Yesterday, we unveiled the first two regions of our 2026 March Madness bracket: the Roy Cohn and Rudy Giuliani Regions. Those regions featured some spectacular individual performances in the art of iffy professional decisions. From Lindsey Halligan’s star turn as an insurance lawyer cosplaying as a federal prosecutor to Ed Martin’s decision to… well, do everything he’s done.
If you’ve just joined us and want to go back and vote in the earlier regions… head here and here.
Now we move on to unveil another pair of matchups. Voting is open until Monday at 7:59 p.m. Eastern.
THE JOHN EASTMAN REGION
John Eastman, former dean of Chapman University’s law school and former clerk to Justice Thomas, authored the legal theory that the Vice President gets to unilaterally decide what the electoral votes say. His work became the intellectual scaffolding for January 6th and the government lawyers in this region follow in his footsteps.
(1) Todd Blanche vs. (4) David Warrington
1. Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General of the United States (Brooklyn Law School)
Todd Blanche was a Cadwalader partner before giving it up to serve as Donald Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney. He is now the number two official at the Department of Justice, with oversight of matters that directly implicate his former client’s political interests. If you were trying to design a conflict of interest hypo for a law school exam, you’d be told to shelve this one and come up with something less ridiculous.
From ongoing immigration enforcement violations to personally keeping Epstein files under wraps, Blanche is at the center of it all. He’s asked lawyers to join a “war” against federal judges and threatened Trump’s hecklers with organized crime charges.
Whenever the government needs to have a lawyer say something loony and downright detrimental to the public perception of the profession, Blanche is there.
4. David Warrington, White House Counsel (ASS Law)
You’d think the White House Counsel would earn higher than a 4 seed. And yet the daily transgressions piling up from both DOJ HQ and the various U.S. Attorney’s offices are so glaring that the White House’s top lawyer fades into the woodwork. But he’s the one laying out the framework for pardoning the January 6 rioters and concocting the theory that court orders barring the government from deporting certain individuals don’t apply if the plane already took off.
The executive order threats to coerce Biglaw firms to cave to the administration would’ve come across his desk.
Also, it’s kind of amazing that this is our first ASS Law participant.
(2) Jeanine Pirro vs. (3) Kash Patel
2. Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (Albany Law School)
The Fox News personality became the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital after Senate Republicans made it clear that they would not support Ed Martin. Her old bosses at Fox privately called her a “reckless maniac,” which at the time seemed harsh and now seems prescient.
Since joining the administration, Pirro’s been collecting no bills like she can win a free sandwich. And sandwiches are a touchy subject down there. She attempted to convince a grand jury to indict six Democratic lawmakers for filming a video that accurately restated the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s provisions on refusing illegal orders. The grand jury declined. She tried to use the threat of prosecution to intimidate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell into lowering interest rates — or something. It flopped in court with Lawfare describing the evidentiary record as one of “vaporous, speculative malice.”
3. Kash Patel, FBI Director (Pace)
Technically, Patel isn’t practicing law in his current role, which may be the only thing standing between him and a bar complaint. But he has a law degree and publicly names people he wants investigated even though they aren’t facing any charges at the time.
Patel announces his intentions through podcasts, social media, and celebratory locker room appearances with hockey teams. He maintained a public “enemies list” before taking the job. He has co-opted the FBI’s messaging apparatus to broadcast political threats. The professional conduct rules in his licensing jurisdiction prohibit lawyers from engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, and from engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Whether running the FBI while maintaining a public hit list qualifies remains a question a bar authority might want to consider.
Remember voting is open until Monday at 7:59 p.m. Eastern!
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