Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, here.

Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics.

Happy Monday!

Hello from Washington DC! Yes, I’m back in DC again this week not for Beyoncé but for meetings. It was a busy week in legal ethics news, so we are returning to fifteen headlines. But first I want to share a must-read article about the floods in Texas. This beautifully-written, utterly heartbreaking story from the Texas Monthly is about the home of my husband’s law partner and her family inside: “The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.” (Fair warning: You will need tissues.)

Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Fifteen Headlines

#1 “The Fallout Is Growing on Trump’s Deals With Law Firms.” From Politico: “The Trump administration is on an unbroken losing streak in the courts — 0 for 4 — in its effort to defend President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting large law firms. And things could get worse — for Trump, and for the law firms that capitulated to him. It has been several months since the first major law firm brokered a deal with Trump to get out from under an executive order penalizing the firm for conducting work or hiring lawyers that the White House disfavors. Eight firms followed that precedent in order to avoid becoming targeted themselves, ultimately committing a combined total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services to largely unspecified initiatives supported by the Trump administration. Four firms refused to buckle and successfully challenged the orders targeting them in federal district court in Washington, D.C. Trump’s executive orders and the deals struck by the settling firms have not aged well. … He has publicly boasted about the deals for months and repeatedly said that he will put the settling firms to work for the administration. But there is no publicly available evidence that this has actually happened. Privately, representatives for three of the settling firms (who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters) told me that they have not received any instructions or input from the White House on pro bono matters to take on.” Read more here.

#2 “Justice Jackson Says ‘the State of Our Democracy’ Keeps Her Up at Night.” From the New York Times: “The question to the Supreme Court justice seemed lighthearted, following inquiries about her favorite song and what book she is reading. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s answer was deeply serious. When a federal judge asked the justice what kept her up at night, Justice Jackson paused, then said, ‘I would say the state of our democracy.’ The crowd was quiet for a moment, then burst into applause. ‘I’m really very interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government,’ she said at an event on Thursday for the Indianapolis Bar Association. Justice Jackson did not elaborate on what she meant or detail specific concerns. Still, it was striking for a sitting Supreme Court justice to go out of her way to publicly express concern about the state of the country.” Read more here (gift link).

#3 “‘EGREGIOUS.’ ‘BRAZEN.’ ‘LAWLESS.’ How 48 Judges Describe Trump’s Actions, in Their Own Words.” From the New York Times: “Many Americans in positions of power, including corporate executives and members of Congress, seem too afraid of President Trump to stand up to his anti-democratic behavior. Federal judges have shown themselves to be exceptions. ‘Judges from across the ideological spectrum are ruling against administration policies at remarkable rates,’ said Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University. These rulings have halted Mr. Trump’s vengeful attempts to destroy law firms, forestalled some of his budget cuts and kept him from deporting additional immigrants. Yes, the Supreme Court has often been more deferential to the president. Still, it has let stand many lower-court rulings and has itself constrained Mr. Trump in some cases. The bipartisan alarm from federal judges offers a roadmap for others to respond to Mr. Trump’s often illegal behavior. His actions deserve to be called out in plain language for what they really are. And people in positions of influence should do what they can to stand up for American values, as many judges have done. Here, we’ve compiled quotations from judges’ recent rulings and bench comments.” Read more here (gift link).

#4 “Top Supreme Court Atty Touts AI Version Of Own Argument.” From Law360: “You’re not hallucinating — a tech-savvy U.S. Supreme Court advocate generated a near-facsimile of his voice, had an artificial intelligence chatbot use it to argue the same case he recently argued, and told Law360 on Tuesday that ‘many of its answers were as good or better than mine.’ Jenner & Block LLP partner Adam Unikowsky, widely regarded as a standout in the Supreme Court bar’s next generation, detailed the AI experiment in his legal newsletter Monday night and discussed it further on Tuesday, saying in an interview that the computerized counsel proved ‘very clever.’ It did so by answering the same questions that Unikowsky fielded from justices in October when arguing a civil rights case called Williams v. Reed. ‘You read the transcript, there’s a few answers where I get caught up and make mistakes, and the AI doesn’t really make mistakes,’ Unikowsky said Tuesday, adding that the application impressed him by consistently connecting its answers to the case’s central themes.” Read more here.

#5 “Firings Without Explanation Create Culture of Fear at Justice Dept., FBI.” From the Washington Post: “Multiple people familiar with the Justice Department said scores of experienced staffers are opting to voluntarily leave the government to avoid being fired at random or asked to do things that would potentially violate their legal ethics. Their departures are worsening staff shortages in major divisions and U.S. attorney offices, including in D.C. and Los Angeles, and have created an opening for the Trump administration to further shape the department workforce, allowing officials to fill career staff vacancies with lawyers who align ideologically with the president. ‘Many, many lawyers have resigned on their own power because they saw the writing on the wall,’ said Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that pushes for a strong federal workforce. ‘They understood if they didn’t leave on their own volition, they would be subject to firing — or if they stayed, they felt they couldn’t uphold their oath in a way that was consistent with their integrity.’” Read more here (gift link).

#6 “Eliminating ABA Accreditation for Texas Law Schools is Flawed Proposal, Some Deans Say.” From Reuters: “Dropping the requirement that Texas attorneys graduate from an American Bar Association-accredited law school would impede lawyer mobility and increase costs, law deans warned in a letter to the Texas Supreme Court. Deans from eight of the state’s 10 ABA-accredited law schools asked the court to maintain the ABA requirement — which has been in place since 1983 — amid a review of the rule initiated by the court in April.” Read more here. (Full disclosure – I also submitted comments.)

#7 “‘A Period Of Great Constitutional Danger’: Pam Karlan.” From David Lat in Original Jurisdiction: “Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded its latest Term. And over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has continued to duke it out with its adversaries in the federal courts. To tackle these topics, as well as their intersection—in terms of how well the courts, including but not limited to the Supreme Court, are handling Trump-related cases—I interviewed Professor Pamela Karlan, a longtime faculty member at Stanford Law School.” Read more and listen here.

#8 “Why a Devoted Justice Department Lawyer Became a Whistle-Blower.” From The New Yorker: “In the early days of the first Trump Administration, Erez Reuveni, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, went to court to defend the new President’s travel ban on foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries. … In short, Reuveni did his job as a government lawyer—and he did so under President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden, and during both Trump Administrations. … On Wednesday afternoon, I met with Reuveni at his home, in the Washington suburbs. We talked in his kitchen for more than two hours, as his cat intermittently jumped on the table seeking attention and as his dog rang a bell asking to be let out. … This was not only his first interview about the encounters that ended his government career but his first interview with a journalist ever, and he spoke with a mixture of passion and sadness as he described the events that resulted in his dismissal. ‘They’re putting attorneys who have dedicated themselves to public service in the impossible position of fealty to the President or fealty to the Constitution—candor to the courts or keeping your head low and lying if asked to do so,’ Reuveni told me. ‘That is not what the Department of Justice that I worked in was about. That’s not why I went to the Department of Justice and stayed there for fifteen years.’” Read more here.

#9 “Calif. Bar Seeks 30-Day Suspension For Ex-Exec’s Misconduct.” From Law360: “The California State Bar Court has recommended a 30-day ‘actual’ suspension for its onetime executive director, who last year was found culpable for a ‘significant ethical violation’ in making misrepresentations to the State Bar Board of Trustees regarding his 2014 visit to Mongolia, which allegedly cost thousands of dollars in bar funds. In an opinion issued on July 2, a three-judge bar court panel recommended the California Supreme Court impose a one-year suspension on former executive director Joseph Lawrence Dunn. … The panel on Wednesday also recommended a one-year probationary period be imposed on Dunn, along with a $1,500 monetary sanction. Dunn should also take and pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, or MPRE, the panel recommended. The 36-page recommendation now goes before the state high court, which will issue a final order.” Read more here.

#10 “Michigan Courts’ Anti-Bias Proposal Faces Significant Opposition.” From Bloomberg Law: “The Michigan Supreme Court received dozens of letters urging it to reject proposed anti-bias-focused changes to conduct rules for judges and lawyers, with some citing free-speech issues and others saying it’s a solution in search of a problem. The letters—which the court received between early May and July 1, when the comment period closed—came from a variety of groups, attorneys, and members of the public. And while some of the 57 letters supported the proposal, most didn’t.” Read more here.

#11 “Experiential Education.” From Deborah Merritt (Ohio State) in the Law School Cafe: “The ABA Council has proposed expanding the number of required experiential credits at ABA-accredited law schools from six to twelve credits. This is a remarkably modest requirement, representing less than 15% of a student’s JD work. The Council’s memo lays out the extensive research supporting this requirement. For decades, empirical scholars, employers, and law graduates have agreed that newly licensed lawyers lack essential competencies needed to serve clients. Law schools must strengthen the education they provide to prepare students for counseling clients effectively, negotiating intelligently, exploring the full context of client matters, and solving complex problems thoughtfully. Claiming that employers will offer that education abdicates our role as educators and puts clients at risk.” Read more here. (Full disclosure – I am slated for election to the ABA Council in August 2025.)

#12 “In Digital Era, Supreme Court Insists on Vast Piles of Paper.” From the New York Times: “The court’s rules require many litigants to submit 40 copies of their briefs, resulting in millions of pages printed each term. Critics call the process outdated and wasteful. … ‘The court’s rules impose significant and unnecessary costs to litigants and to the environment,’ William J. Aceves, a law professor at California Western School of Law, wrote in a study published last month in The University of Colorado Law Review. He urged the court to do away with paper submissions, particularly for the first round of briefs, over whether the justices should hear a case at all. Focusing solely on those early filings, Professor Aceves calculated that the court’s rules require the submission of more than five million pieces of paper each term. ‘If stacked together, these filings would reach beyond 2,000 feet, which exceeds the height of the tallest building in the United States,’ he wrote. ‘If weighed, these filings would take over 33 tons of paper to produce.’” Read more here (gift link).

#13 “ABA Says Unlawful Jury Selection Bias Not ‘Legitimate Advocacy’.” From Bloomberg Law: “Peremptory juror challenges that constitute unlawful discrimination violate the American Bar Association model ethics rules even if a client orders that such challenges be made, the ABA says in a new ethics opinion. But lawyers facing such quandaries don’t violate ABA ethics rule 8.4(g) when they exercise peremptory challenges to prospective jurors on a discriminatory basis when not forbidden by other law. Courts have allowed lawyers to use peremptory challenges based on a prospective juror’s age, marital status, and other factors, the ABA opinion says.” Read more here. And download the new Formal Opinion 517 here.

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#14 “Democratic Lawmakers Say EEOC Chair Aided Law Firm ‘Shakedown’ by Trump.” From Reuters: “Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday asked the acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for information about the agency’s role in President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against a swath of the U.S. legal industry. The lawmakers, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Bobby Scott of Virginia, in a letter to EEOC acting chair Andrea Lucas accused her of using her position ‘to facilitate a shakedown of prominent law firms that represented causes or employed individuals whom the President dislikes.’” Read more here.

#15 “It’s Illegal in Most States for Private Equity to Buy a Law Firm. Lawyers Have Figured Out a Workaround.” From Business Insider: “Legal ethics rules largely bar non-lawyers from owning law firms. MSOs offer a chance to get around that rule.” Read more here.

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Renee Knake Jefferson holds the endowed Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics and is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston. Check out more of her writing at the Legal Ethics Roundup. Find her on X (formerly Twitter) at @reneeknake or Bluesky at legalethics.bsky.social.

The post Legal Ethics Roundup: The Ethics Of DOJ Firings, Jackson On The State Of Our Democracy, Wasteful SCOTUS Paper Filings, AI SCOTUS Arg & More appeared first on Above the Law.

Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup,here.

Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics.

#5 “Firings Without Explanation Create Culture of Fear at Justice Dept., FBI.” From the Washington Post: “Multiple people familiar with the Justice Department said scores of experienced staffers are opting to voluntarily leave the government to avoid being fired at random or asked to do things that would potentially violate their legal ethics. Their departures are worsening staff shortages in major divisions and U.S. attorney offices, including in D.C. and Los Angeles, and have created an opening for the Trump administration to further shape the department workforce, allowing officials tofill career staff vacancies with lawyers who align ideologically with the president. ‘Many, many lawyers have resigned on their own power because they saw the writing on the wall,’ said Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that pushes for a strong federal workforce. ‘They understood if they didn’t leave on their own volition, they would be subject to firing — or if they stayed, they felt they couldn’t uphold their oath in a way that was consistent with their integrity.’” Read more here (gift link).

Did you miss the 150+ job postings from previous Roundups? Find them all here.

Did you miss an announcement from previous Roundups? Find them all here.

News tips? Announcements? Events? A job to post? Reading recommendations? Email [email protected] – but be sure to subscribe first, otherwise the email won’t be delivered.