Judicial Notice (06.15.25): Another One Bites The Dust
Another resigning official fires a parting shot at Trump, another Biglaw firm creates a non-equity tier, and another partner group leaves a settling firm.
This week’s Judicial Notice is sponsored by
BriefCatch is the trusted legal writing expert of over 22,000 legal professionals, 40 Am Law 200 firms, and 70 courts. It provides real-time insights to help you write with precision, clarity, and confidence—and now it can even handle your Bluebooking. To learn more about BriefCatch Enterprise and how it’s helping legal organizations achieve better client outcomes, schedule a meeting with one of our experts.
Happy Father’s Day to all of my fellow dads. Or my fellow papas, as the case may be; in our family, the boys call me “Papa” and Zach “Daddy.”
There’s a lot going on in the world right now that’s disturbing or at least concerning—which I won’t tackle in these pages if it’s not law-related, because I stay in my legal lane. But I hope that amid all the chaos, you were able to spend time this weekend with your parents and/or your children. Zach and I are very blessed: we got to hang out today with both our kids and our parents, at a barbecue hosted by Zach’s parents that my parents attended as well.
Speaking of feeling fortunate, I was lucky to be joined by family and friends for a 50th birthday celebration on Thursday night. I was uncertain about publicly mentioning the party because I’m sure I’ll discover even more people that I should have invited but somehow missed (and I say “even more” because it’s already happened). But the event also served as an OJ reader and sponsor appreciation event, so I’d be remiss in not thanking my attendees in these pages. To everyone who joined me, thank you for coming—and apologies for not chatting with you enough on Thursday (which I described in my speech as the bar mitzvah I never had).1
I spent the two days before my big event out of town, speaking to more than 150 lawyers at a conference for the in-house legal department of a Fortune 500 company. It was a ton of fun; I love doing speaking engagements, and I hope to do more of them, especially for corporations and law firms. But being away for two days, then returning to finalize arrangements for my party, made for a whirlwind of a week. (I owe huge thanks to my amazing cousin Angela, who did so much of the event planning.)
I still found time to follow the legal news—to which we now turn.
Lawyer of the Week: Cara Petersen.
Over the past five months, a series of federal government officials have left their jobs, voluntarily or involuntarily, while making clear their views about Donald Trump or his administration. Add to the list Cara Petersen, who last Tuesday stepped down as acting head of enforcement for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—but not before sending a departure memo condemning what she described as an administration that “has no intention to enforce the law in any meaningful way.”
Petersen graduated from the University of Iowa Law School and worked at Arnold & Porter and the Federal Trade Commission before joining the CFPB in March 2011—during the agency’s stand-up and implementation phase, even before it opened its doors to the public. In her email, Petersen wrote, “I have served under every director and acting director in the bureau’s history, and never before have I seen the ability to perform our core mission so under attack.”
In February, Trump appointed Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as acting director of the CFPB. Vought and the Trump administration have halted almost all of the agency’s work and attempted to fire around 90 percent of its staff. And while the terminations have been temporarily paused as a result of ongoing litigation, much of the CFPB staff is on administrative leave.
“It has been devastating to see the bureau’s enforcement function being dismantled through thoughtless reductions in staff, inexplicable dismissals of cases, and terminations of negotiated settlements that let wrongdoers off the hook,” Petersen wrote to her former colleagues, in her pull-no-punches email. “While I wish you all the best, I worry for American consumers.” For more excerpts from Petersen’s message, as well as commentary from outside experts, see Reuters, The New York Times, The American Lawyer, Bloomberg Law, and Law360.
Other lawyers in the news:
In other personnel news, Brett Shumate was confirmed by the Senate, 51-41, to serve as assistant attorney general for the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The Civil Division plays a major role in defending much of the administration’s agenda, and Shumate, a Wake Forest Law alum and former partner at Jones Day and Wiley Rein, is already litigating cases involving such controversial subjects as tariffs and birthright citizenship.
Speaking of assistant attorneys general, Aaron Reitz stepped down as head of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP), after less than three months in the role, in order to run for Texas attorney general. Before he was nominated and confirmed to serve as head of OLP, Reitz served in the Texas AG’s office and worked as chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).
Speaking of lawyers resigning on principle, in last week’s Judicial Notice I mentioned Kathleen Rubenstein departing as executive director of the Skadden Foundation, to avoid “endors[ing] actions that I believe will undermine its mission.” Perhaps she was referring to changes made to Skadden Fellowship application materials since her departure, including the removal of mentions of “racial justice” and “racial equity.”
Brad Bondi, co-chair of the investigations and white-collar defense practice at Paul Hastings, lost the election to serve as president of the D.C. Bar to Diane Seltzer, an employment lawyer who runs her own firm. Brad Bondi’s sister is Attorney General Pam Bondi, and some critics of the Trump DOJ rallied around Seltzer’s candidacy and against Brad Bondi’s.
In memoriam:
George Annas—a Harvard Law School graduate and leader in the field of health law, in which he wrote and taught for many years—passed away at 79.
Prominent M&A lawyer and former Simpson Thacher chairman Richard “Dick” Beattie, whose passing I noted in these pages last week, was the subject of a New York Times obituary, covering not only his time in private practice but his government service under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
May they rest in peace.
Judge of the Week: Justice Neil Gorsuch.
June is when the U.S. Supreme Court issues its biggest decisions. So between now and the end of the Term in either late June or early July, expect the justices to dominate not just the headlines of the legal press, but the ranks of Judge of the Week—with Justice Neil Gorsuch as today’s featured jurist, for two reasons.
First, Justice Gorsuch wrote the Court’s unanimous opinion in Martin v. United States. The Court ruled in favor of a family whose house was mistakenly raided by the FBI—including a six-member SWAT team that broke down the home’s front door, exploded a flash-bang grenade, and assaulted the occupants, before the agents realized they were in the wrong house. Legally, the case is a bit complicated, and additional proceedings will be required to determine if the family ultimately prevails in their case, brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA); for more, see Ruling of the Week.
Second, Justice Gorsuch was the lone dissenter from Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s opinion in Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Zuch. To the majority, Zuch was a case about whether the Tax Court has jurisdiction to resolve disputes between a taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) when the IRS is no longer pursuing a levy against that taxpayer. To Justice Gorsuch, the case was about the government treating a citizen unfairly. As he wrote in his dissent, which was two pages longer than Justice Barrett’s majority opinion, “the Court’s decision hands the IRS a powerful new tool to avoid accountability for its mistakes in future cases like this one.”
Taken together, these two opinions, combined with many others from his eight years on the high court, paint a clear picture of Justice Gorsuch’s distinctive jurisprudence. Call him “Justice Gorsuch the Libertarian,” as Sarah Isgur put it on Advisory Opinions. “If you are a government bureaucrat… if you’re the IRS, a prosecutor, a police officer, Justice Gorsuch is just not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re not the white hat every single time—at all. He’s going to put you through your paces and expect square corners. He knows the resources that you have—and he was just not having it with the IRS in this case.” As a result, as Isgur’s co-host David French noted, Gorsuch provokes interesting reactions from some on the left: “You could tell they wanted so much to not like Justice Gorsuch, but he kept bringing up issues that they agreed with him on, and so there’s this very interesting aspect of, ‘Okay, I know I’m not supposed to like him at all, but he keeps ruling in a way that [I like].”
In other news about judges and the judiciary:
Speaking of Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court, Zach and I argued in a February 2023 Times guest essay that important differences exist between Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Since then, that has become even clearer, with the three justices articulating distinctive versions of originalism—as explained by Professor Joel Alicea in his own Times guest essay (gift link).
Who’s the judge who ruled against Donald Trump’s federalization of the California National Guard in Newsom v. Trump (discussed below as Litigation of the Week)? That would be Judge Charles “Chuck” Breyer (N.D. Cal.), appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton in 1997. For more about Judge Breyer, 83, see this Politico profile by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein. And for some thoughts on how he’s (quite) different from his older brother, Justice Stephen Breyer, 86, listen to my podcast interview with Judge Vince Chhabria, who clerked for both jurists—and is now Judge Breyer’s colleague on the Northern District of California.
Job of the Week: an opportunity at a top-tier plaintiffs’ firm.
Lateral Link is working with a top-tier plaintiffs’ firm in Austin in its search for litigators with three to eight years of experience who are eager to develop their trial and appellate skills in a collaborative, growth-oriented team-based environment. Nationally recognized for securing seven- and eight-figure results across a broad range of industries, the firm focuses on complex, high-stakes cases—many of which go to trial. Candidates with federal clerkships and strong academic backgrounds (T15 preferred) are especially encouraged to apply. The role offers significant trial work, with more than 20 trials scheduled for 2025, along with frequent appellate opportunities. Attorneys can expect meaningful mentorship, early responsibility, a non-hierarchical structure that values initiative and teamwork, and competitive compensation, including regular bonuses. To apply, candidates should send a résumé and brief cover letter to Senior Director Kelly Rizzo at krizzo@laterallink.com.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Original Jurisdiction to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.