Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Trump & Control Of Admin. Agencies: The Firing Of Mspb Member Cathy Harris, Jacob Burns Center For Ethics In The Practice Of Law, Jessica A. Roth, Cathy Harris, Nathaniel Zelinsky

2026 Event Invitations

Former Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) member Cathy Harris will join her attorney, Nathaniel Zelinsky, for a discussion of her lawsuit challenging President Trump’s removal of her from the MSPB. The case tests the limits of presidential control over independent administrative agencies.

The event will be moderated by Professor Jessica Roth.

Hallucinated Legal Presentations In Civil Trial Courts, Jeffrey Parness

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Increasingly, hallucinated legal presentations are being discovered and sanctioned in U.S. federal and state civil trial courts. Such presentations encompass papers that are signed, filed, submitted, or advocated, which contain nonexistent legal sources, whether case precedents, statutes, court rules, administrative regulations, or otherwise. These presentations may be discovered by judges, presenting lawyers, opposing lawyers, unrepresented parties, or witnesses.

Public Defender Discretion, Alma Magaña

Articles

A focus of criminal legal system reform efforts has been the curtailment of police, prosecutorial, and judicial discretion, which has been criticized for its arbitrariness and its contribution to racial, class, and gender disparities. However, one system actor has largely escaped similar scrutiny: public defenders, who, by grant of authority from ethical rules of practice and Supreme Court jurisprudence, have significant decision-making authority in the cases of indigent persons charged with crimes.

This Article will, for the first time, explore the historical rationale for giving public defenders the power to make life-altering decisions for their clients. Specifically, it dissects the …

A Conversation With Danielle Sassoon, Former Interim U.S. Attorney For The Southern District Of Ny, Jacob Burns Center For Ethics In The Practice Of Law, Criminal Law Society, Jessica A. Roth, Danielle Sassoon

2025–2026 Flyers

No abstract provided.

A Conversation With Danielle Sassoon, Jacob Burns Center For Ethics In The Practice Of Law, Cardozo Criminal Law Society, American Constitution Society (Acs), Danielle Sassoon, Jessica A. Roth

2025 Event Invitations

Danielle Sassoon is currently a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Prior to her appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney in January 2025 by President Trump, Ms. Sassoon served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York for over eight years. Among her notable cases as an Assistant U.S. Attorney were the prosecution of Lawrence Ray for racketeering conspiracy, extortion, forced labor, and sex trafficking, related to his abuse and exploitation of his daughter’s college roommates and others. She also investigated and prosecuted Samuel Bankman-Fried and others for the multi-billion-dollar fraud on customers of FTX.com. In …

Ai In Law Libraries: Discussing Ethical Considerations And A Way Forward, Joshua Levine

Library Staff Articles

This review examines the AALL 2025 program “AI in Law Libraries: Discussing Ethical Considerations and a Way Forward,” focusing on the ethical challenges artificial intelligence presents for law librarians and legal professionals. The author highlights discussions on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, responsible and transparent use of AI, risks such as hallucinations and bias, and broader concerns including environmental impact and the future of human labor. The review emphasizes that the program raised important questions rather than definitive solutions, underscoring the need for ongoing, profession-wide dialogue as AI continues to evolve.

Presentation Of The Jacob Burns Center Award For Professional Courage To: Liv Oyer, Jacob Burns Center For Ethics In The Practice Of Law, Jessica A. Roth, Liz Oyer

2025–2026 Flyers

Ms. Oyer will be joined in conversation with Professor Jessica Roth, Co-Director of the Jacob Burns Center for Ethics in the practice of Law.

August 2025 Annual Report, Perlmutter Center For Legal Justice At Cardozo Law

Perlmutter Center Reports

The August 2025 Annual Report documents the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice’s work at Cardozo Law during Spring and Summer 2025, highlighting major legal victories, partnerships, student clinical programs, policy advocacy, community outreach, and staff achievements. Prepared for The Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation, it details the Center’s efforts to address wrongful convictions, challenge flawed forensic science, expand pro bono collaborations, and advance criminal justice reform, while also providing staff updates, financial information, and program impact summaries.

Ethics Accountability: The Next Era For Lawyers And Judges, Renee Knake Jefferson

Cardozo Law Review

Five decades ago, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered remarks that sound like they were written in the early 2020s: [O]ur profession has recently suffered greatly because a score of lawyers has been convicted or indicted for felonious conduct in the performance of their official duties in the highest reaches of our national government. . . . Their alleged criminal offenses pertain to serious violations of our system of justice and to the performance of basic functions of government. The inner sanctum of the White House has been tarnished, and the end of the debacle is not …

The Good Lawyers Of January 6, W. Bradley Wendel

Cardozo Law Review

Much of the response by the community of legal ethics and professional responsibility scholars to the 2020 presidential election has been focused on the wrongs committed by lawyers like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro, who created the alternate elector scheme to throw the decision regarding the election to the House of Representatives. Yet there was a group of lawyers, that I will refer to as “the good lawyers of January 6,” who forcefully and unequivocally opposed this plan, refused to cooperate in its execution, advised Vice President Mike Pence that it was not legally supportable, and in some …

Taxing Litigation Finance, Young Ran (Christine) Kim

Articles

The emerging litigation finance industry has the capacity to expand access to justice but also raises important legal and ethical questions. Although much has been said about the industry’s potential to increase frivolous lawsuits and permit improper control over a claim by the funders, scholarly discussion on the proper tax treatment of the parties involved has fallen by the wayside. The problem arises in classifying litigation finance contracts as either a nonrecourse loan, immediate sale, or variable prepaid forward contract, all of which discretely impact the timing and character of income. Unfortunately, courts have traditionally found it difficult to draw …

Brief Of Amici Curiae 775 Law Professors In Support Of Plaintiff's Motion For Summary Judgment And Declaratory And Permanent Injunctive Relief, Wilfred U. Codrington Iii, Haiyun Damon-Feng, Rebecca Ingber, Rachel Landy, Jacob Noti-Victor, Alexander A. Reinert, Anthony J. Sebok

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief submitted by 775 law professors in support of Susman Godfrey LLP's motion for summary judgment and request for declaratory and permanent injunctive relief in Susman Godfrey LLP v. Executive Office of the President. The brief argues that Executive Order 14263 unlawfully targets a law firm based on its clients, advocacy, and litigation activities, in violation of the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, and Sixth Amendment. The amici contend that the order constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination, interferes with the right to counsel, and threatens the independence of the legal profession and the rule of law.

The First Of All Freedoms: Free Speech, Antisemitism, And Lessons For The Jewish Community From The Dreyfus Affair, Jacob Burns Center For Ethics In The Practice Of Law, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Joel Swansin

2025 Event Invitations

Join us for a thought-provoking talk with Professor Joel Swanson of Sarah Lawrence College as he explores the intense debates over free speech and its boundaries within the French Jewish community during the Dreyfus Affair. At this pivotal time, French Jews debated extensively the question of whether there should be limits on speech in the name of protecting the Jewish community. By examining these historical debates and their outcomes, Professor Swanson will highlight parallels with the current discussions surrounding American Jews, pointing to historical precedents for lessons about how to approach current controversies. This event

Brief Of Amici Curiae 676 Law Professors In Support Of Plaintiff’S Motion For Summary Judgment And For Declaratory And Permanent Injunctive Relief, Wilfred U. Codrington Iii, Rebecca Ingber, Rachel Landy, Jacob Noti-Victor, Alexander A. Reinert

Amicus Briefs

Amici 676 law professors submit this brief in support of Plaintiff Jenner & Block’s Motion for Summary Judgment and for Declaratory and Permanent Injunctive Relief (the “Motion”) to emphasize the threat that the President’s Executive Order (the “Order”) presents to the independence and integrity of the legal profession, the rights of clients to seek redress in the courts, and, by extension, the rule of law. As experts in constitutional law, legal ethics, and the history of the legal profession, among other fields, we have a significant interest in ensuring that the principles of free speech, freedom of association, the right …

Mapping State Reactions To The Icc Arrest Warrants For Netanyahu And Gallant, Rebecca Ingber

Online Publications

On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it had issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister, in connection with alleged crimes committed in the ongoing armed conflict between Israel and Hamas. In doing so, the Court rejected as premature Israel’s challenge to the Court’s jurisdiction. The Court’s decision to issue a warrant for the sitting Prime Minister of a state, which is notably not a party to the Rome Statute, also demonstrates the Court’s embrace of its prior controversial decision on immunity, namely that customary international law does …

P*Law 2025: Mentor Mocks - A Joint Production Of Sba And Ocs, Center For Public Service Law, Cardozo Student Bar Association, Cardozo Office Of Career Services, Katten Muchin Rosenman Llp

2024–2025 Flyers

Mentor Mocks, presented by SBA and OCS and sponsored by Katten, offered 1L students the chance to practice interview skills through mock interviews with upper-class students.

Subordinate Prosecutors’ Independence, Bruce A. Green, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

This essay is about subordinate prosecutors’ independence to do what they think constitutes “seeking justice” when they perceive that their boss, or their boss’s boss, wants them to do something that is unjust—not illegal, but unjust. Of course, if subordinate prosecutors want to do either what they are told to do or what they infer that a higher-up wants them to do, they can do so, as long as the conduct is legal. Subordinate prosecutors might choose to disregard their own professional judgment of what justice requires because they share their boss’s objectives, because they see conforming as a route …

Law, Conflict, And Hybrid Warfare: A Teaching Imperative For A Changing World, Cynthia Alkon, Andrea K. Schneider

Articles

Lawyers increasingly find themselves at the frontlines of the battlefield, just not in the traditional sense. Hybrid warfare is a conflict form that combines traditional military offensive measures with nontraditional methods, including the harnessing of legal systems to achieve strategic goals. Lawyers have always been at the frontline of typical legal risk assessment, thinking about a client's risk of liability or regulation costs generally. Now, lawyers must stand at the ready for a lot more: lawyers must be prepared for cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns using artificial intelligence, the use of court systems to suppress reporting or shield bad actors, and so …

Response: Diagonal Representation, Alma Magaña

Articles

A lot has been written about the crisis of indigent defense and the plethora of factors that have led to the crisis, like the lack of guidance on how indigent defense providers can most efficiently distribute their insufficient resources. This lack of guidance has left jurisdictions across the country to their own devices, resulting in a national landscape of very different models, each with its own variations of the same problems plaguing indigent defense.

Promise And Pitfalls Of Ai In Mass Arbitration, Amy J. Schmitz

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Mass arbitration has emerged as a strategic response to arbitration clauses that preclude class actions, allowing large numbers of claimants to bring individual arbitration demands against companies for similar grievances. Unlike class actions where a lead claimant represents others, mass arbitration requires each claimant’s active participation in separate proceedings, creating significant administrative burdens and costs. Following a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that solidified mandatory individual arbitration clauses, consumers and employees increasingly turned to mass arbitration filings. While the American Arbitration Association’s rule updates aimed to improve efficiency through measures like one-time initiation fees and process arbitrators, challenges remain in managing …

Artificial Intelligence And Its Exploitation By The Fashion Industry, Stephanie Solis-Kepes

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note explores the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the fashion industry, highlighting its potential to enhance efficiency, innovation, and customer experience. However, it underscores the critical legal and ethical challenges, including data privacy, intellectual property rights, supply chain transparency, and diversity issues, that must be addressed to ensure responsible and equitable adoption of AI technologies.

Empowering Ukraine’S First Legal Responders: Ukrainian-Us Collaboration And Clinics, Susan Felstiner, Davida Finger, Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, Maria Tsypiashchuck

Articles

At the onset of the full-scale Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, U.S. law clinic professors worked alongside the leadership of the Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine. The mutual objective was to support Ukrainian law professors and facilitate the continued legal education of their students, particularly the acquisition of skills typically taught in law clinics. Ultimately, the online partnership that developed focused on skills training and included seven Ukrainian law schools, faculty from over six U.S. law schools and one private law firm, and USAID Justice for All Activity in Ukraine. The overall goals of this collaboration were to …

On Comprehensive Pluralism: Two Pluralistic Deficits, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Cardozo Law Review

A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice offers a powerful normative theory of liberal constitutionalism: comprehensive pluralism. This theory links liberal constitutionalism with distributive justice. Comprehensive pluralism requires that the three dimensions that compose this concept of justice—redistribution, recognition, and representation—drive the attempts to balance ethos and demos in liberal constitutional democracies, as well as the attempts to balance the singular, plural, and universal dimensions that constitute such political communities. The normative proposal offered by Michel Rosenfeld in his book has numerous strengths. Three of them, which cut across the entirety of his proposal, are particularly noteworthy. On the one hand, …

The Supreme Court And The Federalist Society Network: The Conversation That Determined Whose Vote Counts, Deborah Toscano

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the role of the Federalist Society Network (FSN) in shaping the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The FSN's legal framework, emphasizing state sovereignty and the Tenth Amendment, influenced the Court's expansion of the "equal sovereignty" doctrine, leading to the dismantling of a key provision of the VRA. This decision reflects a broader shift in federalism, prioritizing state autonomy over federal oversight in voting rights.

Artificial Intelligence And Mediation Ethics, Zachary R. Calo

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Artificial intelligence ("Al") presents many opportunities to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accessibility of mediation. More than that, it has potential to transform the nature of how mediation is practiced and what mediation is. While Al might not yet play a significant role in many mediations, there is widespread recognition that the technology is disrupting many established dispute resolution practices. What mediation will look like on the other side is unclear, but it will not be the same.

What Mediation Romantics Can Learn From The Model T (Or Maybe The Chevrolet Trax), Nancy A. Welsh

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

When mediation was reintroduced to the U.S. in the 1970s, it was infused with a democracy-and-self-determination-enhancing, social justice ethos. As the process has been very successfully institutionalized, however, these ambitions have been scaled backalthough, at least arguably, certain "mediative elements" have actually been adopted (or coopted) by other procedural innovations. Perhaps it is time for those of us frustrated with the evolution of mediation to reconcile ourselves to the reality and value of a "basic" model of mediation designed for the sole purpose of getting parties from dispute to settlement-in much the same way that the basic model of a …

Heyman Center Presents: Chat Gd Ai In Law Practice, Heyman Center On Corporate Governance, Joe Green, Laura Chao

2023–2024 Flyers

Interested in artificial intelligence? Want to know how law firms are leveraging AI? Can AI replace the modern lawyer? Come join us with 2 experts from Gunderson Dettmer: Joe Green, Chief Innovation Officer and Laura Chao, Practice Innovation Attorney.

Public Defenders As Gatekeepers Of Freedom, Alma Magaña

Articles

Nearly half a million people are currently held in pretrial detention across the United States. Legal scholarship has explored many of the actors and factors contributing to the deprivation of freedom of those presumed innocent. And while the scholarship in these areas is rich, it has primarily focused on certain system actors—including judges, prosecutors, and profit-seeking sheriffs—structural concerns, such as the role race plays in who is being held in pretrial detention, or critiques of the failed promise of algorithms to deliver on bias-free bail determinations. But relatively little scholarship exists about the contributions of public defenders to this deprivation. …

Exit Engineering, Rachel Landy

Articles

How do business lawyers create value? For nearly forty years, scholars have conceptualized the business lawyer as a “transaction cost engineer” who helps contracting parties efficiently break negotiation stalemates to create more valuable deals. This theory provides meaningful insights about sophisticated corporate law practice, where outside lawyers parachute in to make one-off deals happen. However, it fails to explain the behavior of startup lawyers, who develop long-term relationships with their clients and counsel them on seemingly routine matters, well before a major transaction materializes. These lawyers are not just transaction cost engineers, they are exit engineers. This Article offers a …

How To Alleviate The Repercussions Of Wrongful Convictions: Holistically Righting The Wrongs Of Inadequate Compensation Statutes, Marissa Cohen

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.