Our ATL Madness bracket — the annual March tradition where we ask readers to vote to decide a pressing legal question that no one else will ask — has reached the Final Four. This year’s question: which Trump administration lawyer most deserves bar discipline? Sixteen lawyers entered. The field is now down to four.
And while the winner of this bracket does not receive an automatic referral to state disciplinary authorities — though they probably should — the real purpose of this exercise is to remind everyone that local licensing authorities are the last line of defense to unethical behavior. At least for now… because the Department of Justice is trying to ramrod a new rule that seizes control over all ethical questions involving a past or present government lawyer. That’s the smoking gun admission that they know they’ve set fire to their professional responsibilities.
Voting on this round will be open until Friday at noon.
Anyway, let’s see what happened on the left side of our bracket:
Probably not a surprise, but the nation’s top lawyer is also the one that readers feel most deserves to face ethical consequences for… all this. Carr did put up a fight though! And almost immediately after he bragged that under his leadership, “PBS defunded, NPR defunded,” a federal judge orders funding restored based on the cuts amounting to a censorship — a conclusion that could’ve been hard to reach if Carr wasn’t stupid enough to brag about it in public. Alas, Pam Bondi moves forward in ignominy. And the Dow is no longer over 50,000 for her to use as a distraction.
When I checked in to call the results, the margin was… 1 vote. A single vote decided this pairing, and by virtue of that person’s decision… Alina Habba will advance to the Final Four. She did have a deeper lifetime resume when it came to stepping on professional rakes for Trump. But Halligan had really done a speed run over the last several months.
That sets up this epic battle: (1) Pam Bondi v. (2) Alina Habba. VOTE HERE.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket:
Todd Blanche went to CPAC to gloat that the Trump administration purged anyone who had any involvement with investigating Trump’s crimes. Former FBI agents said, “thank you” and promptly filed a lawsuit claiming they were illegally fired. The problem with an administration based on performative antics is that they can’t keep their mouths shut even when their buffoonery all but guarantees they’ll lose in court. We give Bondi a lot of flak for her “Dow is over 50,000” hearing, but when it comes to grabbing a microphone and making an embarrassment of himself and the profession, Todd is hard to top. Even Jeanine Pirro, who made her living as a dancing monkey on cable news, could barely make a dent against Todd.
I’m not so sure about this one. Emil Bove intervened personally to kill the Eric Adams investigation, prompting the SDNY USAO leadership and essentially all of the public corruption staff at Justice to quit in protest. He reportedly told Justice Department officials to tell judges “f**k you” if they issued court orders blocking facially illegal administration policies. And then his reward was a lifetime appointment to the Third Circuit. Mizelle’s role in the Make Justice Clowns Again movement, while significant, sort of pales in comparison. But the people have spoken.
And so we’re set with: (1) Todd Blanche v. (2) Chad Mizelle. VOTE HERE.
Voting for the Final Four will be open through Friday at noon. At that point, we’ll post the championship round and have you all vote on that over the weekend.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.