Judicial Notice (04.12.26): ‘I Love You, Sir’
A justice’s public criticism of a colleague, the acting AG’s bromance with Trump, two new circuit-court nominees, and another partner departure from Cravath.
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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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