Judicial Notice (04.05.26): The Worst
Possible picks to replace Pam Bondi as AG, viral video of an injudicious judge, a SCOTUS ruling on a controversial topic, and the latest in Kirkland v. Latham.
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Happy Passover and Easter to all who celebrate. Our family attended two Seders for Passover, where I consumed copious amounts of matzo ball soup, and spent Easter with my parents, who took us to brunch at their country club. (Chase turned in a subpar performance during the Easter egg hunt, but he seemed unperturbed.)
We’re now into the season of spring and the second quarter of the year, so 2026 is just flying by. November might seem far away, but it will be here before we know it. If you’re free in early November, please consider joining me in Philadelphia for Soapbox, an exciting new conference presented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), to celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary. I’ll be speaking, and I’m also looking forward to attending many of the great panels.
Speaking of speaking, I’m traveling over the next two weeks to three different cities, mainly for speaking engagements. I’m pretty booked for the spring, and the summer tends to be light on events—but I do have availability in the fall, so please feel free to contact me if interested in learning more.
Now, on to the news.
Lawyer of the Week: Pam Bondi.
On Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump took to Truth Social and announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi would be leaving his administration. After praising her as “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend,” he said that “she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector.” (This led Stephen Colbert to quip, “It’s a much-needed job at a very important farm upstate. There’ll be lots of room for her to run around. Unfortunately, we can’t go visit her.”)
Bondi, 60, is the second Cabinet member to be terminated by Trump in his second term (after former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem). Bondi’s ouster didn’t come as a surprise: Trump’s displeasure with her as AG had been well-known for weeks, and outlets including CNN and The New York Times reported that her firing was likely shortly before it became public. According to The Wall Street Journal (gift link), Trump “was frustrated she didn’t do more to contain fallout from the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files and incensed that she had not successfully prosecuted a number of his political enemies.”
Bondi will officially depart from the Department of Justice in about a month. Who might replace her as AG? On X, Mike Davis—a well-connected figure in Trumpworld, who has the president’s ear on legal matters—mentioned 10 contenders:
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as Trump’s personal attorney in various criminal cases before becoming DAG, and who will serve as Acting Attorney General until the arrival of the next Senate-confirmed AG;
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon;
U.S. Attorney Judge Jeanine Pirro (D.D.C.);
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin;
Federal Trade Commission Andrew Ferguson;
General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget Mark Paoletta;
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau;
Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.);
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah); and
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.).
Some of these folks are quite smart, so don’t be surprised if they pass on AG if offered the position. As suggested by the (conservative) editorial board of The Wall Street Journal (gift link), it’s quite possibly the worst job in D.C.—especially under Donald Trump, who might not have realistic expectations of what an AG can do. Pam Bondi was actually quite zealous in prosecuting Trump’s political foes—but grand juries and judges rejected the cases she brought, and Trump can’t blame Bondi for the factual and legal weaknesses in those prosecutions.
As for Pam Bondi’s next act, it will be interesting to see where she lands. She has at least one consolation prize probably heading her way: she’s the odds-on favorite to win Above the Law’s March Madness contest, which seeks to crown The Trump Administration Lawyer Who Most Deserves To Lose Their Law License.
Other lawyers in the news:
Speaking of the DOJ, it’s not only Main Justice that’s experiencing leadership challenges. At least 10 districts are now being led indefinitely by a lawyer other than a U.S. attorney, according to an analysis by Politico.
Deborah Leslie, the assistant district attorney who got called out in the Georgia Supreme Court for citing non-existent cases, is in trouble. According to a letter of apology that Clayton County District Attorney Tasha Mosley sent to Chief Justice Nels Peterson, Leslie has been suspended from her job, and a grievance against her has been filed with the State Bar of Georgia.
Former Supreme Court litigator Tom Goldstein, who was found guilty in February of tax evasion and other charges, received court permission to move out of his house and into an apartment somewhere in the District of Maryland.
Litigator Jay Lefkowitz, who will be retiring from the partnership of Kirkland & Ellis later this spring, represented Jeffrey Epstein quite zealously—and tried to affect the selection of lawyers handling victims’ civil cases against Epstein.
William & Connolly filed a lawsuit against former employee Dante K. Chambers II, accusing the Stanford Law graduate of posting confidential client information and threats against firm partners on Instagram.
In memoriam: litigator Mark Fredrick Bideau, co-managing shareholder of the West Palm Beach office of Greenberg Traurig, passed away at 68. May he rest in peace.
Judge of the Week: Judge Nathan Milliron.
The end of the current Supreme Court Term will be here before we know it. Once we get into that final month, SCOTUS news will dominate—and we’ll have one week after another featuring a justice as Judge of the Week. But we’re not there yet, so we can instead focus on less highbrow fare—like misbehaving state-court judges.
Meet Judge Nathan Milliron of Harris County, Texas. He berated an IT worker who was simply trying to help him—for the crime of being, well, insufficiently solicitous while doing so—and after video of the interaction made it to social media, Judge Milliron went viral.
I actually read about Judge Milliron’s transgressions, in places like Above the Law and The New York Post, before I had the chance to play the video—so when I finally watched it, I was a little disappointed. The judge was incredibly rude, and using profanity on the bench is not a great look—but I guess I was expecting more from the half-minute clip. (Given my two decades of following and writing about judicial misconduct, I admit I might be a bit jaded; it takes a lot to impress me.)
Alas, unfortunately for Judge Milliron, being in the spotlight unearthed all sorts of other embarrassing information about him. It turns out he has, in the words of The Post, a “long history of obnoxious, entitled behavior,” involving mistreatment of lawyers, staffers, and even a fellow Republican who didn’t make it to his investiture.
It was also reported that Judge Milliron filed for personal bankruptcy—with “nearly $70,000 in debt,” including around “$30,000 to Amex and other balances to Chase, Discover, and Bank of America.” But his case was apparently dismissed in June 2025, after he failed to make certain required filings. As one person quipped on X, “Not saying financial struggles define a person, but failing to follow court orders while enforcing them on others is just wild.”
In other news about judges and the judiciary:
Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a hospital on March 20 after becoming ill at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia, as reported by Joan Biskupic of CNN. The previously unreported incident was confirmed by Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe, who said in a statement that the justice “agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home,” received fluids for dehydration, and returned home that night.
Should SCOTUS have a social-media presence, which it could use to issue orders, opinions, and official statements (like the one above)? Yes, according to Cortez Collins of Fix the Court.
If you’re interested in possible reforms to the Supreme Court, subscribe to Major Questions, the new Substack newsletter by Jesse Wegman (now a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, which he joined after serving on the editorial board of The New York Times for a dozen years).
Last week’s Judge of the Week, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery, reassigned the shareholder litigation she was overseeing against Elon Musk, after she was accused of “supporting” an anti-Musk post on LinkedIn (which she denied). Although she reiterated that she is not biased against Musk, “disproportionate media attention surrounding a judge’s handling of an action is detrimental to the administration of justice,” making reassignment to a colleague appropriate.
Yes, social media can create problems for judges—just ask Judge Milliron or Chancellor McCormick—but the benefits shouldn’t be overlooked. As Judge Stephen Dillard of the Georgia Court of Appeals wrote in an article for the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, Democratizing the Judiciary: Why Judges Should Engage ‘We the People’ Through Social-Media Platforms, “when judges and courts use social media in a responsible and educational way, it increases the public’s confidence and faith in the judiciary.” (As someone who shares Judge Dillard’s positive view about social media’s potential for good, I was surprised by how lopsided the result of last week’s poll was: 75 percent of you have a “negative” or “very negative” view of social media, while only 13 percent have a “positive” or “very positive” view.)
Moving from social media to another controversial technology, more than 60 percent of federal judges are using at least one AI tool in their judicial work, according to a new study published by the Sedona Conference. (But note that 78 percent of judges who received the survey didn’t respond—an issue I discussed on X with one of the paper’s authors, Professor Dan Linna.)
In nominations news, the Trump administration announced four new nominees for district courts: Acting U.S. Attorney John Marck (S.D. Tex.), Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Arthur “Rob” Jones (S.D. Tex.), Ohio Chief Deputy Solicitor General Michael Hendershot (N.D. Ohio), and Fourth District Court of Appeal Judge Jeffrey Kuntz (S.D. Fla.).
Job of the Week: an opportunity for a real estate finance associate in New York.
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