Judge Diaz, to be held every two months, and attending workplace training annually, alongside chambers staff.

Aliza Shatzman of the Legal Accountability Project, an advocate of greater workplace protections for law clerks, expressed doubt to NPR that such measures will be sufficient. I’m a bit more willing than Shatzman to see how this plays out. But if similar complaints end up being lodged against Judge Griggsby after implementation of these corrective measures (as we saw with Judge Merriam), that would lend support to Shatzman’s argument that a new approach is needed.

Judge Griggsby was in the news last week for another reason: she’s presiding over the criminal tax and false-statement trial of prominent (but now retired) Supreme Court advocate Tom Goldstein. For more on that, see Litigation of the Week (below).

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Although he’s been on the bench for little more than a year, since his December 2024 appointment by Joe Biden, Judge Brian E. Murphy (D. Mass.) has already issued a number of newsworthy rulings against the Trump administration, as described in this Law360 profile.

• Speaking of judges ruling against the administration, the Trump DOJ is asking U.S. attorneys to provide examples of alleged judicial activism, with an eye toward possible impeachment referrals to the House of Representatives.

• After complaints from a group of Republican state attorneys general, the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) removed a chapter about climate change from the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, a resource produced by the FJC to help judges understand complex scientific topics that might arise in their cases.

• Ten years ago this month, Justice Antonin Scalia passed away. For an insightful evaluation of his legacy, check out this SCOTUSblog post by Professor Brian Fitzpatrick (a former Scalia clerk).

In nominations news, Donald Trump announced four new Article III judicial nominees: Sheria Clarke (D.S.C.), a litigation partner in the Greenville office of Nelson Mullins; Katie Lane (D. Mont.), senior legal counsel for the Republican National Committee and former deputy solicitor general for Montana (D. Mont.); Evan Rikhye (D.V.I.), senior counsel at Walmart and a former federal prosecutor in the Virgin Islands; and associate White House counsel Kara Westercamp (Ct. Int’l Trade).

Job of the Week: an opportunity for energy and infrastructure associates in Houston.

Lateral Link is assisting a leading international law firm in searching for junior to midlevel associates to join its energy and infrastructure practice in Houston. This role offers the opportunity to advise corporate and private equity clients on complex commercial transactions, project development, and cross-border investments across the energy, infrastructure, oil and gas, LNG, power, and mining sectors. Candidates should have 2+ years of experience at a top-tier or international law firm with a strong background in corporate M&A and energy or infrastructure transactions. This position offers significant responsibility, direct client exposure, and meaningful deal experience. Significant sign-on bonuses are available for the right candidates. If you’re interested (or know someone who might be), please send your résumé to Wendy Boone at wendyboone@laterallink.com for immediate consideration.

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Is this one of the coldest winters? It depends on where exactly you are and how exactly you calculate it, but according to ABC News, this is New York City’s coldest winter since the winter of 2002-2003. Our family went into Manhattan on Saturday to see friends, and after walking a block and half from the parking garage to our friends’ apartment, Harlan was in tears—and I wasn’t far behind. When I got home, I ordered us balaclavas—because looking like an ICE agent is bad, but frostbite is worse.

Are you a Biglaw associate with an interest in AI and a desire to work remotely—perhaps so you can abandon the northeast for warmer climes? If so, BriefCatch (on whose board I sit) is looking for a senior legal AI product lead. The full job description and instructions on how to apply can be found on LinkedIn.

Despite the below-freezing temperatures, last week wasn’t without highlights for me. On Wednesday morning, I enjoyed attending Ari Kaplan’s first-ever New Jersey Legal Tech Mafia® breakfast, graciously hosted by Evan Shenkman at Fisher Phillips. Then on Thursday night, I had a great time at the fifth-anniversary celebration of Glenn Agre Bergman & Fuentes—co-founded by my former Wachtell Lipton colleague, Jed Bergman. As I’ve said before, I believe we’re in a golden age for litigation boutiques—and the success of Glenn Agre supports my claim.

Now, on to the news. Normally I’d feel bad about sending this out on Monday morning rather than Sunday afternoon or evening, but many of you were a bit distracted yesterday. Congrats to the Seattle Seahawks on winning Super Bowl LX—and condolences to fans of the New England Patriots. (Yes, I had to Google which teams were in the Super Bowl this year; I’m intentionally ignorant of sports, so I can leave more brain space for law stuff.)

Lawyer of the Week: Julie T. Le.

We all have bad days at the office (or, in my case, on the couch). You know who had a really tough day at work last Tuesday? Julie Le.

Le works as a lawyer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where she practices in immigration court. A few weeks ago, she accepted an appointment as a special assistant U.S. attorney (SAUSA) in the District of Minnesota—i.e., a temporary job as a lawyer in the Minneapolis/St. Paul U.S. Attorney’s Office. That office has been overwhelmed by habeas petitions from immigrants claiming that they’ve been wrongfully detained, resulting from the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities (aka Operation Metro Surge). So Le—who had a background in immigration law, thanks to her ICE work, although no experience litigating in federal district court—”stupidly” (her word) volunteered to help out.

During a grilling last Tuesday by Judge Jerry Blackwell (D. Minn.)—who was upset over ICE not complying with court orders, and who wanted to get to the bottom of why the agency wasn’t releasing individuals he’s ordered to be released—Julie Le made the following, rather candid comments (emphases added):

• “I am here as a bridge and a liaison…. because if I walk out—sometime[s] I wish you would just hold me in contempt, Your Honor, so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep. I work days and night just because [there are] people still in [detention]. And, yes, [the] procedure in place right now sucks. I’m trying to fix it…. [L]ast night I had to stay up until 2:35 a.m. just to get [these] documents ready for you…. I can’t say it’s a waste of my time, but I could have sent so many more e-mails and [gotten] so many more people get ready to be released.”

• “I am here with you, Your Honor. What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying [with] every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need.”

• “I share the same concern [as] you, Your Honor. I am not white, as you can see. and my family’s at risk as [m]any other people that might get picked up…. But, again, fixing a system, a broken system—I don’t have a magic button to do it. I don’t have the power or the voice to do it. I only can do it within the ability and the capacity that I have. And every case[] I touch, I give it 100 percent.”

To read Le’s statements in context, check out the complete transcript in Segundo A.P.G. v. Bondi (via Chris Geidner of Law Dork and Minneapolis lawyer Daniel Suitor).

Shortly after the hearing before Judge Blackwell, Le was fired from her SAUSA position (which I’m guessing she wasn’t unhappy about). Her outburst and subsequent termination got picked up by Fox 9, a local television station—and then by numerous other outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Bloomberg Law, and Politico.

Le’s comments generated a range of reactions. Some concurred with Joe Patrice of Above the Law, who commended her “refreshing candor.” Others agreed with Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, who condemned Le’s in-court conduct as “unprofessional and unbecoming.” What say you?

Other lawyers in the news:

• Julie Le isn’t the only lawyer leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota. Because of a wave of resignations, many of them tendered in the wake of the killing of Renee Good, the office—which had as many as 70 assistant U.S. attorneys at some points during the Biden administration, and 55 as recently as January 2025—is now down to around 17 AUSAs.

• In other news about the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has reportedly sidelined Ed Martin and the weaponization working group that Martin was tasked with leading (after Martin’s nomination to serve as D.C. U.S. Attorney failed).

• The three million new Epstein files released by the DOJ last month included additional revelations about Goldman Sachs chief legal Kathryn Ruemmler. I mentioned some in last week’s Judicial Notice, but I missed others. As noted in updates, based on reporting by Bloomberg, the Ruemmler-Epstein emails include correspondence about an alleged affair between Ruemmler and Reid Weingarten of Steptoe, a leading white-collar defense lawyer. Ruemmler forwarded to Epstein the angry emails she was receiving from Weingarten’s wife—as well as a Times Ethicist column, “Do Another Woman's Marriage Vows Bind Me?” Epstein wrote back reassuringly, “you did nothing wrong” (because who doesn’t want ethics advice from Jeffrey Epstein).

• Epstein also corresponded with a former trainee lawyer in the Paris office of Clifford Chance. The emails, accurately described by Kathryn Rubino of Above the Law as “unsettling,” suggest that the unidentified woman used her legal skills to draft a sex contract between herself and Epstein—and later started recruiting girlfriends for the late financier/sexual predator. According to a statement sent to RollOnFriday by Boies Schiller, which has represented many Epstein victims over the years, the ex-trainee was herself an Epstein victim and survivor.

• After 18 years at the helm, Brad Karp resigned as chairman of Paul Weiss, following the disclosure of additional emails between him and Epstein. I’m working on a more in-depth story; if you have inside intel, please email me (davidlat@substack.com) or text me (917-397-2751), and we can set up a time to talk—on the record, off the record, or otherwise. At this point, I’m looking for hard info only (since I have no shortage of theories and speculation).

• [UPDATE (2/13/2026, 4:32 p.m.): For the promised in-depth coverage, see Paul Weiss’s Firm Culture Fell Victim To The Vampire Rule and 5 Takeaways From Brad Karp’s Emails With Jeffrey Epstein.]

• In happier departure news, Rachel Brand stepped down as chief legal officer of Walmart. She left such big shoes to fill that while the company searches for a permanent replacement, her duties are temporarily being filled by not one but two lawyers: Elisebeth Collins, Walmart’s special counsel and global chief ethics and compliance officer, and Jeffery Spalding, chief counsel for Walmart’s international and global sourcing business.

• Please keep Today Show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie and her family in your prayers. As you surely know, Savannah’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, has been missing for seven days. What you might not know is that Savannah is a fellow lawyer—as I discussed with her back in October 2021, when I interviewed her for OJ. We covered how she walked away from a promising legal career—Georgetown Law, the highest score on the Arizona bar exam, a Biglaw gig, and a prestigious clerkship—to pursue her dream job as a journalist.

In memoriam: Professor Allen Hammond IV of Santa Clara Law School, a scholar of communications and contract law, passed away at 75, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Mark Wolf.

In November 2025, Judge Mark Wolf (D. Mass.) resigned from judicial office—i.e., left the bench entirely, after four decades of judicial service (since his 1985 appointment by Ronald Reagan). At the time, Judge Wolf claimed he stepped down because he felt “compelled to speak out” against the Trump administration’s “assault on the rule of law,” as he put it in a much-discussed essay for The Atlantic (gift link).

But it now appears that there might have been additional reasons behind Wolf’s retirement. As reported by Carrie Johnson of NPR (via Howard Bashman of How Appealing), Wolf was the subject of a pending investigation into alleged misconduct. After finding “probable cause to believe that misconduct ha[d] occurred,” Chief Judge David Barron (1st Cir.) began an inquiry—but it was terminated after Wolf retired, as explained in Judge Barron’s order dismissing the investigation.

As Aliza Shatzman of the Legal Accountability Project told NPR, “A judge’s departure from the bench amid a misconduct investigation does not eliminate the need for accountability or transparency.” And there’s proposed legislation that would address this: under the Transparency and Responsibility in Upholding Standards in the Judiciary Act (TRUST) Act, pending investigations of misconduct would be required to continue even if a judge retires, resigns or dies.

On the whole, I’m a big cheerleader for clerkships—but as Shatzman and I discussed on my podcast, it’s critical that law clerks and other employees of the judiciary be treated with dignity and respect. If you have details about the allegations against Mark Wolf—which weren’t described in the order, but could involve possible mistreatment of a former law clerk—please drop me a line.

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• In November 2024, Chief Justice John Roberts asked clerks and other Supreme Court employees to sign formal, written nondisclosure agreements, as reported by Jodi Kantor for The New York Times (gift link). (If you have an interest in how the journalistic sausage gets made, check out Patrick Healy’s interview of the NYT SCOTUS team, now four reporters strong.)

• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson attended the Grammy Awards as a nominee in the Best Audiobook category for her memoir, Lovely One—but Her Honor lost out to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (tough competition). On Thursday, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called for Justice Jackson to be investigated for attending, apparently because other attendees made comments critical of ICE.

• Speaking of justices and their books, we now know more about Justice Samuel Alito’s book. Its title is So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country, and its release date is October 6, 2026. That’s one day after the start of October Term 2026—leading my former colleague Elie Mystal to predict that Justice Alito will be retired by then, since the justice “thinks he’ll be free to run around the country promoting” his book (instead of doing his day job). But could the date cut the other way? Book buyers are much more interested in what a current justice has to say, as opposed to a retired one—reflected in how the memoirs of Justice Jackson and Justice Amy Coney Barrett became bestsellers, while the memoir of retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy did not—and I could see Justice Alito not wanting to step down until well after publication.

• The blistering order issued last Saturday by Judge Fred Biery (W.D. Tex.), directing the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from immigration detention, engendered a wide range of reactions. Times critic A.O. Scott wrote a paean to it, while Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) called for the impeachment of Judge Biery (pronounced BEER-ee, rhyming with “weary” rather than “fiery”; I called chambers). As for my poll of OJ readers, 65 percent of you believe that district judges are handling Trump cases appropriately, 24 percent believe the judges are too anti-Trump, and 11 percent believe the judges are too pro-Trump. (I disagree with the idea that judges are being too pro-Trump, at least if we’re talking about district judges rather than Supreme Court justices).

• Judge Rebecca Taibleson appeared in the Epstein files, but not for anything that will get her into trouble. Back in 2018, she advised her uncle, Professor Lawrence Krauss, on a settlement agreement that he entered into with his former university (following an investigation into an allegation of sexual misconduct). Her proud uncle forwarded her email to Epstein, praising his “brilliant niece”—but there’s no evidence that Taibleson herself had contact with Epstein.

In nominations news, the Senate confirmed six district-court picks: Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Lea (W.D. Tenn.), civil litigator Justin Olson (S.D. Ind.), Missouri state-court judge Megan Benton (W.D. Mo.), Alaska senior assistant attorney general Aaron Peterson (D. Alaska), U.S. Attorney David Fowlkes (W.D. Ark.), and U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei (S.D. Tex.). Looking ahead, however, the pipeline looks thin—leading Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to declare that Donald Trump needs “to get those nominations up here.”

Job of the Week: an opportunity for corporate/M&A associates in Chicago.

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Have I mentioned how tired I am of the cold? My ancestors hail from the sunny islands of the Philippines, so I’m not genetically equipped to deal with single-digit temperatures. Alas, as a parent of a two-year-old and an eight-year-old who are both in school, I’m sticking it out here in frigid New Jersey. But once I’m an empty nester, I hope to write this newsletter from warmer climes, assuming I still have the privilege and pleasure of writing for you in 15 years—and don’t get replaced by LatBot 5000.

The possibility of being replaced by AI occurred to me when I read about Carolyn Elefant’s project of “building a Paul Clement bot to help lawyers prepare for oral argument” (which was inspired by my recent column, 3 Tips For Appellate Advocates—From Paul Clement). Yes, an AI bot might be able to help lawyers prepare for argument, but don’t expect to see bots actually arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court anytime soon. Even assuming an AI assistant could present a decent argument, judges won’t stand for it (as one pro se litigant learned last March—the hard way).

At least for now, human beings still want fellow human beings to argue appeals, participate in webinars, and serve as dinner speakers. So ChatGPT didn’t deprive me of the opportunities to moderate a great webinar last Wednesday on Supreme Court reform, sponsored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPAA), or to speak last Thursday at the global offsite of Burford Capital, the world’s leading legal-finance firm (and a longtime sponsor of Original Jurisdiction).

And, I hope, human beings still want fellow human beings writing their newsletters. That’s certainly the view of the good folks over at SCOTUSblog (now part of The Dispatch), who are seeking an editor for their forthcoming business-docket newsletter. If you’re a commercial litigator in Biglaw interested in trying something new, check out the job and apply through LinkedIn.

Now, on to the news—with apologies for how I’m sending out his edition of Judicial notice on Monday morning. Unfortunately, the current news cycle, which slows down but no longer stops over the weekend, makes it increasingly difficult to file on Sunday afternoon or evening (as is my preference). Sigh.

Lawyers of the Week: Bill Carmody and Neal Manne.

Growing adoption of AI is not yet affecting Biglaw hiring levels in a big way, but I predict that it eventually will. And when it does, we could see some loss of jobs, at least in the short term (although there’s an argument, which legal-tech guru Joe Borstein made in our podcast conversation, that over the long term, legal will be fine).

I’m guessing that the jobs for lawyers that remain after the AI revolution will be very appealing: they’ll have little drudgery, which can be done by AI, and they’ll be highly paid—because any work that can’t be done by AI will be extremely important and therefore valuable. So maybe we shouldn’t be shocked to learn that at one of Ari Kaplan’s Legal Tech Mafia® breakfasts last year, the answers to when we’ll see the $10,000 billable hour ranged from 2028 to 2035.

I think 2028 is too early—one thing I’ve learned from watching the legal profession for the past 30 years is that it usually changes more slowly than you think—but on the other hand, rates are rising faster than I expected. And if the target is $10,000 an hour, we’re already 40 percent of the way there—having gone from $3,000 an hour to $4,000 an hour in less than a year.

The two most expensive partners at Susman Godfrey, renowned trial lawyers Bill Carmody and Neal Manne, now charge $4,000 an hour. As Manne told Reuters, “If there’s someone out there who bills at a higher rate than we do on hourly cases, please let us know so we may raise our rates.” (And please let me know, so I can report it; other partners known to bill $3,000 an hour or more include two of my past podcast guests, Neal Katyal and Alex Spiro—so feel free to listen to their episodes, around 40 to 45 minutes each, and consider it my $2,000 gift to you.)

As Manne’s quip reflects, $4,000 an hour is a bit of a publicity stunt for Susman—a way of telling the market that they have, pound for pound, the best trial lawyers in America. Why? Because as noted by Reuters, most of the firm’s work is handled on a contingency or fixed-fee basis—such as Dominion v. Fox News, in which they earned more than $100 million (after securing a $787.5 million settlement for their client).

How did Susman come up with $4,000 an hour? Manne, a former managing partner of the firm, emailed me this: “The process by which Bill’s and my billing rates are set each year is as mysterious as a Papal conclave, as secretive as the Federal Reserve Board’s interest rate deliberations, and as impenetrable as an MLB umpire’s balk call.”

Manne’s response was part of a three-line message to me—so if it took him one minute to compose, that was a $70 email. Your OJ subscription just paid for itself!

Other lawyers in the news:

• In response to the dramatic ramp-up in federal immigration enforcement, nine local prosecutors from cities across the country are coming together to address perceived federal overreach and unconstitutional behavior. They’ve formed an organization, Fight Against Federal Overreach or “FAFO.” Geddit?

• After the killing of Alex Pretti by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California (aka Los Angeles), tweeted that “[i]f you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!” This did not go over well with pro-Second Amendment groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, who roundly criticized Essayli for his comments (which he later tried to clarify, tweeting that he “never said it’s legally justified to shoot law-abiding concealed carriers”).

• In other news involving U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, the Trump administration announced the nomination of former federal prosecutor Colin McDonald to lead a new DOJ division that will focus on fraud—part of Donald Trump’s justification for the crackdown in Minneapolis, where immigrants from Somalia played major roles in a fraud scheme that stole hundreds of millions of dollars from Covid-19 benefits programs.

• On Friday, the DOJ released nearly three million pages of previously undisclosed documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier/sex offender. We learned that former White House counsel and current Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler received lavish gifts, such as a $9,400 handbag from Hermes, from the man she affectionately addressed as “Uncle Jeffrey” (ick).

• [UPDATE (2/3/2026, 9:53 p.m.): For more about Ruemmler-related correspondence in the Epstein files, see this article from The New York Post, “Goldman Sachs’ Kathy Ruemmler accused of ‘misery’ affair with Epstein attorney [Reid Weingarten], according to his wife’s [Cheryl Gould’s] emails.”]

• [UPDATE (2/3/2026, 10:23 p.m.): In response to questions from Bloomberg, Ruemmler said in a statement that questions about her alleged affair with Reid Weingarten and her emails about it with Epstein were “gratuitous and offensive.”]

• Brad Karp, chair of Paul Weiss, had more extensive correspondence with Epstein than has been previously reported. Karp asked for Epstein’s help in obtaining a job for his son on a Woody Allen film production, and Karp attended dinners at Epstein’s home. After one such event, he emailed Epstein, “I can’t thank you enough for including me in an evening I’ll never forget. It was truly ‘once in a lifetime’ in every way, though I hope to be invited again. You are an extraordinary host—and your home . . .!!!” Based on reporting about the Epstein mansion, such as this Times article (gift link), “!!!” sounds about right.

• [UPDATE (10:05 a.m.): The preceding bullet was revised to remove a reference to Karp asking for Epstein’s assistance in getting into the exclusive Augusta Golf Club. Although The Financial Times reported on a text in which Epstein appears to seek help from former White House strategist Steve Bannon in getting Karp into the club, there’s no indication that Karp requested this.]

• [UPDATE (7:41 p.m.): For more about Brad Karp’s interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, see The New York Times, Bloomberg Law, and Law.com. In a statement, Paul Weiss said, “Mr. Karp attended two group dinners in New York City and had a small number of social interactions by email, all of which he regrets.”]

• [UPDATE (2/5/2026, 12:10 a.m.): On Wednesday night, Brad Karp resigned as chair of Paul Weiss, as reported by, well, everyone—including The New York Times (gift link), The Wall Street Journal (gift link), Bloomberg, Reuters, The American Lawyer, and Law360. I’ll have more on this shortly.]

• [UPDATE (2/6/2026, 10:26 a.m.): For more, see my new post, Brad Karp Steps Down As Chairman Of Paul Weiss.]

• Andrea Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was profiled in The New York Times—which noted that it’s “clear that she has given a lot of thought to issues of fairness and justice.”

• Catherine Dargan, head of the corporate practice and co-chair of the M&A practice at Covington & Burling, was profiled in Bloomberg Law—which called Dargan the firm’s “secret weapon” in landing billion-dollar deals.

• Congratulations to the three former law school deans who have been chosen as the next presidents of three major American universities: former UCLA Law dean Jennifer Mnookin, who will lead Columbia University; former Wash U Law dean Kent Syverud, who will lead the University of Michigan; and former Cornell Law dean Eduardo Peñalver, who will lead Georgetown University.

In memoriam: Tara Arnold—an attorney at Arnold & Itkin, the Houston firm co-founded by her husband, prominent personal-injury lawyer Kurt Arnold—died when the firm’s private jet crashed, shortly after taking off during a snowstorm from Bangor International Airport in Maine. Please keep Tara Arnold’s family, as well as her former colleagues at Arnold & Itkin, in your thoughts and prayers.

Judge of the Week: Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz and Judge Fred Biery.

Apologies, dear readers: as of now, it’s basically impossible to keep track of and cover all the fast-moving litigation, playing out in district courts across the country, over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. At some point, the cases will percolate up to the circuit courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, and covering them at that point will be more manageable; but at the current time, it’s all just too chaotic.

Instead of a laundry list of status updates that will be quickly overtaken by subsequent events—a preliminary injunction denied here, a temporary restraining order issued there—I’m going to tell you about two judges who have found themselves caught up in controversy. Their stories offer a useful window into some of the broader issues raised by immigration-enforcement litigation.

First up: Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz (D. Minn.). As noted in profiles appearing in The Times (gift link), Politico, and Bloomberg Law, the 65-year-old jurist boasts impressive conservative credentials. Before he was appointed to the federal bench in 2006 by George W. Bush, Schiltz clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia—twice, on both the D.C. Circuit and SCOTUS—and served on the faculty of Notre Dame Law, where he was a mentor to Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Ed Whelan called Chief Judge Schiltz a “conservative stalwart,” while Professor Rick Garnett described him as “an excellent judge and the farthest thing from an ‘activist’ (a ludicrous charge).”

Why are prominent conservatives like Whelan and Garnett having to come to Chief Judge Schiltz’s defense? Over the past two weeks, Judge Schiltz has repeatedly benchslapped the Trump administration—specifically, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and then been attacked by Trump supporters as a judicial activist. See, e.g., this Fox News piece by Will Chamberlain of the Article III Project, titled “Fix is in in Minnesota, where anti-ICE federal judge leaves his lane to side with mob.”

Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the space to catalog Chief Judge Schiltz’s issues with ICE—this roundup is already too late and too long—but I urge you to read Zach Montague’s Times piece, which summarizes them nicely. And if you have the time, read the primary documents: (1) Judge Schiltz’s January 23 letter to the Eighth Circuit, responding to the government’s petition for a writ of mandamus; (2) his January 26 order, noting that ICE has failed to comply with “dozens of court orders” and stating that “[t]he Court’s patience is at an end”; (3) his January 28 order, declaring that ICE “is not a law unto itself” and “has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence”; and (4) the appendix to his January 28 order, a list of “96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases.”

As you can see, Chief Judge Schiltz is no wallflower: he has strong opinions, and he’s not afraid to share them. As some of you might recall, he was Judge of the Week once before, back in November 2024. Why? After the Federal Circuit vacated a decision of his in a patent case, he recused from the case on remand—and issued what I described as a “reverse benchslap” of the Federal Circuit:

Having carefully reviewed the Federal Circuit’s opinion, the Court finds itself at the same impasse that led it to find the asserted claims indefinite. The Court is at a loss, for example, to understand [the Federal Circuit’s analysis]….

This Court struggled for years to [resolve the issues in this case]. The Federal Circuit’s opinion does not persuade the Court otherwise, and the Court has no idea how to reconcile the Federal Circuit’s varying instructions with each other or with the facts of this case. At this point, the Court does not believe that it can impartially resolve the parties’ dispute. The Court therefore concludes that it must recuse….

Next up: Judge Fred Biery (W.D. Tex.). On Saturday, Judge Biery ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from immigration custody—nothing unusual about that—but did so in a three-page order that raised eyebrows. Here’s how it ends:

Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.

Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation. But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.

Philadelphia, September 17, 1787: “Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?” “A republic, if you can keep it.”

With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike,

It is so ORDERED.

SIGNED this 31st day of February [sic], 2026.

And then below his signature block, Judge Biery included a photograph of the boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a Spider-Man backpack and big blue winter hat, and citations to two passages from the Bible: Matthew 19:14 and John 11:35. Like Chief Judge Schiltz, Judge Biery was lauded by the left and criticized by conservatives for his benchslap of an order. [UPDATE (2/8/2026, 7:48 a.m.): Since I noted this for Chief Judge Schiltz, I should mention it for Judge Biery as well: he was appointed in 1994 by Bill Clinton. Oh, and his last name is pronounced BEER-ee, rhyming with “teary”—not BY-ree, rhyming with “fiery.”]

The rulings of Chief Judge Schiltz and Judge Biery raise broader questions about how judges are responding to the Trump administration. Readers, what do you think? Please take my poll and discuss in the comments.

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Chief Judge Schiltz and Judge Biery weren’t the only judges with harsh words for the administration. See also Judge Roy Dalton, Jr. (M.D. Fla.)—who put the DOJ’s lawyers on blast, per Kathryn Rubino of Above the Law. In an order resolving a case “in which the Government unlawfully detained a noncitizen who has been present in this country for years,” Judge Dalton reminded the Justice Department that “its lawyers must make [its] arguments in a way that comports with their professional obligations as lawyers have done since time immemorial: Cite the contrary binding authority and argue why it’s wrong. Don’t hide the ball. Don’t ignore the overwhelming weight of persuasive authority as if it won’t be found. And don’t send a sacrificial lamb to stand before this Court with a fistful of cases that don’t apply and no cogent argument for why they should.” Ouch.

• Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton (6th Cir.) dismissed the complaint of judicial misconduct filed by the DOJ against Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg (D.D.C.). To read Chief Judge Sutton’s seven-page opinion and news coverage thereof, check out How Appealing by Howard Bashman. My take: Chief Judge Sutton is being diplomatic and restrained in his opinion—but reading between the lines, he sees the DOJ’s ethics complaint as pretty frivolous.

• I didn’t know that “super drunk” was a legal term of art—at least not until I read about Judge Thomas Ludington (E.D. Mich.) getting hit with drunken-driving charges, after crashing his wife’s 2019 black Cadillac on a rural road.

• Still on the theme of Michigan judges in trouble, 36th District Court Judge Andrea Bradley Baskin of the 36th District Court was indicted on federal fraud charges, for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to embezzle money from incapacitated adults (prior to taking the bench in 2024).

• Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga came to the defense of his former boss, Justice Samuel Alito. Pushing back against a CNN piece in which Joan Biskupic described the justice as “easily irritated,” “aggrieve[d],” and growing “testier” over time, Aguiñaga praised Alito as “kind, humble, thoughtful, and selfless,” in a piece for Fox News.

• Speaking of former SCOTUS clerks, I have almost a dozen new hires to report—so I’ll probably publish a fresh roundup in the next week or two, as soon as I have the names of all four of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s October Term 2026 clerks. I’m already aware of N.B., J.C., and I.M.; if you know the identity of the missing fourth clerk, please email me at davidlat@substack.com or text me at 917-397-2751 (texts only, since I don’t use this Google Voice number for phone calls).

In memoriam: Judge Robert Pratt (S.D. Iowa) passed away at 78, after experiencing a heart attack at the gym. May he rest in peace.

Job of the Week: an opportunity for litigation associates interested in entertainment law.

Lateral Link is assisting one of the nation’s premier entertainment law firms in its search for an exceptional litigation associate to join its team. This is a rare opportunity to work on some of the highest-profile matters in the country, representing globally recognized clients in entertainment and media, while collaborating closely with top-tier litigators and receiving meaningful responsibility from the outset. The firm is looking for a strong litigator with excellent writing, analytical, and advocacy skills. No prior entertainment law experience is required. For more information, please contact Buddy Broome at bbroome@laterallink.com.

Ruling of the Week: Polk v. Montgomery County Public Schools.

Over at SCOTUSblog, Amy Howe tackles the question so many of us have been wondering: “When will we get the tariffs ruling?” Her bottom line (with which I agree): “So far, [the justices] have not signaled that they regard this dispute as the kind of emergency that many in the outside world do, suggesting that they may not release the opinion at least until they take the bench again on February 20.”

The Supreme Court issued only one opinion last week, in Klein v. Martin. As noted by Professor Jonathan Adler on The Volokh Conspiracy, Martin represents “the second time this Term the justices have summarily reversed a habeas decision from the Fourth Circuit” (after Clark v. Sweeney). Combined with the Fourth Circuit’s 0-8 record before SCOTUS last Term, the two summary reversals lend support for Adler’s hypothesis that the Fourth Circuit is “the new Ninth Circuit,” i.e., the latest left-leaning circuit to be repeatedly reversed by a more conservative Supreme Court.

Speaking of the Fourth Circuit and turning to the Ruling of the Week, might it get reversed in Polk v. Montgomery County Public Schools? In an opinion by Judge Robert King, a divided panel rejected a Maryland substitute teacher’s First Amendment challenge to a school board’s requirement that she “affirm that she would refer to students by their preferred pronouns, and to also affirm that she would not discuss any student’s gender identity with the student’s parents.”

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, the noted conservative jurist who’s often vindicated when SCOTUS reverses the Fourth, dissented. While he agreed with the majority’s rejection of Kimberly Ann Polk’s Free Exercise challenge to the pronoun policy, he disagreed “vigorously” with the majority’s interpretation of the Free Speech Clause. In his view, Polk “is, without question, about compelled speech—a detail to which the majority gives short shrift.”

In the majority’s view, the pronoun policy “does not concern the speech of a private citizen,” but merely “establishes the official duties of a public-school teacher.” This can’t be the law, according to Judge Wilkinson:

If the majority’s reasoning is correct, then there is no limit to the words the state can put in teachers’ mouths—teachers become, for all intents and purposes, the state’s anointed messengers. Are we now to allow states to mandate that teachers voice opinions contrary to their own without any First Amendment protection whatsoever? Can the state force an Israeli teacher to wear a pro-Palestine pin? …. Under the majority’s view, the only logical conclusion is yes.

Pronoun policies in public educational institutions have led to litigation across the country, and some courts have taken a different view than the Fourth Circuit in Polk. For example, in Meriwether v. Hartop, the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of a professor who challenged his public university’s pronoun policy. So I wouldn’t be shocked if SCOTUS—which has been hearing plenty of transgender-related cases lately, after seeming to avoid them for a while—eventually wades into this disagreement as well.

Other noteworthy decisions and dispositions:

• South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. From John Ross of Short Circuit: “Do civil-rights advocacy organizations have standing to challenge allegedly grievous defects in South Carolina’s juvenile-detention system? Fourth Circuit [by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson]: No. ‘We do not doubt the sincerity of plaintiffs’ desire to ameliorate the harm that may befall juveniles… [We question] only the wisdom of their decision to sue in place of those whose interests they seek to advance.’ Dissent [by Judge James Wynn]: One of the organizations is required by federal statute to protect the constitutional rights of people with mental illnesses. Of course it has standing.”

• Northwest Association of Independent Schools v. Community Library Association, Inc. A nonprofit association of independent private schools, joined by some of its members, filed a First Amendment challenge to Idaho’s Children’s School and Library Protection Act, which prohibits schools and public libraries from making certain “harmful” content available to minors. In an opinion by Judge Milan Smith, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court should have issued a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the law.

• Knife Rights, Inc. v. Bonta. In an opinion by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, the Ninth Circuit rejected a facial challenge, based on the Second Amendment, to various California regulations and restrictions covering switchblade knives.

• United States v. Mangione. Judge Margaret Garnett (S.D.N.Y.) dismissed two of the four federal counts faced by Luigi Mangione, who stands accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson—and “the chief practical effect” of her ruling is to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment” (unless the government appeals, which it hasn’t made a decision about, and prevails). In a separate opinion on Friday, Judge Garnett denied Mangione’s motion to suppress evidence that Pennsylvania police obtained from searching his backpack.

Litigation of the Week: United States v. Goldstein.

Last week involved a number of newsworthy developments in United States v. Goldstein—the federal criminal trial of Tom Goldstein, the veteran Supreme Court advocate and founder of SCOTUSblog (which he stepped away from a few years ago, well before its acquisition by The Dispatch in 2025). A year ago, Goldstein was hit with a 22-count indictment—but the government has since dropped some charges and the judge has dismissed others, leaving Goldstein facing 16 counts: one count of tax evasion, eight counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns, four counts of willful failure to pay taxes, and three counts of making a false statement on a loan application.

Trial is now underway, before Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby (D. Md.), and last week was full of drama:

• On Tuesday, Jeffrey Toobin, the well-known legal journalist, filed a motion to quash the subpoena he received from federal prosecutors. They want Toobin to testify about the in-depth Times story (gift link) that he wrote about Goldstein—in which, the feds claim, Goldstein made incriminating statements that they’d like to use against him at trial. The government filed its opposition on Wednesday, and Judge Griggsby should rule on the motion soon (since the government expects to conclude its case in the next week or so).

• On Wednesday, actor Tobey Maguire testified. The Spider-Man star testified about hiring Goldstein—and paying him a legal fee of $500,000—to collect $7 million in gambling winnings that a Texas businessman owed to Maguire (which Goldstein did successfully; personal failings aside, he was a talented lawyer).

• On Thursday, Rick Salomon—a professional poker player who was once married to Pamela Anderson, and who also filmed a sex tape with Paris Hilton (which he then leaked)—took the stand. His testimony covered Goldstein’s heads-up poker matches in Asia against “whales,” i.e., gamblers who lose large sums of money.

• Also on Thursday, Judge Griggsby issued a written order concluding that prosecutors violated their disclosure duties under Brady v. Maryland, by failing to provide the defense with an email between their lead case agent and one of Goldstein’s accountants. Because of that violation, Judge Griggsby will give the defense a long leash in cross-examining the accountant, and they can also use the email in their closing argument.

If the government rests around Friday, February 6, and Goldstein puts on a fairly brief case (or none at all), the jury could have the case by the week of February 9. I’ll keep you posted (and so will Howard Bashman, who has been following the case diligently over at How Appealing).

In other litigation news:

• According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE agents can rely upon mere administrative warrants—as opposed to judicial warrants, approved by a neutral judge—to enter the homes of suspected undocumented immigrants. This policy is unlawful, according to a lawsuit filed in Boston federal court (D. Mass.) by two organizations focused on immigrants’ rights. For more on administrative versus judicial warrants, listen to Advisory Opinions—featuring Professor Orin Kerr, a leading expert on the Fourth Amendment—or Serious Trouble.

• Because all of its active judges are Democratic appointees, the District of Massachusetts is a popular venue for filing lawsuits against the Trump administration—such as the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the families of two men killed in one of the U.S. boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela.

• Meanwhile, down in Miami (S.D. Fla.), Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, seeking $10 billion in damages from the IRS for the unauthorized leaking of his tax returns during his first term as president.

• Last week, the first of multiple bellwether trials against several social-media giants got underway in California Superior Court (Los Angeles). The plaintiffs allege that the defendants’ addictive platforms caused them to suffer anxiety, depression, and other maladies. Snap and TikTok reached eleventh-hour settlements in this first case, leaving Meta and Google (the owner of YouTube) as the remaining defendants. And new cases against the social-media companies keep on coming: on Thursday, plaintiffs represented by Boies Schiller filed nine arbitration demands against Meta, on behalf of young users of Instagram who claim that the company’s products are harmful and addictive.

• Across the country, conservative groups are filing cases to advance the ideal of colorblindness—i.e., lawsuits challenging policies and practices that treat people differently based on their race. And the cases are mostly succeeding, according to The Times (gift link), either because courts rule for the plaintiffs or the defendants stop discriminating.

• Have you ever enjoyed a rotisserie chicken from Costco? They’re delicious—but not free of preservatives, at least according to allegations in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed by two women in southern California.

Deal of the Week: VSE’s $2 billion acquisition of Precision Aviation.

VSE Corp. plans to buy a rival aviation-repair company, Precision Aviation Group, from GenNx360 Capital Partners, a private-equity firm, for around $2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal (gift link). The law firms involved are Jones Day, representing VSE, and Winston & Strawn, advising GenNx360.

A quick follow-up on the last Deal of the Week, the divestiture of the U.S. TikTok by its Chinese owner, ByteDance: does it comply with the requirements of the “divest or get banned” law? While non-Chinese entities own more than 80 percent of the new company, which addresses the law’s ownership requirements, ByteDance still controls the content-recommendation algorithm, which might run afoul of the law’s operational requirements—as discussed by Sarah Isgur and David French on last Thursday’s episode of Advisory Opinions.

Law Firm of the Week: Pashman Stein Walder Hayden.

This week, I’d like to give a shoutout to a well-known firm here in the Garden State, Pashman Stein Walder Hayden. As reported by the New Jersey Law Journal, the firm just announced a sabbatical program: every five years, a lawyer or staff members at the firm can take a six-week sabbatical—with full pay, benefits, and billable-hour credit. This strikes me as a wonderful idea—and I hope other firms follow suit.

Of course, the program will impose costs on Pashman Stein (not unlike generous parental-leave policies). But chair Michael Stein believes it will be worth it: “If you allow your employees to recharge by giving them this kind of extended time off every five years, I believe their mental health will be stronger, their productivity will be better and the rate of burnout will be lower.”

As a midsize firm with around 85 lawyers, Pashman Stein isn’t a Biglaw shop, so implementing a sabbatical program isn’t as costly or complex. But it’s worth noting that sabbatical programs used to be “a thing” at several Biglaw firms; I wrote about them back in 2007, and The American Lawyer covered them again in 2019.

Alas, as Biglaw firms have become less like old-fashioned partnerships and more like giant corporations, sabbatical programs have become far less common. Which law firms, especially Am Law 200 firms, still maintain sabbatical programs? I welcome reader tips on this subject—and if I get enough interesting info, maybe I’ll write a story.

In other firm news:

• As the litigation over the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting four law firms continues to move forward in the D.C. Circuit, with the government and the firms sparring over whether the cases should be put on hold and whether they should be consolidated, the Trump administration opened up a new front in its war against Biglaw. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent warning letters to 42 firms that participated in the Diversity Lab’s Mansfield Certification program, claiming that “[p]otentially anticompetitive collusion between law firms on DEI metrics can include quotas by which they agree to compose panels of job candidates based on race, sex, or other personal characteristics other than the candidate’s merit.”

• How are Biglaw offices in Minneapolis holding up under the stress of recent events? Patrick Smith reported on this for The American Lawyer.

• Law firms can be surprisingly vulnerable, but they can also be surprisingly resilient. Over the years, I’ve reported on numerous firms that recovered from rough patches and are now doing just fine. Might that be the case with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner? After losing almost a third of its lawyers and conducting multiple rounds of staff layoffs, the firm seems to have stabilized—and enjoyed record financial results in 2025.

• BCLP wasn’t alone in terms of thriving last year. According to Wells Fargo, the 200 largest U.S. law firms grew revenue by around 13 percent in 2025.

• Kirkland & Ellis dropped Optimum Communications as a client, after the telecom company filed an antitrust lawsuit against its lenders—who include private-equity firms, K&E’s most important group of clients. (To be clear, Kirkland isn’t representing Optimum in its antitrust case—that would be Kellogg Hansen—and Optimum has hired White & Case to handle the deal work K&E relinquished.)

• Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman (N.D. Ill.) denied Foley & Lardner’s motion for summary judgment in the employment discrimination lawsuit filed against it by Jinan Chehade, a Palestinian-American lawyer whose offer to join Foley was rescinded after she commented on social media about Israel-Palestine issues.

Move of the Week: Paul Hastings launching a Charlotte office, with 15 to 20 lawyers from Cadwalader and Haynes and Boone.

It’s fun when industry trends collide. The latest Move of the Week combines three ongoing developments that will be familiar to longtime OJ readers: the endless expansion of Paul Hastings, the deepening departures from Cadwalader (ahead of its merger with Hogan Lovells), and the relentless rise of the Charlotte legal market.

On Monday, Paul Hastings announced the opening of a Charlotte office, as reported by Reuters, Law.com, and Law360. It’s the third firm to establish a presence in the Queen City in recent months, following Orrick and Proskauer—and as you’d expect in a big banking hub, Paul Hastings is building its office around finance.

As firms typically do when launching in a new city, Paul Hastings is hiring partners from rival firms who are already in Charlotte—specifically, fund finance partners Danyeale Chung from Cadwalader and Holly Loftis, Aleksandra “Aleks” Kopec, and Mark Nesdill from Haynes Boone. These four partners expect to be joined by around 10 to 15 lawyers from their former firms, giving Paul Hastings a critical mass of practitioners in Charlotte’s increasingly competitive legal market.

Other notable moves:

• Maintaining the hiring push that chair Yvette Ostolaza described to me last March, Sidley Austin continues to grow—especially in its D.C. office, which welcomed IP litigators Greg Lantier and Alexis Cohen, joining from WilmerHale, and trade lawyer Justin Becker, returning from the Commerce Department.

• Speaking of firms in expansion mode, Ropes & Gray added three partners in New York: finance lawyer Michael McGuigan (from Debevoise), antitrust attorney Marta Kelly (from Paul Weiss), and commercial litigator Noah Yavitz (from Wachtell Lipton). It’s rare for partners to leave Wachtell, but Yavitz is the second one this year (after M&A lawyer Alison Preiss, who joined Simpson Thacher). WLRK is one of the few remaining firms with lockstep compensation for partners—and as the (still sizable) gap in profitability between Wachtell and rival firms narrows, we might see more defections by young partners like Preiss and Yavitz (who, in a lockstep system, earn less compared to their more-senior peers).

• Antitrust partners remain in demand in the lateral market—so it’s not a surprise to see moves like that of Shawn Johnson to Fried Frank in D.C. He came from Crowell & Moring, where he spent more than a decade and co-chaired the antitrust group.

• And as bankruptcy filings grow, we might see more movement among bankruptcy partners—like Gordon Novod, who left Grant & Eisenhofer and joined the New York office of Boies Schiller (which is deepening its bankruptcy bench).

As Hollywood directors like to say, that’s a wrap on this latest edition of Judicial Notice. I’m looking forward to (slightly) warmer weather in the coming week, at least for the next few days—and I hope you have a good week as well.

Thanks for reading Original Jurisdiction, and thanks to my paid subscribers for making this publication possible. Subscribers get (1) access to Judicial Notice, my time-saving weekly roundup of the most notable news in the legal world; (2) additional stories reserved for paid subscribers; (3) transcripts of podcast interviews; and (4) the ability to comment on posts. You can email me at davidlat@substack.com with questions or comments, and you can share this post or subscribe using the buttons below.

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Welcome to the latest edition of Judicial Notice, my time-saving weekly roundup of the most notable news in the legal world—aka “I read all the news, so you don’t have to.” By reading (or skimming) JN each week, you can catch up on all the news you missed because you were busy with your day job. Interested in sponsoring Judicial Notice? Right now, I have two open spots each month for 2026. To learn more, please email me at davidlat@substack.com, subject line “Sponsoring Judicial Notice.”

Last week wasn’t the greatest for me—although more annoying than seriously problematic. Almost a month after it started, I still have a lingering cough (but I’m improving and not contagious, according to my internist). I dislodged the crown on one of my dental implants (yes, implants, plural—I have the world’s worst teeth). And now, like many of you, we’re holed up at home—or actually the home of my parents, who have way more space (and canned goods) than we do—watching the snow fall. At least it’s peaceful and pretty, and I’m glad that we have no reason to be outdoors or traveling (and that we still have power). I hope you are similarly safe and warm.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Jack Smith.

Last Thursday, Jack Smith, the former special counsel who prosecuted Donald Trump, testified for five hours before the House Judiciary Committee. It was, as noted by Alan Feuer and Glenn Thrush of The New York Times (gift link), “the first and perhaps only chance [Smith] will have to make his case in an official forum that he was justified in filing the two sets of charges against Mr. Trump in 2023.” Feel free to check out Smith’s opening statement (which I did watch), or even his complete testimony (which I did not). Or if you don’t have five free hours, read takeaways from The Times and The Washington Post (gift link).

Overall, the hearing was fairly predictable. Smith insisted that he brought the Trump cases without “fear or favor,” based on the facts and the law, and “no one should be above the law.” Republicans used the hearing to condemn Smith as a partisan zealot, while Democrats seized upon the chance to attack Trump for defying the rule of law. I’m not aware of any viral clips of Smith losing his cool or sounding like a moron (and ChatGPT, which I sometimes use for fact-checking, couldn’t provide me with any such clips either). So to that extent, I’d classify the hearing as a “win” for Smith.

But I’m not objective when it comes to Trump. Here’s an email I received from a fairly MAGA reader, which made me reflect on my own objectivity (or lack thereof):

You know, often you have really good stuff in your articles—so much so that I’m tempted to pay for a subscription. But then you find some creepy way to continually take shots at Trump. I know you feel compelled to do that to keep your extreme lib card, but can’t you separate fact from polemics?

We all know you’re gay… a card-carrying member of the American Leftist Legal Elite, and desperately trying to depict your family as just another normal American family. But do you have to hit us over the head with all that? Please put down your Rules for Radicals playbook. [UPDATE (1/28/2026, 11:07 a.m.): Quote edited to add an ellipsis; I omitted another comment from this reader that other readers might find troubling.]

While I certainly don’t consider myself a “Leftist,” I recognize that strong supporters of Trump might have a different view of how the Smith hearing went. If you’re such a person, please post your thoughts in the comments; I welcome a wide range of views.

Even setting aside the issue of whether the Trump cases should have been brought, I do think some of Smith’s calls during the course of the litigation can be questioned. For example, I’m inclined to agree with Jason Willick’s column in The Washington Post (gift link), “Jack Smith Is In First Amendment denial.” As noted by Willick, Smith requested “a sweeping gag order against Trump that would have not only barred him from criticizing potential witnesses, but also sharply curtailed his ability to object to his own prosecution.” But Smith never got the broad order he sought, after Judge Tanya Chutkan (D.D.C.) and then the D.C. Circuit scaled it back—“to bring it within constitutional bounds,” in the words of Judge Patricia Millett.

During Jack Smith’s testimony, Trump took to social media and called the former special counsel “a deranged animal, who shouldn’t be allowed to practice Law”—and who should instead be prosecuted. Smith acknowledged that administration officials might “do everything in their power” to indict him, “because they’ve been told to do so by the president,” but he declared himself unafraid: “I will not be intimidated.”

And that’s also what I heard from my latest podcast guest: former U.S. attorney Timothy Heaphy (E.D. Va.), now Jack Smith’s law partner at Heaphy, Smith, Harbach & Windom, which launched earlier this month. Tim Heaphy (pronounced HAY-fee) also had surprising thoughts on the deal between Trump and Willkie Farr, where Heaphy was a partner until quite recently—so if you missed the interview, check it out.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Lindsey Halligan departed from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia—after a benchslap of an order from Judge David Novak (E.D. Va.) directing her to stop “representing herself as the United States Attorney in any pleading or otherwise before this Court,” as well as an order from Chief Judge Hannah Lauck “soliciting expressions of interest” to serve as U.S. Attorney. This all went down on Tuesday—when Halligan’s 120-day appointment as interim U.S. attorney, even assuming its validity, was set to expire anyway.

• On the same day but on the other side of the Potomac, John Roberts argued before John Roberts at the U.S. Supreme Court. No, that’s not a typo: John E. Roberts, a partner and co-chair of the appellate practice at Proskauer Rose, argued before Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in M & K Employee Solutions, LLC v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund (an ERISA case)—and Chief Justice Roberts humorously acknowledged the coincidence from the bench.

• Also on Tuesday, Columbia University and the Trump administration announced that Charles “Chuck” Cooper, the prominent conservative litigator and founding partner of Cooper & Kirk, will serve as the independent monitor overseeing Columbia’s settlement with the federal government.

In memoriam:

• Legal historian Barbara Aronstein Black—the first woman to serve as the dean of an Ivy League law school, at Columbia—passed away at 92. (Her husband, constitutional law scholar Charles Black, passed away in 2001.)

• Judah “Judd” Best—one of the nation’s leading white-collar defense lawyers, as well as former managing partner of the D.C. office of Debevoise & Plimpton—passed away at 93. (Fun facts: Judd Best almost overlapped with Barbara Black at Columbia Law in the 1950s, and Judd’s son, Stephen Best of Brown Rudnick, is now a top white-collar practitioner in his own right.)

• James Bernard—who graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Barack Obama, before entering journalism and founding a groundbreaking hip-hop magazine, The Source—passed away at 58.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Steven Meyer.

Judges across the country face a disturbingly high number of threats related to their judicial service—and last Sunday, one judge and his wife were actually attacked. According to law enforcement officials in Lafayette, Indiana, a man went to the home of Tippecanoe County Superior Court Judge Steven P. Meyer and his wife, Kimberly. The man claimed he had lost his dog—and when the Meyers came to the entryway of their home, the man shot them both through the door. Judge Meyer, hit in the arm, was hospitalized; Kimberly Meyer, shot in the leg, was treated and released.

Five people were arrested in connection with the shooting. One of the individuals, Thomas Moss, is a defendant in a long-running case before Judge Meyer that involves charges of shooting into a building, domestic battery, and unlawful possession of a firearm. Trial in the case was scheduled to begin on January 20, two days after the shooting—and prosecutors claim that Moss and his co-conspirators planned to murder Judge Meyer in order to delay Moss’s upcoming trial.

Judges have stood strong against the threats against them—and Judge Meyer is no exception. “This horrific violence will not shake my belief in the importance of peacefully resolving disputes,” he said in a statement. “I remain confident we have the best judicial system in the world, and I am proud to be part of it.”

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• Speaking of judicial independence, former federal judges Shira Scheindlin (S.D.N.Y.) and John Jones III (M.D. Pa.) shared “a set of principles of legal independence” in a Times guest essay (gift link). You can find the full set of principles—which Scheindlin and Jones describe as “a reaffirmation of values and obligations designed to guide and to strengthen law firms, bar associations, law schools, businesses and nonprofits”—over at Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan organization focused on civic education.

• Arthur Engoron, a former justice on the New York Supreme Court (which is actually a trial court), reflected on his life and career in a series of interviews with Emily Saul of the New York Law Journal. But he (properly) declined to discuss the most famous (or infamous) matter he handled, the civil-fraud case against Donald Trump—which remains the subject of a pending appeal.

Turning to judicial nominations, there were no new nominations or confirmations last week. But here are two worthwhile articles, both from Bloomberg Law:

• Right-Leaning Judges Should Learn From RBG, Ikuta and Retire Now. After noting that 24 Republican-appointed circuit judges are eligible to retire, Rob Luther pointed out that with midterm elections this November, there’s only more year of certain Republican control of the Senate. So now is the time for these judges to retire, “cement[ing] their judicial legacies [by] guaranteeing a successor with conservative bona fides.”

• Trump Picks Appeals Judges’ Children for Courts in Their Circuit. The nominees in question are two state-court judges, Judges Megan Benton (W.D. Mo.) and John Shepherd (W.D. Ark.), who are the children of Eighth Circuit Judges Duane Benton and Bobby Shepherd, respectively.

Job of the Week: an unposted opportunity at a New York boutique for an experienced real-estate attorney.

Lateral Link is assisting a New York boutique with an exciting, unposted opportunity, perfect for a real-estate attorney with 6 to 9 years of experience. The firm’s mission-driven real estate practice focuses exclusively on transactional real estate, specializing in affordable-housing transactions and handling some of the city’s most sophisticated and impactful deals. The compensation is competitive and the team is highly collaborative, offering mentorship that’s often hard to find in Biglaw. The firm offers ample work, no billable-hour requirement, a financially sound platform, a clear path for advancement, and real opportunities to build a long-term career within the practice. The firm is flexible on title. For immediate consideration, please email your résumé to Vered Krasna at vkrasna@laterallink.com.

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Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here.

Greetings. I hope you had a meaningful Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, replete with reflection on Dr. King’s life and legacy.

Last week wasn’t very exciting for me, so allow me to turn to the future (and some shameless plugs). I’m looking forward to next month, when I’ll be speaking at both the 2026 CPG Legal Forum of the Consumer Brands Association and the 2026 annual conference of the National Association of Legal Search Consultants (NALSC)—taking place in Dallas and New Orleans, respectively (three cheers for warm weather).

I’m also looking forward to moderating a webinar about possible Supreme Court reform, sponsored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA). If you’re interested in attending—it’s approved for CLE credit, in Pennsylvania and any reciprocal jurisdictions (including New York)—you can register over at NAPABA.

Now, on to the news.

Lawyers of the Week: Joseph H. Thompson and the other prosecutors who resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to Wikipedia, the term “Minnesota nice” is a cultural stereotype portraying Minnesotans as “unusually courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered,” as well as possessing “an aversion to open confrontation.” Whether it’s true in normal times, it’s not true right now, at least in Minneapolis.

Since the January 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, the streets of Minneapolis have been marked by tension and outright conflict between angry Minnesotans and heavily armed federal officers—more than 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents, sent to the City of Lakes as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge. And more could be on the way, with Donald Trump raising the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act to deal with the situation in Minneapolis (although on Friday he backed away somewhat, telling reporters, “I don’t think I need it right now”).

Not surprisingly, these events have multiple legal aspects—which will figure prominently in this edition of Judicial Notice. For starters, many observers pushed for a federal or state investigation of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Renee Good, and lawyers representing the Good family are conducting their own investigation. But bringing legal action against Ross could be difficult, for reasons that have been discussed by numerous commentators—e.g., Carolyn Shapiro at Lawfare (as to criminal prosecution) or Erwin Chemerinsky in The Times (as to civil litigation). [UPDATE (1/20/2026, 12:17 p.m.): This is not law-related, but some of you might be interested in knowing that a GoFundMe for Renee Good’s family has raised almost $1.5 million, and a GoFundMe for Jonathan Ross has raised more than $750,000.]

The Trump administration, which has vigorously defended Ross in its public messaging, has disclaimed any interest in investigating him—with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche declaring that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into Ross. Instead, the administration is investigating ties between Renee Good, her wife Becca, and groups that have been monitoring and protesting ICE agents in the past few weeks—with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem referring to Renee Good as a “domestic terrorist.”

Objecting to the Trump administration’s handling of the situation, around six federal prosecutors in the District of Minnesota resigned, as reported by The New York Times and Bloomberg Law. They included Joseph H. Thompson, former chief of the fraud and public corruption section; Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, former chief of the violent and major crimes unit; and two other assistant U.S. attorneys, Harry Jacobs and Melinda Williams. The six resigning lawyers represent about 10 percent of the office’s total line attorneys (so at least in the short term, military lawyers and AUSAs from other offices might be brought in to temporarily fill in for them).

Joseph Thompson, a longtime career prosecutor, was the most prominent of the departing AUSAs. In June, Trump appointed Thompson as acting U.S. attorney—perhaps in recognition of his leading role in the Feeding Our Future investigation, which unearthed hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud involving Covid-19 benefits. Many of the 59 individuals convicted as a result of the investigation were Somali American, which led Trump to condemn immigrants from Somalia and say that they should be sent “back to where they came from.”

In addition, at least five senior lawyers in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced their departures—including Jim Felte, chief of the criminal section, and several of his deputies. One source suggested to Bloomberg Law that the resignations stemmed from dissatisfaction over the DOJ’s response to the killing of Renee Good. But a DOJ official said, in a statement, that “[t]he Criminal Section Leadership gave notice to depart the Civil Rights Division and requested to participate in the Department of Justice’s Early Retirement Program well before the events in Minnesota. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

Other lawyers in the news:

• In other news involving U.S. attorneys’ offices, drama continues in the Eastern District of Virginia. Although Judge Cameron Currie ruled that Lindsey Halligan wasn’t validly serving as U.S. attorney, Halligan continues to sign court documents as “United States Attorney and Special Attorney.” One of those documents was the administration’s forceful response to an order from Judge David Novak (a Trump first-term appointee), which asked whether he should strike Halligan’s title from the government’s signature block in light of Judge Currie’s ruling. For more on this, listen to the latest episode of Advisory Opinions.

• Still in the E.D.V.A., Halligan’s top deputy, Robert K. McBride, was fired—and there are conflicting accounts as to why.

• In other DOJ news, “President Trump has complained to aides repeatedly in recent weeks about Attorney General Pam Bondi, describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda,” according to Josh Dawsey, Sadie Gurman, and Ryan Barber of The Wall Street Journal (gift link).

• The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that J. Russell “Rusty” McGranahan—a former in-house lawyer for financial firms, alum of Skadden Arps and White & Case, and graduate of Yale Law School—will serve as the SEC’s next general counsel.

• The contretemps over who represents Nicolas Maduro has been resolved: Judge Alvin Hellerstein (S.D.N.Y.) removed Bruce Fein from the case, as requested by Maduro’s actual lawyer, Barry J. Pollack.

• Speaking of counsel changes, Nick Reiner—who has been charged with murdering his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner—has new representation. After the high-profile L.A. lawyer Alan Jackson withdrew (for reasons not publicly disclosed), Kimberly Greene, a longtime public defender, replaced him.

• Lawyers defend murderers—and sometimes lawyers are accused of murder. Adam Beckerink, a former tax partner in the Chicago office of Duane Morris, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Caitlin Tracey. Prosecutors allege that Beckerink threw Tracey over a stairwell railing from the 24th floor of their condominium building, causing her death; Beckerink denies this, claiming that Tracey took her own life while high on cocaine and tramadol.

• The University of Arkansas School of Law (Fayetteville) rescinded its deanship offer to Professor Emily Suski of the University of South Carolina. Suski was announced as the pick for dean on January 9. But after a few Arkansas state legislators and one executive-branch official learned that Suski had signed an amicus brief supporting the transgender athlete in B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education (discussed in more detail below), the government officials threatened the university’s funding, after which the law school rescinded its offer.

In memoriam:

• Leonard Jacoby—a co-founder of Jacoby & Meyers, which my fellow ‘80s kids will remember for its ubiquitous television commercials—passed away at 83.

• Trial lawyer Stuart Weissman, who served as president of the Miami-Dade bar, passed away at 43, from gastroesophageal cancer.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Last Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in two challenges to state laws barring transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. I listened to the three-plus hours of argument while participating in the SCOTUSblog live blog. (And there will be another live blog tomorrow, when the Court is expected to issue new opinions; might we finally get the tariffs ruling?) [UPDATE (1/20/2026, 12:17 p.m.): The Court issued three opinions today, but no opinion in the tariffs litigation.]

Hecox and B.P.J. were argued skillfully by Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst, for Governor Brad Little; Kathleen Hartnett of Cooley, for Lindsay Hecox (pronounced HE-cox, at least by Hartnett); West Virginia Solicitor General Michael R. Williams, for his state; Joshua Block of the ACLU, for B.P.J.; and Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan, for the federal government (in both cases). I was particularly impressed by Hurst and Hartnett, both first-time SCOTUS advocates, who argued their cases with care and candor.

In terms of the outcome, I agree with the conventional wisdom: the Court will uphold the Idaho and West Virginia laws, probably by a vote of 6-3—with the same line-up we saw in United States v. Skrmetti (2025), in which the justices upheld Tennessee’s law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors. But if there are any surprises in Hecox and B.P.J., they’ll come from Justice Neil Gorsuch—one of the most interesting and independent-minded members of the Court today.

As my husband Zach of SCOTUSblog told C-SPAN ahead of the arguments, Justice Gorsuch was the one to watch because of Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). Angering many social conservatives, Gorsuch wrote an opinion for six justices holding that an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII. But then in Skrmetti, after staying silent and expressionless during the argument, he joined the other conservatives to form a 6-3 majority in favor of Tennessee—with no separate concurrence, even though he’s basically tied with Justice Thomas when it comes to writing the most concurrences. This led some observers to wonder whether the Gorsuch of Bostock had left the building.

But the Justice Gorsuch we heard from last Tuesday may dispel that impression. Of the nine justices, he was the most balanced in his questioning, posing tough queries to advocates on both sides. In particular, he stood out from his fellow conservatives in asking whether the transgender community might qualify as a discrete and suspect or quasi-suspect class, entitled to heightened judicial scrutiny of laws affecting them.

In Hecox, Justice Gorsuch asked Kathleen Hartnett why she didn’t make the “suspect class” claim her “primary argument.” When she basically agreed with his point and noted the nation’s long history of discrimination against LGBTQ people, including the Court’s own decision in Boutilier v. INS (upholding the deportation of a gay man because LGBTQ people have a “psychopathic personality”), Justice Gorsuch referred to Boutilier as “perhaps not our finest hour”—leading to a humorous exchange between Hartnett, who told the justice it’s “not your fault,” and Gorsuch, who said, “Thank you for that.”

And that wasn’t Justice Gorsuch’s only laugh line. On the whole, there wasn’t much laughter in the arguments—understandable, given the serious subject matter—but in B.P.J., Gorsuch elicited chuckles when he told Hashim Mooppan, who was starting to opine on biological differences between the sexes, “With respect, I don’t think you’re a Ph.D. in this stuff. I know I’m not.”

In fact, as it turns out, Justice Gorsuch is currently the funniest justice on the Court, at least at oral argument. Nora Collins of SCOTUSblog reviewed all the argument transcripts from three full Terms (October Term 2022 through October Term 2024), tracking which justices generated “Laughter” (as noted on the transcript), and found that Justice Gorsuch was #1, with 135 laughs—well ahead of Justice Elena Kagan at #2, with 93, and Chief Justice John Roberts at #3, with 89.

And Justice Gorsuch’s humor isn’t limited to oral argument, as reported by The Hill (via SCOTUStoday):

Justice Neil Gorsuch landed a wisecrack in the court’s first opinion of the Term, writing, “Two years ago, in an obscure administrative law case, this Court expressly refused to treat Boechler as a permission slip for creating any manner of new interpretive presumptions that may happen to suit our tastes but that do not ‘approximat[e] rea[l]’ statutory meaning.” The “obscure administrative law case” in question? Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, of course—the 2024 landmark decision overruling Chevron deference.

So those of us who listen to a lot of SCOTUS arguments and read a ton of SCOTUS opinions should be grateful for Gorsuch. Serving on the Supreme Court is serious business, obviously—but Justice Gorsuch shows that one can discharge these judicial duties both responsibly and humorously.

In other news about judges and the judiciary:

• It looks as though the federal judiciary will be getting $9.2 billion in funding for the 2026 fiscal year—including $892 million for protection services and equipment at courthouses, a 19 percent increase over the prior year (reflecting the increasing number of threats directed at federal judges).

• Here’s an interesting idea for protecting the security of federal judges: let them pack heat. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal (gift link), three federal judges—Judges Elizabeth “Lisa” Branch (11th Cir.), Robert Wilkins (D.C. Cir.), and Trevor McFadden (D.D.C.)—endorsed the Protect Our Prosecutors and Judges Act, introduced by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). If passed, the law would allow federal judges and prosecutors who have completed firearms training in their home jurisdictions to carry concealed guns across state lines.

• The Times published a news article pointing out that Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who’s presiding over the Maduro prosecution, is 92—i.e., really, really old. This is the paper’s second piece on the subject, on top of Jeffrey Toobin’s guest essay arguing that Judge Hellerstein should let another judge handle Maduro.

• Turning to the state courts, the justices of the Florida Supreme Court amended bar-admission rules to allow graduates of law schools accredited by entities other than the American Bar Association (ABA) to sit for the Sunshine State’s bar exam. Earlier this month, the Texas Supreme Court took the even more drastic step of taking away the ABA’s accreditation authority, instead giving itself the task of approving the law schools whose graduates can sit for the Texas bar. Look for this trend to spread throughout red states, flowing from distrust of the ABA among conservatives (who view the ABA as too far to the left).

• If you have a clerkship lined up in your future, check out Advancing American Freedom’s Judicial Clerkship Training Academy (via Josh Blackman of The Volokh Conspiracy)—especially if you’ll be clerking for a conservative judge. The application deadline is January 30, so if interested, don’t delay. (Clerkship training is something that The Heritage Foundation used to do—and it’s still mentioned on their website—but in light of all the legal experts who have moved from Heritage to AAF, I’m guessing that the clerkship training has moved with them.)

In terms of judicial nominations, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nominations of six district-court picks—including Indiana litigator Justin Olson, who faced tough questions from Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) about controversial statements that Olson made during sermons he delivered as an ordained elder of his church. Senator Kennedy (who’s now a bestselling author) met privately with Olson, and after that conversation, Kennedy concluded that Olson would “apply the rule of law” as a judge, regardless of his own personal views on various issues.

Job of the Week: an exclusive in-house opportunity with a global, $37 billion company.

Lateral Link is exclusively partnering with a $37 billion international company that is expanding its U.S. legal department and seeking a mid-level corporate attorney to join its team. This is a rare opportunity for a fourth- to fifth-year attorney with a strong law firm background in complex commercial transactions, along with experience in M&A and corporate governance, to step into a high-visibility, hands-on in-house role. The role is fully on-site in Charleston, South Carolina, and the company is open to both local candidates and those willing to relocate. In addition to excellent compensation and benefits, the company offers the chance to build long-term, in-house experience at an established global organization that continues to invest in its legal function. If interested, please send your résumé to Marion Wilson at mwilson@laterallink.com.

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