Ethics

Disgruntled lawyers may grumble about a judge in private. Really disgruntled lawyers might even post disparaging Facebook comments on the judge's personal Facebook page. Only super-mega-disgruntled lawyers, though, file First Amendment lawsuits against judges who block them from posting disparaging Facebook comments on the judge's personal Facebook page. And that last kind loses. Texas judge who blocked a lawyer from his Facebook page and deleted the lawyer’s negative comments sued judge for First Amendment. Fifth Circuit (unpublished): No violation.

The State Bar of Michigan recommended that judges rarely dig into a lawyer's reasons for withdrawal from a case and that lawyers concerned about mental incapacity of a client should ask the client to submit to an evaluation, in the bar's first pair of ethics opinions of the year (view full article).

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to examine the constitutionality of a criminal contempt conviction for disbarred human rights lawyer Steven Donziger that was obtained by court-appointed prosecutors, prompting a dissent from Justice Neil Gorsuch, who decried the broken "constitutional promise" of having separation between judges and prosecutors (view full order).  

In his 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. focused on the new technology while steering clear of Supreme Court ethics.

After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended elected state attorney Andrew Warren in August 2022 because he vowed not to enforce abortion restrictions and replaced him with a political ally, Warren sued, alleging First Amendment retaliation. District court: Some of the factors that motivated DeSantis to suspend Warren definitely involved the prosecutors’ First Amendment rights but DeSantis would have canned Warren regardless. Eleventh Circuit: Sigh.

North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls has dropped her First Amendment lawsuit because the judicial panel scrutinizing her public comments about the courts, colleagues and race has dismissed a complaint against her (view full article).

Congress has passed another stopgap funding bill to fund the government through early March (view full article).

With some federal agencies, including those that oversee agriculture, transportation and veterans' services, set to run out of funding Friday night at midnight and a winter storm toward the nation's capitol, lawmakers were under pressure to finish their work and leave town.

Judge Charles Wilson of the U.S Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit will take senior status upon confirmation of his successor, but no earlier than Dec. 31 (view full article).

Judge Wilson, nominated by President Bill Clinton, has been on the Atlanta-based court since 1999. Prior to that, he was a U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida and magistrate judge for the district.

Civil rights lawyer Nancy Abudu has been confirmed to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, where she will be the first Black woman to sit on the Atlanta-based court (view Senate press release).

The Second Circuit referred a New York attorney for punishment Tuesday for submitting a brief citing a fake case generated by ChatGPT and not checking over the brief to catch the mistake (view full article)

The lawyer was referred to the Second Circuit's grievance panel.