LER No. 56 - Fed Judge Impeachment, Lit Funding Increase, Kagan on SCOTUS Ethics, Nonlawyer Investment in WA, Legal Ed Debt + Minority Enrollment News, AI Ethics & More (09.16.24)
The Legal Ethics Roundup - your Monday morning tour of all things related to lawyer and judicial ethics with University of Houston law professor Renee Knake Jefferson
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Highlights from Last Week - Top Ten Headlines
#1 Federal Judge May Be Impeached Over Sexual Misconduct. From the Washington Post: “Federal judiciary leaders have asked Congress to consider impeaching a federal judge in Alaska who resigned this summer after an investigation found he created a hostile work environment in his chambers and engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a former law clerk, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) confirmed Thursday. U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Kindred, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, gave up his lifetime appointment in July. The report about his conduct detailed two separate sexual encounters in October 2022 between Kindred and the former law clerk shortly after she began working as a federal prosecutor. It says they exchanged nearly 300 pages of text messages over an 11-month period.” Read more here (gift link).
#2 Kagan Doubles Down on Enforcement of SCOTUS Ethics. From CNN: “Justice Elena Kagan pushed back on Monday against critics of an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, telling an audience in New York that it would help ensure confidence in an institution that polls show has lost the trust of many Americans. ‘It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that we comply with our own code of conduct going forward in the future,’ the liberal justice said an event at the New York University School of Law. ‘It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that people have confidence that we’re doing exactly that. So it seems like a salutary thing for the court.’ Kagan embraced the general idea of an enforceable ethics code in July at a judicial conference in California, noting that she supported the new code of conduct the court announced months earlier but added it would be more effective if it didn’t leave enforcement up to the individual justices.” Read more here.
#3 Law School Minority Enrollment. From Reuters: “Early data from a handful of top U.S. law schools shows the percentage of nonwhite students enrolling this year has remained mostly unchanged following the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring colleges and universities from considering race in admissions. Six of the top 20 U.S. law schools—as ranked by U.S. News & World Report—have disclosed some racial diversity data on their websites or provided it directly to Reuters as of Sept. 5. Of those, five reported that the percentage of first-year students of color this fall increased or remained steady this year. One said that figure declined.” Read more here.
#4 Educational Debt and Well-Being for Young Lawyers. From the ABA Journal: “High student debt is affecting the emotional well-being of young lawyers and affecting their life decisions, according to a 2024 survey by the ABA Young Lawyers Division released Monday. It is also causing a sizable number of young lawyers to reassess their educational choices. Seventy-six percent of young lawyers with no loans said their law school education was worth the cost, compared to only 34% of those with student debt greater than $250,000. Seventy-eight percent of young lawyers with no loans would attend the same law school if they could do it all over again, compared to 28% of those with loans greater than $250,000.” Read more here.
#5 Increased Use of Litigation Funding. From the Bloomberg News: “Mayer Brown defense partner Michael E. Lackey said litigation finance ‘was just anathema’ to him about a decade ago. ‘Anything that makes it easier for people to sue my clients is something I don’t want,’ Lackey said in an interview. Now, ‘virtually every large law firm that does litigation probably has a funded case somewhere’—including his. The biggest US law firms have grown comfortable with the practice of using investments from third parties to pay the cost of lawsuits. In return, the investors get a piece of any successful court awards or settlements and benefit from returns uncorrelated to equity markets.” Read more here.
#6 Texas AG Warns About Consequences of Ethics Charges. From Law360: “The Texas attorney general’s office told the Texas Supreme Court Thursday that the State Bar of Texas had ‘transgressed the Constitution’ by filing an ethics charge against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s first assistant, warning that allowing him to face action would put every attorney who files civil suits in danger.” Read more here.
#7 Nonlawyer Investment in Washington State. From the ABA Journal: “Nonlawyer-owned entities would be allowed to deliver legal services in Washington under a pilot program proposed by the Washington State Bar Association and a board created by the Washington Supreme Court. If the Washington Supreme Court gives its approval, nonlawyer entities with innovative business models could apply to offer legal services temporarily under an exemption to rules banning the unlicensed practice of law, according to a summary on the Washington State Bar Association’s website.” Read more here.
#8 Alito Files Annual Financial Disclosures After Extension. From the Associated Press: “Justice Samuel Alito reported [last] Friday that he accepted $900 worth of concert tickets from a German princess, but disclosed no trips paid for by other people, according to a new financial disclosure form. The required annual filing, for which Alito has often sought an extension, doesn’t include details of the event tickets gifted by socialite Gloria von Thurn und Taxis of Germany. Alito didn’t report any outside income from teaching or book contracts. The financial disclosures filed by Supreme Court justices come against the backdrop of a heightened focus on ethics at the high court amid criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices. The other eight justices filed their forms in June; Alito received an extension.” Read more here.
#9 Judge Removed for Racist and Homophobic Statements. From Newsweek: “A Michigan judge was recently removed from her docket after she was allegedly recorded by a court official making insulting statements about gay and Black people. Oakland County Probate Judge Kathleen Ryan is temporarily barred from handling cases following a scandal that court administrator Edward Hutton brought to light. Chief Probate Judge Linda Hallmark removed Ryan from her docket on August 27, saying that ‘a complaint regarding internal allegations of unprofessional conduct’ was sent to the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, a judiciary watchdog group. Hutton, who said he's been harassed by Ryan for years, secretly recorded the judge insulting marginalized people and shared those recordings with Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Oakland County Executive David Coulter, other public officials and local news outlet WXYZ.” Read more here.
#10 AI and Legal Ethics. From the Legal Services Corporation: “Dean Andrew Perlman of Suffolk Law School joins host Cat Moon for a discussion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and legal ethics on the latest episode of LSC’s ‘Talk Justice’ podcast. …Perlman authored an article in February of this year, “The Legal Ethics of Generative AI,” which describes how lawyers can use generative AI while satisfying their ethical obligations. ‘I think when there's a new technology that comes out or some new development in the law related to lawyers, there's an instinct to think that we need some new rule [or] we need a new regulatory approach,’ Perlman says. However, Perlman believes that the existing rules have held up well to new technologies.” Read more and listen to the podcast here.
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