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.
This week is all about books for me.
On Wednesday, you can join me from 6-7:30PM eastern for an event hosted by Hofstra Law’s Monroe H. Freedman Center for the Study of Legal Ethics and Fordham Law’s Stein Center for Law and Ethics where I will be discussing the new book from Ray Brescia (Albany) — Lawyer 3.0: A Guide to Next-Wave Lawyering — along with Bruce Green (Fordham), Cat Moon (Vanderbilt), and Sateesh Nori (NYU). It’s free! Learn more and register here.
You can also find me this week over at PrawfsBlawg, where I’ll be contributing to an online symposium about a new book by Elizabeth Burch (Georgia), The Pain Brokers: How Con Men, Call Centers, and Rogue Doctors Fuel America’s Law Suit Factory. Other contributors include Brooke Coleman (Seattle), Seth Endo (Seattle), Miriam Giles (Northwestern), Tony Sebok (Cardozo), Howard Wasserman (FIU), and Brad Wendel (Cornell). Visit PrawfsBlawg to follow along. (And revisit the Recommended Reading section in LER No. 113 for a preview of the book.)
Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Headlines 📰
#1 “The Perilous War Over Legal Ethics in Government and Politics.” From Bob Bauer in Executive Functions: “The Trump administration is waging a war against the legal profession on a number of fronts. … How these actions may affect the profession will depend on how far the administration is willing to take this fight, but also on how the conflict is understood and how the defense against the administration is conducted.” Read more here.
#2 “US Judges Speak Out Against Threats, Mysterious Pizza Deliveries.” From Reuters: “A group of federal judges on Thursday publicly denounced a rise in threats against them and their colleagues, including hateful messages aimed at a judge who ruled against part of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda. Five judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents during a virtual event recounted receiving disturbing emails wishing them dead and mysterious pizza deliveries to their private homes as reasons why they could not remain silent.” Read more here.
#3 “John Roberts Is Hanging District Court Judges Out to Dry.” From Balls and Strikes: “Chief Justice John Roberts received applause from an audience at Rice University on Tuesday in appreciation of his defense of the judiciary from inappropriate attacks. Roberts appeared in conversation with Lee Rosenthal, a senior federal district judge, who asked the chief how he handles criticism of the Supreme Court. Roberts responded by acknowledging that ‘judges around the country work very hard to get it right,’ and that constructive criticism is ‘healthy’ and ‘important.’ But he stressed that ‘personally directed hostility is dangerous,’ and has ‘got to stop.’ … [But in] September 2025, a dozen sitting federal judges spoke to NBC News about how the Court’s use of the shadow docket was putting them in harm’s way.” Read more here.
#4 “The Legal Profession Cannot Litigate Its Way Out of Technological Change.” From the ABA Journal: “The recent lawsuit accusing OpenAI of the unlicensed practice of law has triggered a familiar reflex within the profession: fear that technology is encroaching on protected ground. The complaint centers on a disability benefits claimant who had reached a settlement with her insurer and then, relying on ChatGPT, fired her attorney and generated new filings seeking to reopen the case. The insurer now argues that OpenAI ‘aided and abetted’ her misuse of the judicial system. Whatever the merits of that claim, the reaction of many in the profession reveals something more consequential than the lawsuit itself.” Read more here.
#5 “Proposed California Lawyer Civility Oath Sparks Free Speech Concerns.” From the Marin County Visitor: “California lawyers in Marin County will soon take a civility pledge as part of their annual renewal oath. The State Bar of California says this move will promote dignity, courtesy, and integrity throughout the profession. … In Marin communities like San Rafael, Novato, Sausalito, and Mill Valley, attorneys are watching to see how the pledge might change courtroom conduct, client relations, and daily professional interactions. There’s a sense of curiosity mixed with a bit of skepticism.” Read more here.
#6 “Judicial Ethics Committee Issues Opinion on Judges Serving as TV Analysts.” From the Tennessee Bar Association: “The Judicial Ethics Committee released an ethics opinion on March 6 in response to a request for guidance on whether a part-time judge or a pro tempore part-time judge may function as a legal analyst providing ‘gavel to gavel’ coverage of pending cases for a local television news station. The committee found that such a role would not be allowed under the Rules of Judicial Conduct.” Read more here.
#7 “Federal Judge in D.C. Issues New Grand Jury Policy After Failed Indictments of Democrats.” From NBC News: “The chief federal judge for the District of Columbia has ordered that the judiciary be notified when a grand jury rejects the Trump administration’s attempts to indict defendants, following the failed effort to charge six sitting members of Congress over a social media video. Judge James Boasberg said the rule applies when the effort to indict comes first as a grand jury investigation. He said it would be in place for 120 days but could become permanent. Boasberg wrote the decision was ‘in furtherance of the interests of consistency and transparency.’” Read more here.
#8 “FTC Pitches California Supreme Court on Ways to Improve Its Ethics Committee.” From Fix the Court: “Today, Fix the Court submitted a comment to the California Supreme Court on a proposed rule that would formally establish a Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Ethics. The proposal, Rule 9.81 of the California Rules of Court, would codify the structure and procedures of a committee that has historically advised the court on amendments to the California Code of Judicial Ethics. While the committee has existed de facto for several years, it has never been governed by a formal rule. We are encouraged by the Court’s effort to formalize the committee’s role, but we are urging several changes designed to strengthen transparency and public confidence in the process.” Read more here.
#9 “AI, Privilege, and Work Product: Conflicting Federal Decisions Create a New Risk Frontier.” From JDSupra: “Two recent federal court decisions—issued one week apart—reach sharply divergent conclusions on whether materials generated using artificial intelligence platforms are protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.” Read more here.
#10 “Where Calif. State Courts Landed On Generative AI Use Rules.” From Law360: “The majority of California’s 58 superior courts — together making up the country’s largest trial court system — have decided to greenlight the use of generative artificial intelligence in their work this year, a Law360 investigation found.” 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: Judges As TV Analysts, New CA Lawyer Civility Oath, Pizza Deliveries And Death Threats To Judges, ‘Perilous War’ On Legal Ethics In Gov And Politics & More appeared first on Above the Law.
