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!
Last week I spoke at the New York State Permanent Commission on Access to Justice 2026 Annual Law School Conference with Matthew Diller (Fordham), Aziz Huq (Chicago), David Udell (National Center for Access to Justice) and Carolyn Coffey (Mobilization For Justice) where we discussed “Lawyering in Complex Times: Access to Justice and the Rule of Law as Foundations of Professional Identity.” Program materials and a recording of the full conference should be available soon at this link.
It was a busy week in the world of legal ethics, so you get fifteen headlines instead of the usual ten.
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Fifteen Headlines 📰
#1 “A.I. ‘Hallucinations’ Created Errors in Court Filing, Top Law Firm Says.” From The New York Times: “Sullivan & Cromwell apologized for submitting a court document that had fake citations created by artificial intelligence.” Read more here (gift link).
#2 “U.S. Law Schools Have Diverse Takes on DEI. The Body That Accredits Them Has None — Our Standards are Silent on the Subject.” From Daniel Theis (Accreditation Council) in The Wall Street Journal: “As chairman of the body that accredits law schools—the Council of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar—I’d like to clarify a few points relevant to your editorial ‘How the ABA Spreads DEI in Law Schools’ (April 17). The law school accreditation standards are silent on DEI, and have been since February 2025. As you note, the council suspended Standard 206 on diversity and inclusion at that time. Looking forward, the council—which has the final say on the content of the accreditation standards—has proposed a permanent repeal effective as soon as this August.” Read more here (gift link). [Full disclosure: I am an elected member of the Accreditation Council for the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar.]
#3 “The Inside Story of Five Days that Remade the Supreme Court.” From The New York Times: “Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine ‘shadow docket’ rulings on presidential power.” Read more here (gift link).
#4 “Court Leaks and Attorney-Journalists.” From Divided Argument: “The recent leak of internal Supreme Court memoranda to the New York Times, discussed earlier by Will Baude—as well as by Jonathan Adler, Josh Blackman, and Jack Goldsmith elsewhere—was plainly a serious violation of the Court’s confidentiality obligations. But it may also reflect serious legal-ethics violations by one of the Times article’s coauthors, Adam Liptak, whom I understand to be a licensed attorney in New York and subject to that state’s Rules of Professional Conduct.” Read more here.
#5 “What We Learned From a Secret Deposition of Ken Paxton.” From The Wall Street Journal: “Previously hidden document sheds new light on ethical questions surrounding the GOP Senate candidate and Texas attorney general.” Read more here (gift link).
#6 “The Hyperlink Rule.” From Oliver Roberts on LinkedIn: “The Hyperlink Rule could have prevented the AI hallucination incident in California, where a judge issued an order with fake citations last month. … Had the court required use of the Hyperlink Rule, meaning that cited authorities had to be hyperlinked to real sources (e.g., Lexis or Westlaw), there would have been an immediate three-part safeguard, and any one of those checkpoints likely would have flagged the problem before it resulted in wasted briefing and judicial time on appeal. First, if the drafting attorney had been required to hyperlink each cited source, counsel likely would have realized that the cited authorities did not correspond to real sources and therefore could not be linked. Second, opposing counsel could have simply clicked the hyperlinks in the proposed order to confirm that the authorities actually existed. Third, the judge could have done the same before signing the order. … The Hyperlink Rule should become commonplace in courts.” Read more here.
#7 “Civil Rights Groups Condemn Southern Poverty Law Center’s Indictment and Prepare for Legal Fights.” From The Washington Post: “The criminal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center this week was met with much outrage but little surprise from civil rights leaders, who have for more than a year prepared for heightened legal scrutiny from the Trump administration, and how to mount a coordinated response. In rounds of calls immediately following the indictment, advocates discussed how to support the SPLC, a Montgomery, Alabama-based civil rights group founded in 1971 that has tracked white supremacist groups and been outspoken on voting rights, immigration and policing. Organizers on one call agreed that winning in the court of public opinion would be crucial as judicial proceedings began, leading to dozens of public statements of support and planned rallies.” Read more here (gift link).
#8 “A Group of Residents is Banding Together to Defend Judges Facing Threats and Violence.” From National Public Radio: “Boston-area residents have formed a group to support federal judges facing hostile rhetoric and violent threats.” Read more and listen here.
#9 “The Eight-Figure Talent Race for Supreme Court Lawyers.” From The Wall Street Journal: “Firms are dangling large pay packages to lure stars who can elevate their stature.” Read more here (gift link).
#10 “Former Texas Chief Justice on the Importance of Court Transparency.” From The Brennan Center for Justice: “Wallace B. Jefferson joined the Supreme Court of Texas in 2001 and served as chief justice from 2004 until he left the court in 2013. As chief justice, he successfully lobbied to allow live video of high court oral arguments, which launched in 2007. In an interview, Jefferson addressed the importance of court transparency, including why the U.S. Supreme Court should allow cameras at oral arguments and Texas’s policy — which Jefferson noted is outside the norm for most high courts’ policies — of allowing state supreme court clerks to sit in on the justices’ conferences.” Read more here. [Full disclosure: Wallace is my wonderful husband.]
#11 “EEOC Chair Violated Attorney Ethics Code, Bar Complaint Says.” From Bloomberg Law: “EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas should be investigated for using her position to advance ‘personal and political objectives’ that violate her duties to enforce federal discrimination law, a legal accountability group told the Virginia State Bar. The Legal Accountability Center filed the bar complaint earlier this week citing a series of actions the commission has taken under Lucas’s leadership that includes halting investigations of charges dealing with transgender bias and charges based on solely on unintentional discrimination claims. It also cited letters to law firms signed by Lucas asking for information about their diversity initiatives.” Read more here.
#12 “California High Court Proposes Tougher Ethics Rules on False Statements by Attorneys.” From Law.com: “California’s Supreme Court justices on Thursday rejected proposed changes to ethics rules targeting attorneys who lie or spread misleading statements about judges, choosing instead to draft their own tougher language. … The state Supreme Court revised a proposed ethics rule to warn that lawyers who make false statements could be disciplined even if they ‘reasonably’ disagree with a judge’s ruling.” Read more here.
#13 “When Judges are Targeted, the Legal Profession Must Respond.” From ABA President Michelle Behnke in the Las Vegas Sun: “Judges in the United States are under a sustained, coordinated attack. Their photographs have been posted online by senior government officials. The president has disparaged them by name. Their rulings have been met not with appeals but with calls for impeachment and, in some cases, with outright defiance. This pressure on judges is personal, targeted and designed to undermine a justice system that should work for everyone. This is not a partisan concern. It is a structural one. Judicial independence is not a privilege of the judiciary — it is a safeguard for everyone who might one day need a court to stand between them and power.” Read more here.
#14 “Republican Ohio Supreme Court Makes Ohio First in Nation to Allow Political Endorsements From Judges.” From the Ohio Capital Journal: “You read that right. Ohio’s highest court issued an out-of-the blue ruling with profound implications for an even more partisan judiciary in the state. In a 5-1 Republican majority opinion, the justices made Ohio a complete outlier in the country by ending a decades-old ban on state judges and judicial candidates openly endorsing (or opposing) a candidate for another public office.” Read more here.
#15 “Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Hecht Addresses Judicial Independence at UH Law Sondock Lecture.” From the University of Houston Law Center: “Complaints about the judiciary aren’t new. Nathan L. Hecht, 27th chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, cited examples dating back to the era of Thomas Jefferson as he delivered the 2026 Justice Ruby Kless Sondock Jurist-in-Residence Lectureship in Legal Ethics at the University of Houston Law Center. But, Hecht warned, that doesn’t mean today’s criticism of judicial decisions – from the highest levels of government to the person caught up in an eviction case – aren’t a serious concern. He outlined several steps that judges, the legal system and society at large could take to ensure people believe the courts are impartial. … Sondock is a pioneering lawyer and jurist who graduated as valedictorian and one of just five women in the UH law school class of 1962. She became the first female state district court judge in Harris County when she was appointed to the bench in 1977 and was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 1982. Sondock was in the audience for this year’s lecture, which was held just a week before her 100th birthday.” Read more here. Happy 100th Birthday Justice Sondock!
Get Hired 💼
Did you miss the 500+ 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 📝
Do you have colleagues who care about legal ethics? Please share the Roundup with them. I’d love to see our community continue to grow!
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: Ethics Of Attorney-Journalists, The ‘Hyperlink Rule,’ OH Allows Judges’ Political Endorsements, SPLC Indictment & 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.
Happy Monday!
Last week I spoke at the New York State Permanent Commission on Access to Justice 2026 Annual Law School Conference with Matthew Diller (Fordham), Aziz Huq (Chicago), David Udell (National Center for Access to Justice) and Carolyn Coffey (Mobilization For Justice) where we discussed “Lawyering in Complex Times: Access to Justice and the Rule of Law as Foundations of Professional Identity.” Program materials and a recording of the full conference should be available soon at this link.
It was a busy week in the world of legal ethics, so you get fifteen headlines instead of the usual ten.
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Fifteen Headlines 📰
#1 “A.I. ‘Hallucinations’ Created Errors in Court Filing, Top Law Firm Says.” From The New York Times: “Sullivan & Cromwell apologized for submitting a court document that had fake citations created by artificial intelligence.” Read more here (gift link).
#2 “U.S. Law Schools Have Diverse Takes on DEI. The Body That Accredits Them Has None — Our Standards are Silent on the Subject.” From Daniel Theis (Accreditation Council) in The Wall Street Journal: “As chairman of the body that accredits law schools—the Council of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar—I’d like to clarify a few points relevant to your editorial ‘How the ABA Spreads DEI in Law Schools’ (April 17). The law school accreditation standards are silent on DEI, and have been since February 2025. As you note, the council suspended Standard 206 on diversity and inclusion at that time. Looking forward, the council—which has the final say on the content of the accreditation standards—has proposed a permanent repeal effective as soon as this August.” Read more here (gift link). [Full disclosure: I am an elected member of the Accreditation Council for the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar.]
#3 “The Inside Story of Five Days that Remade the Supreme Court.” From The New York Times: “Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine ‘shadow docket’ rulings on presidential power.” Read more here (gift link).
#4 “Court Leaks and Attorney-Journalists.” From Divided Argument: “The recent leak of internal Supreme Court memoranda to the New York Times, discussed earlier by Will Baude—as well as by Jonathan Adler, Josh Blackman, and Jack Goldsmith elsewhere—was plainly a serious violation of the Court’s confidentiality obligations. But it may also reflect serious legal-ethics violations by one of the Times article’s coauthors, Adam Liptak, whom I understand to be a licensed attorney in New York and subject to that state’s Rules of Professional Conduct.” Read more here.
#5 “What We Learned From a Secret Deposition of Ken Paxton.” From The Wall Street Journal: “Previously hidden document sheds new light on ethical questions surrounding the GOP Senate candidate and Texas attorney general.” Read more here (gift link).
#6 “The Hyperlink Rule.” From Oliver Roberts on LinkedIn: “The Hyperlink Rule could have prevented the AI hallucination incident in California, where a judge issued an order with fake citations last month. … Had the court required use of the Hyperlink Rule, meaning that cited authorities had to be hyperlinked to real sources (e.g., Lexis or Westlaw), there would have been an immediate three-part safeguard, and any one of those checkpoints likely would have flagged the problem before it resulted in wasted briefing and judicial time on appeal. First, if the drafting attorney had been required to hyperlink each cited source, counsel likely would have realized that the cited authorities did not correspond to real sources and therefore could not be linked. Second, opposing counsel could have simply clicked the hyperlinks in the proposed order to confirm that the authorities actually existed. Third, the judge could have done the same before signing the order. … The Hyperlink Rule should become commonplace in courts.” Read more here.
#7 “Civil Rights Groups Condemn Southern Poverty Law Center’s Indictment and Prepare for Legal Fights.” From The Washington Post: “The criminal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center this week was met with much outrage but little surprise from civil rights leaders, who have for more than a year prepared for heightened legal scrutiny from the Trump administration, and how to mount a coordinated response. In rounds of calls immediately following the indictment, advocates discussed how to support the SPLC, a Montgomery, Alabama-based civil rights group founded in 1971 that has tracked white supremacist groups and been outspoken on voting rights, immigration and policing. Organizers on one call agreed that winning in the court of public opinion would be crucial as judicial proceedings began, leading to dozens of public statements of support and planned rallies.” Read more here (gift link).
#8 “A Group of Residents is Banding Together to Defend Judges Facing Threats and Violence.” From National Public Radio: “Boston-area residents have formed a group to support federal judges facing hostile rhetoric and violent threats.” Read more and listen here.
#9 “The Eight-Figure Talent Race for Supreme Court Lawyers.” From The Wall Street Journal: “Firms are dangling large pay packages to lure stars who can elevate their stature.” Read more here (gift link).
#10 “Former Texas Chief Justice on the Importance of Court Transparency.” From The Brennan Center for Justice: “Wallace B. Jefferson joined the Supreme Court of Texas in 2001 and served as chief justice from 2004 until he left the court in 2013. As chief justice, he successfully lobbied to allow live video of high court oral arguments, which launched in 2007. In an interview, Jefferson addressed the importance of court transparency, including why the U.S. Supreme Court should allow cameras at oral arguments and Texas’s policy — which Jefferson noted is outside the norm for most high courts’ policies — of allowing state supreme court clerks to sit in on the justices’ conferences.” Read more here. [Full disclosure: Wallace is my wonderful husband.]
#11 “EEOC Chair Violated Attorney Ethics Code, Bar Complaint Says.” From Bloomberg Law: “EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas should be investigated for using her position to advance ‘personal and political objectives’ that violate her duties to enforce federal discrimination law, a legal accountability group told the Virginia State Bar. The Legal Accountability Center filed the bar complaint earlier this week citing a series of actions the commission has taken under Lucas’s leadership that includes halting investigations of charges dealing with transgender bias and charges based on solely on unintentional discrimination claims. It also cited letters to law firms signed by Lucas asking for information about their diversity initiatives.” Read more here.
#12 “California High Court Proposes Tougher Ethics Rules on False Statements by Attorneys.” From Law.com: “California’s Supreme Court justices on Thursday rejected proposed changes to ethics rules targeting attorneys who lie or spread misleading statements about judges, choosing instead to draft their own tougher language. … The state Supreme Court revised a proposed ethics rule to warn that lawyers who make false statements could be disciplined even if they ‘reasonably’ disagree with a judge’s ruling.” Read more here.
#13 “When Judges are Targeted, the Legal Profession Must Respond.” From ABA President Michelle Behnke in the Las Vegas Sun: “Judges in the United States are under a sustained, coordinated attack. Their photographs have been posted online by senior government officials. The president has disparaged them by name. Their rulings have been met not with appeals but with calls for impeachment and, in some cases, with outright defiance. This pressure on judges is personal, targeted and designed to undermine a justice system that should work for everyone. This is not a partisan concern. It is a structural one. Judicial independence is not a privilege of the judiciary — it is a safeguard for everyone who might one day need a court to stand between them and power.” Read more here.
#14 “Republican Ohio Supreme Court Makes Ohio First in Nation to Allow Political Endorsements From Judges.” From the Ohio Capital Journal: “You read that right. Ohio’s highest court issued an out-of-the blue ruling with profound implications for an even more partisan judiciary in the state. In a 5-1 Republican majority opinion, the justices made Ohio a complete outlier in the country by ending a decades-old ban on state judges and judicial candidates openly endorsing (or opposing) a candidate for another public office.” Read more here.
#15 “Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Hecht Addresses Judicial Independence at UH Law Sondock Lecture.” From the University of Houston Law Center: “Complaints about the judiciary aren’t new. Nathan L. Hecht, 27th chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, cited examples dating back to the era of Thomas Jefferson as he delivered the 2026 Justice Ruby Kless Sondock Jurist-in-Residence Lectureship in Legal Ethics at the University of Houston Law Center. But, Hecht warned, that doesn’t mean today’s criticism of judicial decisions – from the highest levels of government to the person caught up in an eviction case – aren’t a serious concern. He outlined several steps that judges, the legal system and society at large could take to ensure people believe the courts are impartial. … Sondock is a pioneering lawyer and jurist who graduated as valedictorian and one of just five women in the UH law school class of 1962. She became the first female state district court judge in Harris County when she was appointed to the bench in 1977 and was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 1982. Sondock was in the audience for this year’s lecture, which was held just a week before her 100th birthday.” Read more here. Happy 100th Birthday Justice Sondock!
Get Hired 💼
Did you miss the 500+ 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 📝
Do you have colleagues who care about legal ethics? Please share the Roundup with them. I’d love to see our community continue to grow!
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: Ethics Of Attorney-Journalists, The ‘Hyperlink Rule,’ OH Allows Judges’ Political Endorsements, SPLC Indictment & More appeared first on Above the Law.
