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
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.”
Why it matters: The ongoing threats against federal judges highlight a troubling trend in the erosion of legal ethics in the U.S. Such threats not only undermine the integrity of the judiciary but also set a dangerous precedent for how legal professionals are treated in a politically charged environment.
What to watch:
- Increased discussions around the need for legal protections for judges.
- Potential legislative responses to address the rise in threats against the judiciary.
- Ongoing public discourse about the role of ethics in government and politics.
Source credibility: Above the Law is a reliable outlet with a focus on legal news and analysis, providing insightful commentary on current issues within the legal profession.
Published: March 23, 2026 2:48 PM
Source: Above the Law — https://go.noligarchy.us/b2cv0m