Judicial Notice (03.23.25): How Bizarre
A judge’s YouTube dissent, Paul Weiss’s deal with Donald Trump, Kirkland’s latest financials, and a notable new appellate boutique.
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Not gonna lie: last week was pretty crappy for me, excuse my French. I wasn’t productive in terms of work, I didn’t get to exercise much, and my allergies ramped up dramatically. Fellow hay-fever sufferers, I welcome your suggestions. (Thanks to those of you who offered advice on my lower-back issues, which I found quite helpful; I don’t want to jinx myself, but it has been several months since my last episode.)
In happier news, I have some speaking events coming up, which always lift my spirits (because I’m an extrovert). One is a panel about AI and the law, co-sponsored by Boies Schiller Flexner and LexFusion (now part of Baretz+Brunelle), which is at capacity. But there are still spots for an event I’m moderating in New York on April 29, The Future of Adjudication, featuring former federal judge Katherine Forrest, now a partner at Paul Weiss, and Cornell Law professor Frank Pasquale. It’s part of Law2050, a nationwide series of events sponsored by Texas A&M University School of Law; if you can’t make it to Manhattan on the 29th, there will be future conversations in San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D.C.
Now, on to the news—of which there was, once again, far too much. And I suspect that the news, in terms of both quantity and quality, contributed to my funk. It’s healthy to take a break from the news every now and then; alas, for me, staying on top of the news is my job.
Lawyers of the Week: Brad Karp and Rachel Cohen.
As my longtime readers know, I pick Lawyers of the Week based on who generates the most buzz, not based on my personal approval of their actions or agreement with their views. And my latest Lawyers of the Week, who have disagreements with each other, demonstrate this well.
First up is Brad Karp, chair of Paul Weiss since 2008, who struck a controversial deal with Donald Trump that got the firm out from under an onerous executive order. Did he rescue the firm—or ruin it? There’s no shortage of opinions; see my Friday story for my own views, plus dozens of reader comments. Earlier today, I published Karp’s latest firmwide email, providing more background about why Paul Weiss settled instead of sued, and I offer additional thoughts below, under Law Firm of the Week.
Then there’s Rachel Cohen, a 2022 graduate of Harvard Law and, until recently, a third-year associate in the Chicago office of Skadden Arps. Instead of sitting down with Trump—as Brad Karp did in the Oval Office, for three hours—Cohen stood up to the president. And she paid a price, which is why she’s no longer on her way out at Skadden.
I previously mentioned Cohen for her work in putting together an open letter from Biglaw associates, which denounced the Trump administration’s “all-out attack aimed at dismantling rule-of-law norms.” As of last weekend’s Judicial Notice, the letter had 300 signatures from Biglaw associates; today, the number exceeds 1,350. She also penned an opinion piece for Law360, Firms Must Speak Up After Trump Orders: An Associate’s View, claiming that Trump’s attack on Biglaw has given risen to “the most urgent moment for the legal industry in our lifetimes. How we answer it will haunt us or be a point of pride. Let it be the latter.”
After news of the Paul Weiss deal broke, Cohen kicked it up a notch, in a firmwide email she sent to everyone at Skadden:
Please consider this email my two-week notice, revocable if the firm comes up with a satisfactory response to the current moment, which should include at minimum (i) signing on to the firm amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie in its litigation fighting the Trump administration’s executive order against it, (ii) committing to broad future representation, regardless of whether powerful people view it as adverse to them, (iii) refusal to cooperate with the EEOC’s request for personal information of our colleagues clearly targeted at intimidating non-white employees, (iv) public refusal to fire or otherwise force out employees at the Trump administration’s directive or implied directive and (v) public commitment to maintenance of affinity groups and related initiatives.
This is not what I saw for my career or for my evening, but Paul Weiss’ decision to cave to the Trump administration on DEI, representation and staffing has forced my hand. We do not have time. It is now or it is never, and if it is never, I will not continue to work here.
Her email got widespread media coverage, from outlets including The New York Times and The American Lawyer. And it definitely got noticed by the powers-that-be at Skadden—who effectively said, “Never mind about the two weeks.” As Cohen mentioned on LinkedIn (see the comments to her post) and TikTok, she was quickly locked out of the firm’s internal systems, including email, and eventually removed from the firm’s website. [UPDATE (3/24/2025, 2:37 p.m.): Actually, Cohen remains employed by Skadden until two weeks from the date of her email; the firm accepted her two-week notice, but did not terminate her. Corrections have been made to reflect this.]
Most discussions of Rachel Cohen that I’ve seen, in media outlets and on social media, have praised her for speaking out. For example, as Staci Zaretsky wrote at Above the Law, Cohen is “the bravest person in Biglaw”—the only person in the world of large law firms “willing to publicly condemn Trump’s threat to the rule of law.” (I’m planning to interview Cohen, so expect more about her in a future post.)
What’s the other side of the argument? Some of my more conservative or Trump-supporting readers criticized her to me as self-righteous and presumptuous; as a third-year associate, did she really think she could affect the actions of a Biglaw behemoth with 1,700 lawyers and $3 billion in revenue? But to her credit, she put her money where her mouth was: she asked Skadden to take a stand but made clear that if the firm would not, she’d be willing to leave—and they took her up on that. (For more on how individuals can make a difference within their organizations—sometimes through speaking up, sometimes through departing—see Albert O. Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States.)
Other lawyers in the news:
The only surprise is that he didn’t do it sooner: Donald Trump fired the two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya—who said they’ll be suing over their terminations.
Speaking of firings, Hilary Perkins, who was forced out of her position as the Food and Drug Administration’s chief counsel by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), spoke to The New York Times about what transpired. She described herself as “a Christian who is both conservative and pro-life and who simply followed my oath as a Department of Justice career attorney,” by representing the federal government in litigation over the abortion drug mifepristone—where her opposing counsel was none other than Senator Hawley’s wife, Erin Hawley.
Some lawyers were hot stuff last week—like Trey Cox, Collin Cox, and Gregg Costa of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who won a $667 million jury verdict for the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Or Dan Ackman, who obtained a $140 million settlement from New York City in a long-running class action brought by 19,000 taxi drivers, related to the city’s handling of license suspensions.
Other lawyers found themselves in hot water—like the Irell & Manella attorneys facing sanctions for allegedly using a “doctored document” while deposing a witness, and the Florida lawyer who was fined $100,000 for statements that “improperly cast aspersions upon the integrity of the Court” overseeing the multidistrict litigation over opioids.
If you recall The Wall Street Journal’s coverage last year of Rob Dart, a U. Chicago law graduate whose untreated mental illness led him to lose his job as a lawyer and wind up homeless on the streets of L.A., there’s an update. As reported by Julie Wernau in the WSJ (gift link), Dart has moved back into his childhood home (with his mom), resumed treatment for his schizoaffective and bipolar disorder, and started taking continuing education courses to reactivate his law license. It’s nice to have some happy news in these trying times.
In memoriam:
Jessica Aber, who stepped down as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in January, passed away at 43. Police responded to a call for service at her home around 9 a.m. on Saturday, by which point she was already deceased; the Virginia medical examiner will determine the cause and manner of her death.
Robert Denham—a longtime M&A partner at Munger Tolles who was known for saving troubled companies, most notably Salomon Brothers—passed away at 79.
May they rest in peace.
Judges of the Week: Chief Justice John Roberts and Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg.
As Judicial Notice was “going to press” last weekend, I started hearing about litigation before Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg (D.C.C.) over the Trump administration’s attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to remove hundreds of Venezuelans who allegedly belonged to Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization. I noted the litigation but declined to provide a detailed discussion at the time, noting that “[t]he facts are unclear, the situation is in flux, and there will probably be appellate action.” (Some of the confusion stems from the AEA itself, which dates back to 1798 and has been invoked only three times in American history; for more, see these posts by Professors Steve Vladeck and Jack Goldsmith.)
A week later, much remains unclear. On Saturday, March 15, Judge Boasberg issued temporary restraining orders (TROs) to block the removals, but the Trump administration sent three planes of Venezuelans to El Salvador anyway. So Judge Boasberg issued an order to show cause directing the government to file a brief, by Tuesday the 25th, explaining why they didn’t violate his TROs. At a Friday hearing, he promised that even though “the government is not being terribly cooperative… I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order.”
We’ll have a better sense of the situation after the government responds to the order to show cause and Chief Judge Boasberg issues his ruling. It will also be interesting to see what happens on Monday afternoon, when a D.C. Circuit panel—consisting of Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Patricia Millett, and Justin Walker—will hear oral argument on the Trump administration’s requests to remove Judge Boasberg from the case and to lift his orders.
In the meantime, let’s focus on what we do know. On the morning of Tuesday, March 18, Donald Trump went on Truth Social and attacked Judge Boasberg, calling him a “Radical Left Lunatic” and “troublemaker and agitator” who “should be IMPEACHED!!!” This was predictably followed by a stream of online invective from Trump followers on social media, some of whom called Boasberg a “terrorist-loving judge” and said he should be sent “to GITMO for 20 years.”
Trump’s comments about Chief Judge Boasberg are… not true (to put it mildly). As noted in this Washington Post profile (gift link), Judge Boasberg “has a history of bipartisan support”—nominated by George W. Bush to the D.C. Superior Court, then elevated by Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court. [UPDATE (8:48 p.m.): A reader pointed out to me that because of the unusual process for selecting D.C. Superior Court judges, where the president must choose from a list of candidates put together by a commission, it’s perhaps misleading to refer to Judge Boasberg as a Bush appointee. Better evidence of his bipartisan support might be his confirmation vote to the District Court, 96-0.]
Judge Boasberg has an excellent reputation among both lawyers and judges—and even justices. As longtime readers of this newsletter know, he’s a Supreme Court “feeder judge,” sending many of his clerks into prestigious SCOTUS clerkships—a sign of the high esteem in which he’s held at One First Street. And he has sent clerks to Democratic and Republican appointees (such as Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a housemate from their time together at Yale Law School).
Around three hours after Trump’s broadside against Chief Judge Boasberg, Chief Justice John Roberts entered the fray, issuing one of his rare public statements. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he declared. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Chief Justice Roberts didn’t call out Trump by name (as Trump himself noted in an interview with Laura Ingraham of Fox News). But the speed with which his statement was issued, so soon after Trump’s attack on Chief Judge Boasberg, made clear that it was intended as a rebuke of the president. See also the Chief’s 2018 statement about how “we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges,” which was made shortly after Trump complained about “Obama judges” ruling against him.
Not surprisingly, the Chief Justice received criticism from folks on the right and commentators on the left. But I agree with Professor Ilya Somin, who opined that Chief Justice Roberts did the right thing here, and with former judge Thomas Moukawsher, who told Kimberly Robinson of Bloomberg Law that the Chief’s brief statement fired “a shot across Trump’s bow” and sent “a message to the judiciary: the Chief Justice has got your back.”
Other judges in the news (with thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing):
Related to the recent events that inspired Chief Justice Roberts to speak out, four federal judges—Chief Judge Richard Seeborg (N.D. Cal.) and Judges Cathy Bencivengo (S.D. Cal.), Dolly Gee (C.D. Cal.), and Kimberly Mueller (E.D. Cal.)—delivered what Jenna Greene of Reuters called “remarkably blunt comments on what they see as attacks on judicial independence and the rule of law.”
The Trump administration moved to disqualify Judge Beryl Howell (D.D.C.) from the case brought by Perkins Coie to challenge the executive order targeting the firm. The government cited comments by Judge Howell in other cases that allegedly reflect her “partiality against and animus towards the president”—but given the high bar for disqualification, I doubt the administration will succeed.
The Article III Project’s misconduct complaint against Judge M. Casey Rodgers (N.D. Fla.) was resolved, after Judge Rodgers walked back her prior declaration that “females should be adequately represented” among the ranks of lead counsel for the multidistrict litigation (MDL) over the contraceptive Depo-Provera. She said that she has “never engaged in impermissible discrimination when selecting attorneys for MDL leadership positions” in the past, and going forward, she will appoint lawyers based solely on “individual merit.”
In nominations news, Chief Judge Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit will take senior status as of October 1, giving Trump another circuit-court seat to fill (on top of the Ninth Circuit seat being vacated by Judge Sandra Ikuta, news I broke in these pages last week). If you have thoughts on possible successors for Chief Judge Sykes, please email me: davidlat at substack dot com.
Trump’s first round of judicial nominations should appear in the next few weeks, according to Hailey Fuchs and Josh Gerstein of Politico—who expect a greater emphasis on loyalty to the president and even more conservative views, at least compared to Trump’s first-term nominees (who weren’t exactly left-wingers). We might also see less of an emphasis on credentials; as Michael Fragoso put it in The Federalist, “The kind of clerked-for-four-justices-and-the-Pope, writes-poetry-about-calculus nominees Trump needed last time aren’t necessary politically. If Trump wants a tie to go to conservatism and not credentialism, it can.”
Job of the Week: an opportunity for a real-estate finance associate in Orange County.
Lateral Link is working closely with a prestigious Am Law 50 firm on its search for a real-estate finance associate in Orange County, California. The firm prides itself on its culture of connectivity and the advanced development opportunities that it provides to associates, and the practice is highly regarded and Chambers-ranked. The client seeks an associate who has 4+ years of relevant lender-side experience at a firm, especially with construction, bridge, and permanent loans, including drafting and negotiating mortgage documents. A license to practice law in California (active and in good standing) is required. Candidates interested in other California offices (including Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco) will be considered. This is a terrific opportunity to work on sophisticated matters for top-notch clients in a collegial team environment. If you would like to be considered for this unique opportunity, please send your résumé to Christina Ahn at cahn@laterallink.com.
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