Judicial Notice (12.21.25): Taking The Heat
Yale Law’s new dean, a judge’s felony conviction, the biggest Biglaw merger, and Sidley’s latest exciting hire.
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The holidays are here, believe it or not. But it’s been harder to get into the holiday spirit, as Sarah Isgur and David French noted on Advisory Opinions, in light of events from the past week or so—including the Bondi Beach shooting, the Brown University shooting, the killings of Rob and Michele Reiner, and the ambush in Syria.
Even so, last week was not without brights spots for me. On Wednesday afternoon, I saw Little Bear Ridge Road, a beautiful new play by the immensely talented Samuel D. Hunter (which I would urge everyone to see, except it closed on the 21st). On Thursday, I enjoyed catching up with friends and former colleagues from the U.S. Attorney’s Office (D.N.J.) at the annual holiday party of Judge Patty Shwartz (3d Cir.)—whom I’ve known for more than 25 years, dating back to when I was a 1L summer intern in the U.S.A.O. and she was deputy chief of the criminal division. (Alas, I had no sightings of Alina Habba, who recently resigned as acting U.S. attorney.)
Also on Thursday, Bloomberg Law posted the latest episode of the On the Merits podcast, featuring yours truly and Nikia Gray, executive director of NALP. We spoke with Jessie Kamens—host of the podcast, as well as the fabulous editor of my Bloomberg Law column—about Biglaw’s extremely accelerated recruiting timeline. It’s hard to believe that firms are interviewing law students as early as October or November of their 1L year. For more about what I view as a troubling trend, please check out my recent deep dive into this topic (which I’m hoping folks will take the time to read and share, since I put a ton of work into it).
On Saturday night, Zach and I went over to my parents’ house for their annual Christmas party, with Harlan and Chase in tow. The festivities were fabulous—my mother knows how to throw a party—although after Chase puked all over me and my green Christmas blazer, we knew we were in for a bumpy night. And so began 48 hours with two sick kids, which explains the late arrival of this installment of Judicial Notice. (I’m trying to assuage my guilt by telling myself it’s the holiday season, folks are traveling or otherwise distracted, and many people’s schedules are disrupted.)
Now, on to the news.
(Note that I’m using yesterday’s date of December 21 in the headline of this post, which is also my way of conveying that any news developments happening on or after Monday, December 22, will be covered in the next roundup—which, as previously mentioned, probably won’t appear until early January.)
Lawyer of the Week: Cristina Rodríguez.
For the past several months, I’ve been following Yale Law School’s search for its new dean—the successor to Heather Gerken, who stepped down in August and became president of the Ford Foundation last month. In July, I mentioned seven contenders, and last month, I identified two finalists: Calabresi Professor of Law Daniel Markovits, and Deputy Dean and Surbeck Professor of Law Cristina Rodríguez. (Fun fact: they were classmates at Yale Law School, both members of the class of 2000.)
On Friday, Yale University President Maurie McInnis announced Rodríguez as Yale Law’s next dean, as reported by The Yale Daily News and Law.com. Her tenure as dean will begin on February 1, 2026. Congratulations to Rodríguez on her selection.
Rodríguez’s gold-plated résumé is exactly what you’d expect for a YLS dean. She graduated from Yale College (1995), studied at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduated from Yale Law School (2000), clerked for two leading jurists (Judge David Tatel and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor), taught at NYU Law, served for two years as a deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel), and joined the YLS faculty in 2013. This past July, Rodríguez was also named a deputy dean. (Fun fact, for my fellow high-school forensics alums: she was the 1991 NFL National Champion in U.S. Extemporaneous Speaking—and I was at Nationals that year but didn’t compete against her, since I did International Extemp.)
Rodríguez’s selection as dean drew praise from various legal luminaries, including former Harvard Law dean Martha Minow, former YLS dean Guido Calabresi, and Sterling Professor of Law Akhil Amar. But I was most struck by the warm words for Rodríguez from Adam J. White, a conservative constitutional scholar at the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute, who served on the Biden Supreme Court Commission and commended Rodríguez for being “open-minded” and “run[ning] a serious, even-handed process” (in her role as co-chair). I also took note of the congratulatory message from Yale Federalist Society President David Haungs, who told the Yale Daily News that FedSoc “hope[s] to work with [Rodríguez] to make Yale Law School a welcoming place for conservative students and views.”
As longtime OJ readers might recall, some conservative and libertarian law students had issues with the YLS administration under Heather Gerken, and there were a number of free-speech controversies during Gerken’s tenure. My hope is that Cristina Rodríguez will stand up strongly for free speech, academic freedom, and intellectual diversity at Yale Law School—even if it means occasionally taking heat from the left-leaning law students and progressive professors who predominate at YLS.
In an early sign of her interest in these issues, Rodríguez co-chaired President McInnis’s Committee on Institutional Voice, which published an October 2024 report recommending that leaders at Yale University “refrain from issuing statements concerning matters of public, social, or political significance, except in rare cases.” I strongly support the “refrain[ing]” part, but I’m concerned about the “rare cases” wiggle room. I also happen to prefer Harvard’s report on institutional voice—issued by a working group chaired by another eminent constitutional scholar, Professor Noah Feldman of Harvard Law—as making a more vigorous case against university leaders issuing statements on every random issue under the sun. For now, however, kudos to Cristina Rodríguez—and good luck.
Other lawyers in the news:
Speaking of lawyers landing new jobs, on Thursday, the Senate confirmed around 100 nominees in a single, 53-43 vote—the third group of nominations to be processed using a new “en bloc” procedure established by Republicans earlier this year. The group included 13 U.S. attorneys, three D.C. Superior Court judges, and new chairs for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Commodity Futures Trading Commission—Travis Hill and Michael Selig, respectively. I noticed at least 25 lawyers in this latest batch; for their names and roles, check out the comments to this post, or this Google Doc (editable by anyone with the link, so please feel free to add anyone I might have missed).
Here in New Jersey, our Democratic governor-elect, Mikie Sherrill, selected Jennifer Davenport as the Garden State’s next attorney general. Currently deputy general counsel for the utility PSEG, Davenport previously served as New Jersey’s first assistant attorney general and as an assistant U.S. attorney.
An anonymous former associate at DLA Piper filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court against the firm and one of its former partners, Brian Biggs. She alleges, in the first paragraph of her complaint, that she “was sexually harassed and assaulted by a high-ranking Firm partner with a known history of heavy drinking and inappropriate workplace conduct towards female subordinates.”
Kathryn Ruemmler, chief legal officer of Goldman Sachs, isn’t the only high-profile lawyer who corresponded with the late Jeffrey Epstein. Emails released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee last month reveal that Brad Karp, chair of Paul Weiss, corresponded with Epstein for a span of at least three years. [UPDATE (9:11 p.m.): As noted in a statement that Karp sent to Law.com, “Paul, Weiss was retained by Leon Black, then the CEO of the firm’s longtime client Apollo, to negotiate a series of fee disputes with Jeffrey Epstein that spanned several years. The firm was adverse to Epstein, and at no point did Paul, Weiss, or Brad Karp ever represent him.”]
Back in July, I alluded to “interesting things” I had been hearing about Kasowitz LLP (and asked readers with information to reach out to me). Some of the rumors I had heard are now allegations in a lawsuit filed in New York state court by former Kasowitz partner Eric Herschmann. Suing both the firm and founding partner Marc Kasowitz for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and a host of other claims, Herschmann claims that “as a result of Kasowitz’s mismanagement of the Firm, the Firm’s profits had plummeted, leading Kasowitz to secretly saddle the Firm with huge amounts of debt to pay partner distributions”—and to fail to pay Herschmann “millions of dollars in due but unpaid compensation.” The defendants deny Herschmann’s allegations, calling his complaint “a false document filled with inaccuracies and misstatements.”
Charged with murdering his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, Nick Reiner has hired Alan Jackson to defend him. In June, the high-profile defense lawyer secured an acquittal for his client Karen Read, who was on trial for killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe.
Next month, the Alliance Defending Freedom will go to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend Idaho and West Virginia laws that ban transgender students from participating in women’s sports. Ahead of those arguments, Maggie Severns and Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal profiled ADF’s CEO, Kristen Waggoner (whom I had on my podcast back in July 2023).
Judge of the Week: Judge Hannah Dugan.
On Thursday, a federal jury in Milwaukee (E.D. Wis.) found Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of obstructing ICE agents. As I previously discussed when she was indicted back in April, the basic allegation is that Judge Dugan personally helped Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a criminal defendant appearing before her on domestic-violence charges, to exit her courtroom through a special “jury door.” This allowed Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant, to evade ICE agents that Dugan knew were waiting to arrest him in the public hallway outside her courtroom.
Flores-Ruiz managed to avoid the ICE agents in the hallway, and he even got out of the courthouse—but at that point, other federal agents spotted and arrested him (after a brief foot chase). Flores-Ruiz was deported—and Judge Dugan was indicted. Her case attracted national attention, with Trump critics condemning it as an attempt by the administration to intimidate judges and other state or local officials opposed to the president’s deportation efforts.
Dugan’s trial began on Monday. In audio from her courtroom’s brand-new sound system that was played to the jury, Judge Dugan was recorded telling a court staffer, who expressed concern about the plan, that she (Dugan) would take “the heat”—i.e., accept any consequences arising out of the effort to aid Flores-Ruiz.
After a four-day trial and six hours of deliberation, Judge Dugan was found guilty of obstruction, a felony. She was acquitted of concealing a person from arrest, a misdemeanor. Her lawyers said she would appeal—with one of them, former U.S. attorney Steve Biskupic (E.D. Wis.), describing the case as “a long way from over.” In April, former U.S. solicitor general Paul Clement joined Dugan’s team, and it will be interesting to see if he handles this appeal. (He wasn’t mentioned in any of the trial coverage that I read, but I’m unaware of him withdrawing from the representation.)
Looking ahead to sentencing (not scheduled yet), Judge Dugan faces up to five years in prison. But that’s in theory; in practice, I agree with Mark Joseph Stern of Slate, who thinks that Dugan, a first-time offender, will get house arrest or probation. As noted by Stern, Judge Lynn Adelman is known as a light sentencer. And Adelman, a Clinton appointee and former Democratic congressional candidate, is a pretty left-leaning jurist—previously admonished for writing a law review article criticizing the Supreme Court’s “hard-right majority” for “undermining American democracy.” So it’s hard to imagine Judge Adelman bringing down the hammer on Judge Dugan. But Judge Dugan will probably face at least one consequence: having been convicted of a felony, she’s likely ineligible to keep her judicial office.
In other news about judges and the judiciary:
On December 31, Judge William Alsup (N.D. Cal.), already a senior judge, will retire completely (i.e., stop hearing cases). This will give him more time to pursue his passion for photography—the subject of this profile of Judge Alsup, by Isaiah Poritz of Bloomberg Law.
In a follow-up on last week’s Judge of the Week, Judge Emil Bove (3d Cir.), Professor Rob Luther argued that the ethics complaint against Bove must be dismissed, in the pages of The Hill (via Howard Bashman’s How Appealing).
In nominations news, last week brought no new nominations or confirmations—and the Senate at this point is effectively done for the year, returning in January. But before the senators left town, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on three judicial nominees—during which Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) asked Justin Olson, a former federal prosecutor who’s now in private practice, some probing questions about various controversial statements that Olson made during sermons he delivered as an ordained elder of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.
In memoriam: Judge William J. Bauer, who served on the Seventh Circuit for more than 50 years (1974-2025), passed away at 99. May he rest in peace.
Job of the Week: an opportunity for a litigation associate in Dallas.
Lateral Link is partnering with a high-end litigation boutique that’s growing its Dallas office. This is a standout opportunity for an associate who truly wants to litigate—an attorney who’s eager to get into the courtroom, run cases early, and learn directly from some of the top trial lawyers in the country. The firm combines Biglaw compensation with boutique flexibility, along with clear partnership potential and a culture that values excellence and mentorship. Ideally, the candidate will have graduated from a top law school, gained experience at a leading law firm, and completed a federal clerkship. If you’re a driven litigator looking for a place to build a long-term career, please email Wendy Boone Jaikaran at wendyboone@laterallink.com to learn more.
