Judicial Notice (02.16.26): An Embarrassing Distraction
The resignation of Kathy Ruemmler, a humiliating defeat for the Trump DOJ, a judge’s acknowledgment of an ‘abusive’ workplace, and a smart move by Cooley.
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.
