Judicial Notice (04.26.26): The GOAT of SCOTUS Advocates?
Partner pay hits $40 million, appellate advocates play musical chairs, a prominent jurist announces his resignation, and Sullivan & Cromwell has a no good, very bad week.
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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.).
Job of the Week: an opportunity for a real estate associate in Dallas.
Lateral Link is recruiting a junior to midlevel real estate associate (2–6 years) for a prestigious Am Law firm in Dallas. The role covers sophisticated commercial real estate work—acquisitions/dispositions, joint ventures, development projects, and financing transactions—with responsibility for drafting and negotiating PSAs, JV agreements, and loan documents (acquisition, construction, mezzanine, refinancing). Expect meaningful client interaction with institutional investors, developers, and lenders; strong mentorship; a collaborative culture; steady deal flow; and top-of-market compensation. If you’re even slightly curious, please email Wendy Boone at wendyboone@laterallink.com for a confidential conversation.
