Happy Monday!
I stayed up way too late this weekend making history with 112,000+ other people at the largest ticketed concert ever held in the U.S. – Zach Bryan at the Big House. I was visiting my son who is a junior at the University of Michigan, and I have to say it was pretty special to be belting out lyrics with my husband and children at the top of our lungs amidst thousands of fans under the pink skies of a Michigan sunset, which I’ve hopefully taught ‘em to enjoy.
This week you can join me LIVE at an event featuring my book Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court hosted by the Dallas Allied Bars Equality Committee and the Dallas Women Lawyers Association on Tuesday from noon-1PM central. Learn more and register here. Other speakers include Judge Rebecca Rutherford, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and Professor Cheryl Wattley (UNT Dallas).
I’m also happy to share a recent review of Shortlisted. Even though the book was first published in 2020 with a paperback update in 2022, the themes seem to resonate now more than ever. Here’s an excerpt from the review:
One of the book’s standout features is its meticulous research that supports the authors’ arguments. The writing style strikes a remarkable balance between academic rigor and accessibility. Even as someone not deeply entrenched in the intricacies of the American judicial system, I found the explanations clear enough to engage me deeply. The first half unveils a narrative steeped in history, examining how female presence was regarded as both revolutionary and contentious—especially in a time when presidents would endorse women’s suffrage yet remain hesitant to genuinely support women in positions of power.
Notably, the authors don’t shy away from the complexities that arise after women are appointed. The challenges they present—such as balancing familial expectations and professional responsibilities—are all too relatable. I found myself reflecting on the broader implications not only in the court but in workplaces everywhere, as women juggle identities that society often complicates for them.
Read the full review here. And my co-author Dean Hannah Brenner Johnson (Southern Illinois) and I are always happy to speak about the book. We’ve given talks to a wide range of audiences. Please reach out to either (or both!) of us if you have an engagement in mind.
Now for your headlines. I can’t blame the slow start to my Monday only on my late night concert over the weekend. I am definitely still recovering from the onslaught of legal ethics news from the past week. We of course have more than ten headlines…so let’s turn now to the top fifteen. You might want to grab a cup of coffee for this read. ☕️
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Fifteen Headlines
#1 “If the Trump administration can do this, then no American is safe from political prosecution.” A letter to Congress from Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Virginia Canter: “We write as former ethics counsels for Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton. We urgently request an investigation into possible prosecutorial abuses and ethics violations by Lindsey Halligan, the newly-appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in connection with her having improperly brought charges against former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. … In the United States, a president should never order prosecutions of his enemies.” Read the full letter here and an op-ed from the authors published on MSNBC here.
#2 “‘At Professional Risk’: Charging Comey Could Land Lindsey Halligan in Hot Water.” From Vanity Fair: “An ethics professor from Halligan’s law school warns that if she pursues charges against the former FBI director without probable cause, she could be disciplined by the Florida bar.” Read more here.
#3 “Newman Makes Full-Court Press in Appeals Challenge of Suspension.” From Bloomberg Law: “Judge Pauline Newman, the country’s oldest active federal judge, asked the full D.C. Circuit to reconsider her constitutional challenge to the law her colleagues used to suspend her from hearing new cases. The full appellate court should heed a three-judge panel’s implicit invitation’ to take the case en banc and revisit a precedent preventing the court from considering Newman’s arguments on the merits, she argued in a petition filed Sept. 19 at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The panel in August upheld a D.C.-based district court’s dismissal of Newman’s lawsuit seeking reinstatement.” Read more here.
#4 “Amy Coney Barrett Explains Why She Won’t Explain Her Recusals.” From Politico: “Justice Amy Coney Barrett indicated Thursday that one reason she chooses not to explain why she recuses herself from cases for ethics reasons is because her friends or family could face unwanted public attention, threats or worse. The comments from Barrett are a rare sign that a recent surge in threats against judges and their families are affecting how members of the Supreme Court carry out their official duties. During a stop in Washington to promote her new book, Barrett was asked why some justices explain their decisions to recuse from cases, while others don’t.” Read more here.
#5 “I Sought to Protect an Immigrant Legal Client. Instead, I’m Facing Trump’s New Sanctions.” From The Guardian: “Facing the specter of conditions in El Salvador’s Cecot facility and the plight of other immigrants having been removed without notice, I had previously secured a class action against removals for my own district around Los Angeles, and I wanted to extend such protection to this client. I knew President Trump had issued a proclamation attempting to justify removals after the fact, but I used my best judgment and skills to ask the court to enforce the actual law as written. The government nevertheless proceeded to take my client out of the United States. So I was taken aback when the government asked the judge to punish me for my efforts via a motion for sanctions – which is a novel strategy by the administration to go after immigration attorneys personally by attempting to ruin their record or fine them. I was now a target.” Read more here.
#6 “Private Equity Circles Law Firms, But Will They Sell?” From the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. law firms want cash, and private equity wants to buy U.S. law firms. But bringing the two industries together is harder than it looks, dealmakers say.” Read more here.
#7 “Fla. Bar Must Conduct Bondi Ethics Probe, State Justices Told.” From Law360: “An attorney has doubled down on his attempt to force the Florida Bar into investigating U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for alleged unethical conduct, arguing to the state Supreme Court that the bar has a clear legal duty to do so. In a lengthy Thursday filing, John May responded to the bar as well as the federal government and the state of Florida, both of which supported the decision not to investigate Bondi. May and other petitioners argued that the bar provided no valid argument as to why it is not required to conduct an investigation into a sworn complaint against an attorney.” Read more here.
#8 “AI Drives Arizona’s First-in-Nation Judicial Tech Competence Rule.” From JD Supra: “The Arizona Supreme Court has added the ethical obligation of technology competence to the state’s judicial ethics code. The court’s decision to explicitly insert a technology competence requirement into its rules for judges is a first in the nation. Effective Jan. 1, 2026, Rule 2.5 of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct will have a new Comment 1, which reads: “Competence in the performance of judicial duties requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary to perform a judge’s responsibilities of judicial office, including the use of, and knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with, technology relevant to service as a judicial officer.” The Arizona high court’s action appears to be the first state to explicitly write a duty of technology competence into its judicial ethics code. Judicial ethics opinions in Michigan (Ethics Op. JL-155, Oct. 27, 2023) and West Virginia (Ethics Op. 2023-22, Oct. 13, 2023) have previously found a duty of technology competence implied in a judicial officer’s general duty of competency, however.” Read more here.
#9 “Trial Separation: Courtroom Lawyers Are Breaking Up With Big Law.” From the Wall Street Journal: “Law firms are increasingly divided into two factions: lawyers who go to court and those who don’t. Rainmaking corporate lawyers who paper up boardroom deals have amassed significant power at global law firms. Meanwhile, litigators, whose contribution to the firms’ bottom line is modest by comparison, have been sidelined and frustrated in their efforts to take on controversial clients, especially in the Trump era. Big-name trial lawyers are voting with their feet by leaving major law firms and going to boutique outfits dedicated to litigation.” Read more here (gift link).
#10 “Law Firms With Trump Deals Probed by Democrats on Commerce Work.” From Bloomberg Law: “Democrats in Congress want more information on three major law firms’ possible work for the Commerce Department after making deals with the White House to evade executive orders. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday sent letters to Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis, and Skadden, requesting information about their lawyers’ work for the department. The firms are among a group of nine that pledged nearly $1 billion in free legal services on causes shared with President Donald Trump’s administration in a series of agreements beginning in March.” Read more here.
#11 “Lawyers Accused of AI Misuse in FIFA Case Fined $24,400.” From Reuters: “A federal judge in Puerto Rico has sanctioned two plaintiffs’ lawyers over error-filled court filings in a lawsuit involving professional soccer, awarding more than $24,400 in legal fees to Paul Weiss, Sidley Austin and other law firms that accused the lawyers of misusing artificial intelligence in the case. Chief U.S. District Judge Raúl Arias-Marxuach said in a Tuesday order, that the fees were justified based on court filings that included at least 55 defective citations to cases.” Read more here.
#12 “Supreme Court of Texas Likely to Remove ABA as ‘Final Say’ on Accreditation.” From Josh Blackman (South Texas) in The Volokh Conspiracy: “On September 26, 2025, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a momentous order. The Justices likely signaled that the ABA will no longer have the ‘final say’ on accreditation.” Read more here.
#13 “On LawNext: Justice Workers — Reimagining Access to Justice as Democracy Work, with Rebecca Sandefur and Matthew Burnett.” From LawSites : “With as many as 120 million legal problems going unresolved in America each year, traditional lawyer-centered approaches to access to justice have consistently failed to meet the scale of need. But what if the solution is not just about providing more legal services — what if it lies in fundamentally rethinking who can provide legal help? In today’s episode, host Bob Ambrogi is joined by two of the nation’s leading researchers on access to justice: Rebecca Sandefur, professor and director of the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University and a faculty fellow at the American Bar Foundation, and Matthew Burnett, director of research and programs for the Access to Justice Research Initiative at the American Bar Foundation and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. They argue that the access to justice crisis is actually a crisis of democracy. As cofounders of Frontline Justice, they have been pioneering research on ‘justice workers’ — community members trained to help their neighbors navigate legal issues.” Read more and listen here.
#14 “How Should a DOJ Political Appointee Think About a Trump-Weaponized DOJ?” From Jack Goldsmith (Harvard) in Executive Functions: “The Justice Department is filled with dozens of Trump political appointees—Senate-confirmed senior officials, non-confirmed deputies and special assistants, and others. I am trying to imagine how these officials are processing recent events at the Department—and how they justify to themselves continued service there.” Read more here.
#15 “‘I’m a Tough Cookie.’ Alina Habba, Trump’s Favorite Lawyer, Explains Herself.’” From Vanity Fair: “And there is no better advocate for Habba than Habba herself. She is funny, profane, nimble, and fierce. She responds to attacks about her being unqualified for the job by detailing her years of running successful law firms and of representing Trump as ample preparation for the role of US attorney.” Read more here. (You might recall from LER No. 40 that Habba was among the lawyers indicted for their work involving Trump in 2024.)
Get Hired
Did you miss the 350+ job postings from previous weeks? Find them all here.
Upcoming Ethics Events & Other Announcements
Did you miss an announcement from previous weeks? Find them all here.
Keep in Touch
- News tips? Announcements? Events? A job to post? Reading recommendations? Email legalethics@substack.com – but be sure to subscribe first, otherwise the email won’t be delivered.
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: AZ Adds Tech Duty For Judges, TX Drops ABA, Sanctions for Protecting Immigration Client, $24,400 Fine For AI Misuse, Ethics Of A Weaponized DOJ, Barrett On Recusals & More appeared first on Above the Law.
Happy Monday!
I stayed up way too late this weekend making history with 112,000+ other people at the largest ticketed concert ever held in the U.S. – Zach Bryan at the Big House. I was visiting my son who is a junior at the University of Michigan, and I have to say it was pretty special to be belting out lyrics with my husband and children at the top of our lungs amidst thousands of fans under the pink skies of a Michigan sunset, which I’ve hopefully taught ‘em to enjoy.
This week you can join me LIVE at an event featuring my book Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court hosted by the Dallas Allied Bars Equality Committee and the Dallas Women Lawyers Association on Tuesday from noon-1PM central. Learn more and register here. Other speakers include Judge Rebecca Rutherford, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and Professor Cheryl Wattley (UNT Dallas).
I’m also happy to share a recent review of Shortlisted. Even though the book was first published in 2020 with a paperback update in 2022, the themes seem to resonate now more than ever. Here’s an excerpt from the review:
One of the book’s standout features is its meticulous research that supports the authors’ arguments. The writing style strikes a remarkable balance between academic rigor and accessibility. Even as someone not deeply entrenched in the intricacies of the American judicial system, I found the explanations clear enough to engage me deeply. The first half unveils a narrative steeped in history, examining how female presence was regarded as both revolutionary and contentious—especially in a time when presidents would endorse women’s suffrage yet remain hesitant to genuinely support women in positions of power.
Notably, the authors don’t shy away from the complexities that arise after women are appointed. The challenges they present—such as balancing familial expectations and professional responsibilities—are all too relatable. I found myself reflecting on the broader implications not only in the court but in workplaces everywhere, as women juggle identities that society often complicates for them.
Read the full review here. And my co-author Dean Hannah Brenner Johnson (Southern Illinois) and I are always happy to speak about the book. We’ve given talks to a wide range of audiences. Please reach out to either (or both!) of us if you have an engagement in mind.
Now for your headlines. I can’t blame the slow start to my Monday only on my late night concert over the weekend. I am definitely still recovering from the onslaught of legal ethics news from the past week. We of course have more than ten headlines…so let’s turn now to the top fifteen. You might want to grab a cup of coffee for this read. ☕️
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Fifteen Headlines
#1 “If the Trump administration can do this, then no American is safe from political prosecution.” A letter to Congress from Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Virginia Canter: “We write as former ethics counsels for Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton. We urgently request an investigation into possible prosecutorial abuses and ethics violations by Lindsey Halligan, the newly-appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in connection with her having improperly brought charges against former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. … In the United States, a president should never order prosecutions of his enemies.” Read the full letter here and an op-ed from the authors published on MSNBC here.
#2 “‘At Professional Risk’: Charging Comey Could Land Lindsey Halligan in Hot Water.” From Vanity Fair: “An ethics professor from Halligan’s law school warns that if she pursues charges against the former FBI director without probable cause, she could be disciplined by the Florida bar.” Read more here.
#3 “Newman Makes Full-Court Press in Appeals Challenge of Suspension.” From Bloomberg Law: “Judge Pauline Newman, the country’s oldest active federal judge, asked the full D.C. Circuit to reconsider her constitutional challenge to the law her colleagues used to suspend her from hearing new cases. The full appellate court should heed a three-judge panel’s implicit invitation’ to take the case en banc and revisit a precedent preventing the court from considering Newman’s arguments on the merits, she argued in a petition filed Sept. 19 at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The panel in August upheld a D.C.-based district court’s dismissal of Newman’s lawsuit seeking reinstatement.” Read more here.
#4 “Amy Coney Barrett Explains Why She Won’t Explain Her Recusals.” From Politico: “Justice Amy Coney Barrett indicated Thursday that one reason she chooses not to explain why she recuses herself from cases for ethics reasons is because her friends or family could face unwanted public attention, threats or worse. The comments from Barrett are a rare sign that a recent surge in threats against judges and their families are affecting how members of the Supreme Court carry out their official duties. During a stop in Washington to promote her new book, Barrett was asked why some justices explain their decisions to recuse from cases, while others don’t.” Read more here.
#5 “I Sought to Protect an Immigrant Legal Client. Instead, I’m Facing Trump’s New Sanctions.” From The Guardian: “Facing the specter of conditions in El Salvador’s Cecot facility and the plight of other immigrants having been removed without notice, I had previously secured a class action against removals for my own district around Los Angeles, and I wanted to extend such protection to this client. I knew President Trump had issued a proclamation attempting to justify removals after the fact, but I used my best judgment and skills to ask the court to enforce the actual law as written. The government nevertheless proceeded to take my client out of the United States. So I was taken aback when the government asked the judge to punish me for my efforts via a motion for sanctions – which is a novel strategy by the administration to go after immigration attorneys personally by attempting to ruin their record or fine them. I was now a target.” Read more here.
#6 “Private Equity Circles Law Firms, But Will They Sell?” From the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. law firms want cash, and private equity wants to buy U.S. law firms. But bringing the two industries together is harder than it looks, dealmakers say.” Read more here.
#7 “Fla. Bar Must Conduct Bondi Ethics Probe, State Justices Told.” From Law360: “An attorney has doubled down on his attempt to force the Florida Bar into investigating U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for alleged unethical conduct, arguing to the state Supreme Court that the bar has a clear legal duty to do so. In a lengthy Thursday filing, John May responded to the bar as well as the federal government and the state of Florida, both of which supported the decision not to investigate Bondi. May and other petitioners argued that the bar provided no valid argument as to why it is not required to conduct an investigation into a sworn complaint against an attorney.” Read more here.
#8 “AI Drives Arizona’s First-in-Nation Judicial Tech Competence Rule.” From JD Supra: “The Arizona Supreme Court has added the ethical obligation of technology competence to the state’s judicial ethics code. The court’s decision to explicitly insert a technology competence requirement into its rules for judges is a first in the nation. Effective Jan. 1, 2026, Rule 2.5 of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct will have a new Comment 1, which reads: “Competence in the performance of judicial duties requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation reasonably necessary to perform a judge’s responsibilities of judicial office, including the use of, and knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with, technology relevant to service as a judicial officer.” The Arizona high court’s action appears to be the first state to explicitly write a duty of technology competence into its judicial ethics code. Judicial ethics opinions in Michigan (Ethics Op. JL-155, Oct. 27, 2023) and West Virginia (Ethics Op. 2023-22, Oct. 13, 2023) have previously found a duty of technology competence implied in a judicial officer’s general duty of competency, however.” Read more here.
#9 “Trial Separation: Courtroom Lawyers Are Breaking Up With Big Law.” From the Wall Street Journal: “Law firms are increasingly divided into two factions: lawyers who go to court and those who don’t. Rainmaking corporate lawyers who paper up boardroom deals have amassed significant power at global law firms. Meanwhile, litigators, whose contribution to the firms’ bottom line is modest by comparison, have been sidelined and frustrated in their efforts to take on controversial clients, especially in the Trump era. Big-name trial lawyers are voting with their feet by leaving major law firms and going to boutique outfits dedicated to litigation.” Read more here (gift link).
#10 “Law Firms With Trump Deals Probed by Democrats on Commerce Work.” From Bloomberg Law: “Democrats in Congress want more information on three major law firms’ possible work for the Commerce Department after making deals with the White House to evade executive orders. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday sent letters to Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis, and Skadden, requesting information about their lawyers’ work for the department. The firms are among a group of nine that pledged nearly $1 billion in free legal services on causes shared with President Donald Trump’s administration in a series of agreements beginning in March.” Read more here.
#11 “Lawyers Accused of AI Misuse in FIFA Case Fined $24,400.” From Reuters: “A federal judge in Puerto Rico has sanctioned two plaintiffs’ lawyers over error-filled court filings in a lawsuit involving professional soccer, awarding more than $24,400 in legal fees to Paul Weiss, Sidley Austin and other law firms that accused the lawyers of misusing artificial intelligence in the case. Chief U.S. District Judge Raúl Arias-Marxuach said in a Tuesday order, that the fees were justified based on court filings that included at least 55 defective citations to cases.” Read more here.
#12 “Supreme Court of Texas Likely to Remove ABA as ‘Final Say’ on Accreditation.” From Josh Blackman (South Texas) in The Volokh Conspiracy: “On September 26, 2025, the Supreme Court of Texas issued a momentous order. The Justices likely signaled that the ABA will no longer have the ‘final say’ on accreditation.” Read more here.
#13 “On LawNext: Justice Workers — Reimagining Access to Justice as Democracy Work, with Rebecca Sandefur and Matthew Burnett.” From LawSites : “With as many as 120 million legal problems going unresolved in America each year, traditional lawyer-centered approaches to access to justice have consistently failed to meet the scale of need. But what if the solution is not just about providing more legal services — what if it lies in fundamentally rethinking who can provide legal help? In today’s episode, host Bob Ambrogi is joined by two of the nation’s leading researchers on access to justice: Rebecca Sandefur, professor and director of the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University and a faculty fellow at the American Bar Foundation, and Matthew Burnett, director of research and programs for the Access to Justice Research Initiative at the American Bar Foundation and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. They argue that the access to justice crisis is actually a crisis of democracy. As cofounders of Frontline Justice, they have been pioneering research on ‘justice workers’ — community members trained to help their neighbors navigate legal issues.” Read more and listen here.
#14 “How Should a DOJ Political Appointee Think About a Trump-Weaponized DOJ?” From Jack Goldsmith (Harvard) in Executive Functions: “The Justice Department is filled with dozens of Trump political appointees—Senate-confirmed senior officials, non-confirmed deputies and special assistants, and others. I am trying to imagine how these officials are processing recent events at the Department—and how they justify to themselves continued service there.” Read more here.
#15 “‘I’m a Tough Cookie.’ Alina Habba, Trump’s Favorite Lawyer, Explains Herself.’” From Vanity Fair: “And there is no better advocate for Habba than Habba herself. She is funny, profane, nimble, and fierce. She responds to attacks about her being unqualified for the job by detailing her years of running successful law firms and of representing Trump as ample preparation for the role of US attorney.” Read more here. (You might recall from LER No. 40 that Habba was among the lawyers indicted for their work involving Trump in 2024.)
Get Hired
Did you miss the 350+ job postings from previous weeks? Find them all here.
Upcoming Ethics Events & Other Announcements
Did you miss an announcement from previous weeks? Find them all here.
Keep in Touch
- News tips? Announcements? Events? A job to post? Reading recommendations? Email legalethics@substack.com – but be sure to subscribe first, otherwise the email won’t be delivered.
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: AZ Adds Tech Duty For Judges, TX Drops ABA, Sanctions for Protecting Immigration Client, $24,400 Fine For AI Misuse, Ethics Of A Weaponized DOJ, Barrett On Recusals & More appeared first on Above the Law.
