Legal systems have always struggled to keep up with rapid technological change, and things are no different in the world of generative AI. There are still relatively few rulings on the new issues that the roll-out of AI-based services is raising. That makes a ground-breaking judgment from a court in Germany particularly important. It concerns the AI Overview that sits at the top of the Google’s search results. The Decoder summarizes the court’s ruling:
The Regional Court of Munich hit Google with a temporary injunction barring the company from spreading false claims about two Munich-based publishers through its AI-generated search overviews (case no. 26 O 869/26). The court classified Google as a direct infringer because the “AI overview” is its own content, not just a list of search results.
Google’s AI overviews had falsely tied two publishing companies to scams, subscription traps, and shady business practices for certain search queries. According to the court, the AI mixed up information about other, genuinely sketchy companies with the plaintiffs and drew connections that didn’t appear in any of the linked sources. The publishers sent Google a cease-and-desist letter, but Google didn’t respond appropriately.
The legal innovation here is that the local German court held Google liable for the content of its AI Overview. Unlike traditional search results, which simply point to external sources of information, Google’s AI Overview made statements that were original, the court said:
Google’s AI overviews work nothing like traditional search results, the court argues. The AI rewrites and judges results “in its own words and according to its own structure,” the ruling says. In the case at hand, for example, it opened with confident claims like “Yes, [company] is known for dubious business practices,” then built its own structure with a summary, red flags for the alleged scam, and tips for users.
The court also found that the AI overview made claims “that are not even made in the search results.” None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these “the defendant’s own statements.”
Google argued that people using its search engine could check the results, but the court dismissed the idea that this was the responsibility of the users. Leaving aside the fact that research from the Pew Research Center last year found that “Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results,” there is also the difficulty of checking statements that have been made up (as in this case), which therefore come with no reference links. The court also dealt with the issue of free speech protection for AI-generated content:
An AI’s opinion is “not the expression of an acquired conviction of the persons expressing it, but the result of an algorithm,” the court wrote.
Offering AI-powered research is “above all an expression of Google’s business activities” and “at most a secondary expression of an interest in being able to freely express one’s opinion and beliefs.”
In a statement given to The Decoder, Google said “We invest deeply in the quality of AI Overviews to ensure that the overwhelming majority of responses provide accurate information, and they are designed to reflect the information that exists on the web.”
Since there is no way to ensure that AI responses are 100% correct, this judgment is a big problem for Google, not least because the company plans to place AI Overviews at the heart of its new AI-saturated search engine, as Techdirt reported recently. Not surprisingly, Google has announced that it will appeal against the ruling, which comes from a local German court. If a higher court upholds the judgment, one solution would be for Google to remove AI Overviews in Germany. That would be messy, but doable. But it’s not clear how other AI companies such as chatbots could do the same, since the AI-generated response generally forms the basis of the whole service. Some might choose to discontinue their operations completely in any jurisdiction that adopts a similar position to the Munich court. That would make the roll-out of international services more difficult.
In a post on his blog, the security guru Bruce Schneier points out that if the ruling stands and is adopted elsewhere, it could have important implications not just for things like Google’s AI Overviews and chatbots, but also for the increasingly popular AI agents:
More generally, liability concerns could mean that many current use cases for agents won’t be commercially viable. Companies may not be able to profitably operate AI lawyers, doctors and media influencers if they are held responsible for what they say and do.
Schneier says that he is “OK with this outcome”:
There’s nothing in the law that requires us to accommodate AI systems if they are fundamentally untrustworthy, just as we don’t need to accommodate untrustworthy human systems. Any company that won’t stand by the statements its agents make—whether human or AI—doesn’t deserve users’ time or money.
Clearly this question of AI and agentic liability requires urgent legal clarification. The German decision should at least help to concentrate people’s minds on the topic.
On Techdirt, we often complain about lawyers and bad lawyering and bad cases. But there are times when lawyers are helpful, and my one-sentence summary after spending many days trying to understand a viral dispute about [checks notes] some old Star Wars LEGO sets is that a lot of people should have spoken to competent lawyers before doing… whatever the fuck they decided to do here.
If you haven’t been following the Bricks & Minifigs saga, congratulations on your peaceful existence. It’s a genuinely difficult story to track, partly because you have to watch a bunch of long YouTube videos to piece it together, and partly because almost everyone covering it is pushing a specific angle. Just as a point of reference, Bricks & Minifigs is a company that franchises its concept of stores for buying and selling lego blocks and sets — and, yes, minifigs. They have about 300 stores, most of which are franchised.
The basic summary (and some of this is disputed) is that a local Bricks & Minifigs franchise in Keizer, Oregon made an agreement with a guy named Bryan Mansell to sell a very large collection that his father had put together over many years of collectable unopened Star Wars LEGO sets. The intention of the collection had (we are told) always been to pay for college for Bryan’s children. His father, an 83-year-old man, had agreed to have Bryan sell the sets via the Keizer store on consignment. The collection was advertised, including on the store’s Instagram page where they made it clear that it was “one of the largest, most valuable privately held collections of Star Wars LEGO in the world” and that it was about to go on sale.
Later photos in that post detailed that they believed the collection was “worth well over $200,000” and that the entire collection would be sold through the store. The actual value of the legos in question is disputed, but the lowest number I’ve seen is closer to $60k. The entirety of the Instagram post text reads:
Saturday and Sunday, the 11th and 12th of November, the Bricks and Minifigs store in Salem-Kaiser will display one of the largest, most valuable privately held collections of Star WarsTM LEGO in the world. The event will be open to journalists and the public for photos before the collection goes on sale.
In the early 90s, Ed Mansell predicted Star WarsTM LEGO would be a good investment. Over the next 15 years, he purchased approximately $20,000 of Star WarsTM LEGO and preserved them, sealed, in their original boxes. The investment really paid off. The collection is now estimated to be worth well over $200,000. Multiple sets, including the highly prized, incredibly rare Cloud City set, are now worth more than $10,000 each. Some of the individual minifigs are worth more than $1,300 each. The ten-fold increase in the value of Mansell’s collection is a greater return than if Mansell had put the same amount of money into the stock market in a Dow Jones Index Fund.
When Ed Mansell decided it was time to divest, he turned to his son, Bryan Mansell. Bryan knows more about his father’s comic book and baseball card collection but didn’t feel confident in his knowledge of the LEGO secondary market. He saw the sign for the Bricks and Minifigs store while passing by on North River Road, came in, and asked the store owner, Chrystal Law, if she could help. “I told him, even if we couldn’t sell the collection, I would help him figure out how much it was worth because I didn’t want him to get ripped off. And I think that’s why he trusted me,” Law said. The entire collection will be sold through Law’s store, but first they wanted to put it all on display so the public can see it in its entirety.
The collection will be on display in the store’s party room from 10am till 6pm on Saturday, November 11th, and 11am till 6pm on Sunday. The collection will be available for sale immediately, so the best time for pictures will be Saturday morning. The collection will not be stored on-site after hours for security reasons, and after Sunday the sets will be available for purchase but stored elsewhere. Bricks and Minifigs is located at 3670 River Road in Kaiser.
Apparently, over the course of 2024, various parts of the collection were sold off and Mansell would stop by each month to collect his cut of the sales. There is a dispute over how much of the collection was actually sold before everything went off the rails in late 2024.
In November 2024, as you may have heard, Donald Trump was elected. Chrystal’s partner, Ben Gorman, runs a small publishing company called Not A Pipe Publishing, which (among other things) publishes something called the “Antifa Lit Journal.” Gorman felt like publishing such things in the US under a Trump regime might be problematic and looked into moving out of the country. As part of that, Law contacted corporate Bricks & Minifigs about selling or closing their franchise (exactly what she told them is disputed).
This next part is also disputed. Law & Gorman say corporate told them they had a franchisee who was interested in taking over the franchise. Bricks & Minifigs corporate claims that Law had told them she was shuttering the store and that she wasn’t allowed to do that, so they had to rush to reclaim the store. Almost immediately someone associated with Bricks & Minifigs, Brandon Best, showed up at the store, saying he was taking over the store and demanding the keys and that Law leave immediately. There’s also a dispute over whether or not Law & Gorman were in violation of their franchise agreement (Law & Gorman claim that the breach was due to failures by BAM corporate, which had been worked out months prior, and any claim of ongoing breach is misleading).
There’s a bit that is caught on video where Law tells Brandon and someone from the company on the phone that they have a large collection on consignment and that they owe Mansell money, and Bricks and Minifigs corporate tells Law they’ll “take on the consignment liability.”
Law and Gorman push back on Bricks & Minifigs just taking over the store, but are told by a B&M “official” name Ki McAllister (recorded by Gorman) that if they try to fight this, B&M will make their lives difficult: “If we go the legal route, it’s gonna be a very expensive battle for you and it’s not going to be a good position for you guys to get into. There’s not a whole lot of options for you. If you want to go the legal route, it’s just going to be a mess and it’s gonna be expensive for you.” When Gorman pushes back and asks if McAllister spoke “with” or “at” Crystal, McAllister admits he spoke “at” her and then says: “If you fight this, then you’re putting yourself into a whole lot of shit. It sounds like a threat and I can acknowledge that, because in a way it is.“
From there, it appears corporate Bricks & Minifigs transferred the franchise to two of its partners, Joshua Johnson and Brandon Best (the guy who showed up at the store) and they just… basically denied owing Mansell anything at all or even having his legos. Or sometimes they’d admit it and sometimes they wouldn’t. It became messy. Mansell claims that the people he spoke to store gave an almost identical message to him that Ki McAllister gave to Gorman & Law that it would be too expensive for him to go to court to get back what he’s owed.
Mansell then reached out to YouTubers, some of whom detailed how Bricks & Minifigs appeared to have effectively stolen all these lego sets. But then (according to one of the YouTubers) Bricks & Minifigs threatened to sue them (sense a pattern?) and they took down the videos.
Mansell then contacted another YouTuber named Ben Schneider, who goes by the handle Reckless Ben — best described as a Temu Nathan Fielder. He puts himself in ridiculous situations, goes to equally ridiculous lengths to justify them, and stares blankly into the camera with that specific combination of cluelessness and overconfidence that comes from someone who has talked himself into believing every move he makes is correct.
In this case, that included (not a complete list) trying to get back Mansell’s money and/or remaining legos by going to the store, confronting the employees, confronting the owners (who were difficult to track down), showing up at Bricks & Minifigs corporate, speaking to the CEO, setting up a registered religion in order to run a raffle for the lego sets to try to make this a criminal case to get law enforcement involved (not how any of this works), filing a bunch of small claims cases against the store and the company and the owners of the store, creating a company called We Steal from Old People, setting up a “franchise” structure for We Steal from Old People to use a mirror argument of Bricks & Minifigs that he can’t be held liable for franchisee actions, putting up signs for that store, and much more.
Some of these moves are interesting. Some are genuinely clever. Many are very stupid — particularly agreeing to talk to cops without a lawyer present after being arrested (more on that shortly), and believing that tricking a store employee into signing what she thought was a delivery receipt, but which was actually an unenforceable “contract” against trespassing him, accomplished anything at all. Mostly what all of this does is generate attention, rather than anything legally compelling.
The one potentially legally interesting move in all of this was filing the ten separate small claims cases against the store (I won’t even get into how they were able to structure things to file the ten separate claims even though that’s interesting, because this is freaking long enough, and the details are in some of the videos below). The store refused to show up in the cases, meaning that default judgments were entered in each case. When Schneider went to the store to try to collect, he found that the store had been permanently shuttered the day after the default judgments came down (which looks very, very bad for Bricks & Minifigs and the franchise owners).
The cops get called on Schneider repeatedly through all of this. When he’s in Utah trying to confront both Bricks and Minifigs CEO Ammon McNeff and the supposed franchise owners, Joshua Johnson and Brandon Best. He tries to take Johnson to small claims court and the court tells him he needs to first try to resolve the issue with Johnson, but Johnson (who at one point offers to give Mansell the lego back if Mansell apologizes, but then doesn’t) has blocked Schneider’s phone number and calls the police when he sees Schneider and associates near his house.
At multiple points the police stop cars that Schneider is in (one time after falsely claiming they didn’t stop at a stop sign, even though the dash cam shows they clearly did) and generally appear to be harassing Schneider and his colleagues. In what appears to be a tremendously egregious move, they pull them over and hold them for hours claiming that they believe there are drugs in the car which they search for and are unable to find. Later the cops get a warrant and raid the Airbnb where Schneider and others are staying, arresting them all.
Schneider and some of the others working with him are arrested at various points for stalking and harassment, while Schneider insists he’s just trying to serve Johnson with the papers from the small claims case. There’s also an attempt to claim that the Go Fund Me campaign that Schneider set up at some point violates some law. The whole thing goes off the rails in so many ways.
Schneider also gets access to various bodycam footage, some of which is redacted in places that look sketchy but happens all the time with police body cams. Some of the bodycam footage looks damning against the police (including a couple of admissions that they don’t really think Schneider and his friends have violated the law, even if the police chief later disputes that).
Very stupidly, Schneider and his friends/colleagues repeatedly talk to cops without a lawyer present. This is a very bad thing to do. Multiple people who were arrested later put up their own videos about it, including one (the guy who was arrested for trying to lock his phone when a cop tried to take it), who claims that he’s got a high IQ so was never going to get bested by a cop (this is also a stupid thing to say).
Bricks & Minifigs’ position on all of this appears to be that (1) anything bad that happened was because of the franchise owners and not corporate, both the previous ones and the ones they arranged to take over who appear to be closely associated with corporate Bricks & Minifigs anyway, (2) Law & Gorman violated their franchise agreement in many ways and the takeover of the store was necessary because of that, (3) that Gorman & Law “stole” Mansell’s legos and the new store really didn’t have any, (4) that Gorman & Law weren’t allowed to do consignment deals in the first place (despite evidence to the contrary, including the franchise agreement that lays out that consignment is acceptable), (5) that Ki McAllister is a low level employee and his statements don’t matter (not how it works), (6) that they didn’t know about any consignment deal (clearly untrue given video evidence as well as notifications from both Law and Mansell), (7) that Schneider is only giving a one-sided account (true, but doesn’t deal with many of the factual claims), and (8) that this is all an illegal harassment campaign against them designed to get them to pay out way more money than they owe (if they owe anything at all).
On top of all that we have competing additional civil lawsuits filed in Utah state courts and the various misdemeanor (not felony) charges against Schneider (though he claims he’s also being threatened with felony charges, though as far as I can tell none have been filed yet). Oh and the potential of criminal charges against… someone… in Oregon for the possible theft of Mansell’s collection.
Phew.
Let’s now insert some of the many videos on this. I will say that Bricks & Minifigs corporate (and the replacement franchise owners) come out of this all looking very, very, very sketchy. Ben Schneider comes out of it looking like both a hero for getting a tremendous amount of viral attention to all of this, but also kind of a dumbass for doing a bunch of very stupid things that he thinks helps his cause but don’t, which he could have avoided by… actually talking to a lawyer. Yes, Schneider got a ton of attention on the issue, but also did a ton of things that likely made everything worse for Mansell and himself.
If literally anyone involved had spoken to a lawyer at any point, an awful lot of this mess could have been avoided.
That’s why I’ll start with the most even-handed summary I’ve seen of the whole thing, from the always excellent Lawful Masses with Leonard French, who walks through the legal reality in exhaustive detail. It’s more complicated than any of the other coverage suggests, though yes, Bricks & Minifigs still comes out of it looking like people who took control of collectible legos they had no rights to.
Some of the key points highlighted by French that haven’t made it into most of the other videos I’ve seen:
Mansell should have filed a UCC-1 financing statement with the consignment to protect his property (this is genuinely useful information for anyone ever looking to sell things on consignment) but even if he didn’t do that, he’s probably protected by the “merchant exception” related to the Statute of Frauds. This is far beyond my own legal understanding, but is fascinating.
Mansell sent a termination letter to the new owners of the franchise, putting them on actual notice that the sets were his.
Mansell had a friend go in and purchase one of his sets after he had clearly informed the store not to sell one. As French points out, this is now a pretty clear theft case.
Bricks & Minifigs has some ways that they could (potentially successfully) challenge the small claims default judgments against them in Oregon, but the clock is ticking on that, and if they fail to, those judgments could follow them around.
Then as I was finishing up this already incredibly long article, I saw French has released part II, looking at some of the filed lawsuits that I discuss below and coming to similar conclusions that I do (i.e., no one comes out of any of this looking good).
Then there are some of Schneider’s amusing/cringey videos, starting with him talking about the effort to get back the legos. This is the main video that made this go viral and currently has around 3 million views.
He then published a follow up detailing how the police in American Fork treated him and his friends including stopping them multiple times and eventually raiding their AirBNB and arresting them.
And also a short video reading through and reacting to a leaked letter that Bricks & Minifigs corporate sent to their franchisees about how to deal with the controversy.
Then there are the American Fork police who released this bizarre video showing their side of the story, which appears to be set in… I dunno… heaven? John Oliver’s void? The entirely white background is a freaking choice is all I’m saying. So too is the “I’m reading you a bedtime story” tone of voice from police chief in the video.
The police chief also fails to address the weird redactions in the bodycam footage, and the multiple times his cops are caught effectively admitting that Schneider and his crew weren’t actually breaking the law.
Schneider has released a response video using a similar backdrop and highlighting problems and inconsistencies with the claims in the police video.
Then there’s Bricks & Minifigs CEO Ammon McNeff going on a livestream and doing a poor job of defending the company, including saying a few things that won’t do him any favors in court.
Believe it or not, there’s even more in all these videos that I don’t have time to go into, but we’re at almost 3,000 words already and we haven’t gotten to some of the competing lawsuits.
We have discussed the small claims cases (which have mostly ended in default because BAM folks ignored them) but the bigger deal are the competing lawsuits that have been filed in Utah’s state court and have received less direct attention. While it’s one thing to say things on a one-sided YouTube video, what you say in court can be a bit more serious. And we have two competing cases to look at. The first was filed by Law and Gorman and the LLC they had set up to run the Oregon store, and filed in Utah’s Chancery Court back in March.
It adds some useful details to the whole mess, including saying that the only breach they had regarding their franchise agreement with BAM corporate was… because BAM themselves refused to live up to the requirements of the agreement. Apparently Law had simply managed the store before this, but had approached corporate about taking on the franchise, which they agreed to do. But after working out a deal, the company failed to transfer the lease and the bank account over to Law & Gorman, which caused a bunch of problems regarding payments:
Shortly after the sale closed, BAM failed to fulfill its obligations to properly transfer the store’s bank account and assign the store lease to Plaintiffs’ LLC. These were not minor administrative oversights—they were fundamental obligations without which the franchisee could not operate the business. Without control of the bank account, Plaintiffs could not make the automated payments required under the Franchise Agreement. Without the lease in their name, Plaintiffs had no direct relationship with the landlord and no ability to ensure rent was paid. BAM’s failure to complete these transfers was the first material breach of the Franchise Agreement and the proximate cause of every subsequent “default” BAM later cited as grounds for termination.
BAM did not return the bank’s documentation needed to change account ownership, causing the account to be frozen without Plaintiffs’ knowledge. As a result, automated payments for franchise royalties and for the remaining purchase price were not withdrawn as scheduled.
Similarly, because BAM never assigned the store’s lease to BAMF Salem 1, LLC, the landlord’s notices of bounced ACH rent payments went to BAM as the tenant of record—not to Plaintiffs. BAM did not promptly inform Plaintiffs of these issues, effectively concealing the problem until it had compounded. Plaintiffs thus could not pay rent through no fault of their own: the lease was not in their name, the bank account was frozen, and the party responsible for both failures—BAM—kept Plaintiffs in the dark. BAM’s own Director of Operations later confirmed this failure on a recorded call, admitting that “the lease is technically in our name still.”
That is a pretty bad look. Especially given that, in BAM’s own lawsuit, they claim the reason they repossessed the store and handed its franchise to someone else was… the very things that Law & Gorman say they caused. BAM corporate’s massive lawsuit filed against Ben Schneider, Bryan Mansell, and a bunch of folks working with them (and, of course, claiming civil RICO because why not?) claims that they took back Law & Gorman’s franchise because of breaches to the agreement, such as those that Law & Gorman say were BAM’s fault n the first place (oddly, the BAM lawsuit refers to everyone by their first names, rather than last, which would be more typical).
Despite the foregoing plain requirements, Chrystal and Benjamin materially breached their obligations, as required APA payments were not completed, FA royalty payments became delinquent, the lease and various accounts were never properly transferred and lease amounts were unpaid. Chrystal’s outstanding contractual obligations mounted, eventually exceeding an estimated $175,000….
… Based on the foregoing uncured breaches and anticipatory repudiation, BAM, inter alia, issued a written 11/14/24 Notice of Immediate Termination to Salem LLC pursuant to the FA, exercised its priority rights to the collateral in the Security Agreement, pre-scheduled a repossession with Chrystal and repossessed the Salem LLC store on or after 11/14/24 and assumed the lease, as expressly permitted under the FA and APA, including any and all fixtures, inventory and other assets, and credited an estimated $38,000 paltry value thereof as an offset to the unpaid $175,000 debt.
That’s a pretty big factual dispute that the two courts are going to need to dig into.
The BAM lawsuit also claims that they had no notice of Mansell’s consignment, which is plainly bullshit given the video clip that shows up in basically all of the videos above:
Excepting only respecting the foregoing unpaid lease, BAM did so as a bona fide purchaser, without notice of any third party claims or liens of any kind, including Chrystal and Benjamin’s undisclosed and alleged 11/22/23 Consignment Agreement with Brian, referenced infra.
Prior to and at the time of repossession, BAM’s representative, Brandon, conducted an informal and video inventory of the Salem LLC fixtures and inventory. While he did not locate or identify any product that was identified as consigned or not owned by Salem LLC, he concluded that the maximum value of any residual inventory was less than $38,000. Less than $5,000 worth of Star Wars LEGO product could be located and identified in the entire residual Salem LLC onsite inventory.
This is quite a claim to make given the video evidence to the contrary, which had already gone viral by the time this lawsuit was filed last week.
There are other claims in the BAM lawsuit that seem problematic including this:
Bryan showed up later that day and began yelling at personnel and holding up purported consignment paperwork demanding the immediate return thereof or payment of $80,000. Josh interceded and asked to review it and briefly did so and pointed out that neither BAM (nor Josh and Brandon) were a party to this purported arrangement.
Again, taking over the store also meant taking over the consignment liability, which they had already been made aware of and which they admitted they were taking over (as recorded in the security camera video). That they hadn’t personally been a party to the arrangement doesn’t matter, because when they took over the franchise they also took over that agreement.
The complaint then says that Johnson and Best tried to find the alleged sets owned by Mansell but were unable to do so, concluding that they were all gone. This is, obviously, contested by Mansell and others who have pointed to evidence that the sets were still in the store, including Mansell having someone go in and purchase one of the sets after he had demanded them back in a written notification.
The complaint also claims that it was only in late 2025 and early 2026 that Best was able to dig into the old franchise’s accounting system to find details of sales of what were likely many of Mansell’s legos. The complaint argues that it appears most, if not all, were sold by Law prior to the takeover and if Mansell is owed money, it’s from Law and Gorman.
Many months later in the fall of 2025, and only after Baker Salem had entered its 3/27/25 Business and Asset Purchase Agreement, Brandon gained access to Salem LLC’s archived and incomplete POS accounting system, which he discovered identified Star Wars “lot sets” from Star Wars regular “lots” inventory sales. This inventory sale distinction was unclear to Brandon and Josh, and Chrystal had never explained the significance, if any, to anyone, but Brandon much later in 2026 discovered that approximately 367 purchases of lot sets (for an estimated retail value of $46,000) and 336 purchase of lots (for an estimated retail value of $12,600) had occurred after 2023. He still could not, however, confirm the specific products sold (and whether they had been consigned or not).
Then we get the RICO claims. The supposed “conspiracy”:
Upon information and belief, though they had no legitimate legal recourse or evidence upon which to file a claim, Chrystal, Benjamin and Bryan conspired to, inter alia, threaten, intimidate, extort and defraud Plaintiffs anyway possible, as detailed herein, including the formation of an Enterprise to engage in wrongful activities.
As an initial step, Salem LLC caused a 12/24/24 legal demand letter to be sent to BAM, variously alleging it had been damaged based on the termination of its FA, which was a private business matter between Chrystal and Salem LLC. On 1/10/25, BAM responded, denying the allegations and providing support for its termination. Neither Salem LLC, nor Chrystal or Benjamin, thereafter pursued any claim in the letter further with BAM until 1/2/26, when a separate legal demand letter was sent, as discussed infra.
Instead, upon information and belief and in furtherance of such threats, Chrystal, Benjamin and/or Bryan learned of Schneider and communicated with him, whereby they provided information regarding their unsupported claims against Baker Salem and/or BAM, ignoring and excluding Salem LLC and/or Chrystal’s sole obligation regarding any private consignment agreement with Bryan. In connection therewith, they, together with others (i.e., DOES 1-15) conspired to intentionally, maliciously, fraudulently and illegally threaten, extort, harass, profiteer, interfere with and damage Plaintiffs in furtherance of the Enterprise, including based on the unlawful activities described herein.
Upon information and belief, Schneider and the Schneider Group acquired a direct or indirect financial interest in Bryan, Chrystal, Benjamin and/or Salem LLC’s unsupported claims against Plaintiffs, whereby co-Defendants (with Bryan, Chrystal, Benjamin and/or Salem LLC’s assistance and support) organized and established the Enterprise that would launch a campaign of deception, disinformation and destruction intended to cause Plaintiffs injury and damage, to extort a demand of over $200,000, to deceive and manipulate Plaintiffs, to interfere with Plaintiffs economic and family relations, to harass Plaintiffs, to cause private and public nuisances, to trespass and to otherwise engage in a pattern of unlawful activities, as described herein.
They then claim that this “enterprise” engaged in numerous “unlawful activities” in support of the supposed conspiracy:
Commencing after Baker Salem began operations as a new franchisee and continuing to date, Schneider and the Schneider Group (with the support of Bryan and Chrystal) waged a malicious and intentional campaign of extortion and destruction through independent episodes of unlawful activities against Plaintiffs. Such included periodic harassment through phone calls, numerous disruptive store or office visits, repeated instances of trespass, deceptively staged events (i.e., disingenuous coronation, rally, raffle, store front table promotion, a fictitious Lego Club rally, manufactured and frivolous complaints to police, private and public nuisances, threatening phone calls, numerous deceptive live and telephonic impersonations, in person and remote threats (and via proxies), frivolous sham lawsuits (splitting claims in multiple ineffective small claims actions), etc.), issuing the Publications of defamatory and disparaging images and content, all in furtherance of the Enterprise.
The complaint quotes Schneider’s viral video in ways that… Schneider himself made easy for them to quote. The “we have to do something illegal” is not a great line for Schneider and the other defendants in this case. They also highlight this bit, which is also not a great fact for Schneider:
5/21/26 YouTube Video, Minute 12:46 through 14:46 (Schneider attempted extortion and directly threatened Ammon by stating that, “if you just want to give it back now, it’s going to be a lot easier for you guys. You know, I think you guys would prefer the easy way” or “the hard way. I don’t think you guys are really going to like it”. An implied depiction of the threatened violence associated with the “hard way” is an explosion at BAM’s corporate headquarters).
Of course it’s a bit rich for them to complain about the “easy or hard way” complaint when they apparently made similar statements to Law & Gorman as well as Mansell.
Once again, so so so much of all of this could have been avoided if either side had competent lawyers and listened to them.
Johnson and Best also claim that they tried to settle with Mansell and he rejected their offer, which they claim is evidence that “the enterprise” was seeking more than they were legitimately entitled to:
In late 2025 and based on co-Defendants’ ongoing harassment, Brandon and Josh further investigated the Baker Salem store inventory, and though they still could not reliably identify any product that appeared to belong to Bryan, they located a few (approximately 20) Star Wars LEGO sets in a back office lockable cupboard, on which they noticed stickers not previously recognized. As a precaution only, but still without knowledge that Bryan in fact had any right thereto, they directed that such not be sold from Baker Salem’s inventory and remain locked up pending completion of their ongoing investigation and receipt of reliable evidence of ownership and other conditions.
On or about 12/3/25, in a text exchange between Josh and Bryan (deceptively orchestrated by Schneider) and after sustaining incredible business disruption and harm, Josh discussed a possible settlement scenario under economic duress. Purely as an accommodation (and without any legal obligation to do so), Josh discussed a possible settlement scenario to allow Bryan to retrieve the few sets that had been provisionally identified as merely Star Wars related product in the back office (i.e., described above, though not necessarily belonging to Bryan), which as a precautionary matter, Josh had set aside pending receipt of ownership documentation from Bryan. Josh indicated a written apology and other concessions would need to be made and the harassment must stop. Bryan rejected this proposal outright and responded, “Unless you are going to make us whole on the whole Lego collection, I don’t see where we have anything to discuss.” This confirmed the Enterprise’s interest. Referring to the sets he had identified, Josh replied, “We can give you what was left when [presumably Chrystal] left. We can’t and aren’t responsible for what she sold the two years yall were working together. If you want what she left let me know.” Bryan refused this offer. This exchange further evidenced Bryan’s objectives were not about recovering a LEGO collection, but rather about extorting payment for the Enterprise beyond any legitimate claim.
That argument may sound good to the BAM folks, but I’m pretty sure they’re wrong when they claim they’re not responsible for what Law sold prior to them taking over, because (again) when they took over the store they took on any liabilities with the store. And that would be one of them. Also, there appears to be some evidence in the videos that some of the times they offered to return Mansell’s legos and then… didn’t.
Believe it or not, the 5,000+ words I’ve already written here barely scratches the surface.
Strip it all back and the core of this is pretty simple: an 83-year-old man’s carefully assembled lego collection — built over 15 years, meant to fund his grandkids’ college — appears to have been taken (at least in part) by people who calculated that it would cost more to fight them than to walk away. That bet almost paid off. The only reason this became a national story is that Bryan Mansell found someone willing to be very, very extremely online about it.
But “going viral” is not a legal strategy. And Schneider’s willingness to do basically anything for content — including things that are genuinely legally stupid, like talking to cops without a lawyer present, or making statements on camera that now appear in a civil RICO complaint — may have made things considerably worse for Mansell in the long run, even as it made things considerably more uncomfortable for Bricks & Minifigs in the short run. If Schneider had talked to a lawyer before doing half of what he did, he might have accomplished more with less collateral damage.
Though it might not have made such “good content.”
Meanwhile, if Bricks & Minifigs had talked to a lawyer — a good one, not just whoever is filing these complaints — they might have been advised that explicitly threatening people on recorded calls, taking over a store while explicitly acknowledging a consignment liability on video, and then denying that consignment existed in court filings, was not a sequence of events that tends to end well. And that shuttering the store the day after default judgments came down looks, to put it diplomatically, quite bad.
The deeper structural problem here — one that Leonard French articulates better than I can — is that the US legal system has a genuine dead zone around mid-five-figure disputes. Too big for small claims (even with Schneider’s claim splitting exploit), too small to justify the cost of a full civil suit, it’s exactly the range where a well-resourced defendant can make a calculated bet that the other side will run out of money or patience before getting justice. That’s a feature of the system Bricks & Minifigs happened to exploit, but is not unique to them.
The answer to that structural problem shouldn’t be “find a YouTuber willing to go to ridiculous lengths to get attention on this issue.” Though in 2026, that does appear to be working better than most alternatives — at least in the court of public opinion, where the verdict has already come in decisively on the side of Mansell and Schneider. That’s a real problem for Bricks & Minifigs and every one of their ~300 franchisees, regardless of how the legal cases resolve. You don’t get to un-become the lego store that allegedly stole an old man’s retirement collection. That story is going to follow this brand around for a long time.
None of this had to go this way. A competent lawyer on either side, at almost any point in this saga, probably changes the outcome significantly. Instead, both sides made calculated bets — Bricks & Minifigs that the costs of fighting would deter anyone from trying, and Schneider that going maximally viral would substitute for having an actual legal strategy. The first bet nearly worked. The second is still being litigated, in multiple senses of that word.
We’ve been covering the growing parade of lawyers submitting AI-hallucinated case citations to courts for a while now. It keeps happening, and courts keep having to deal with it. But the pattern is usually the same: a careless attorney uses ChatGPT to draft a brief, the fake citations get spotted by the opposing side or the judge, and sanctions follow. Embarrassing, but contained.
What happened in a California state appellate case decided this month is something far more insane (found via Bluesky). A hallucinated citation traveled through an entire legal proceeding — from a Reddit blog post to a client’s declaration to an attorney’s letter to the opposing attorney’s draft of the court order to the judge’s signature to appellate filings — and at no point along the way did anyone bother to check whether the case actually existed.
Oh, and the whole thing was about custody of a dog named Kyra.
We publish this opinion to emphasize that courts and attorneys alike have a responsibility to protect the legal system against distortion by fabricated law, particularly in this new era of hallucinated citations generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. In a system of precedents that is designed to achieve consistency, predictability, and adherence to the rule of law, the judiciary cannot function properly unless judges and lawyers confirm the authenticity of cited authorities and review them to evaluate their holdings and reasoning. When the participants fail to perform this basic function, it compromises these institutional values and diminishes faith in the judicial process.
Here’s how the case got there: Joan Pablo Torres Campos (Torres) and Leslie Ann Munoz dissolved their domestic partnership in 2022. Two years later, Torres wanted shared custody and visitation of Kyra (the dog). Munoz, represented pro bono by her cousin — attorney Roxanne Chung Bonar — opposed. In her opposition, Bonar cited two cases: Marriage of Twigg and Marriage of Teegarden.
Neither case exists. Or rather, the actual citations Bonar gave correspond to completely unrelated cases — one is a criminal case, and the other is a spousal support case from a different year with a different citation. But as cited by Bonar, with the holdings she described, these cases were pure fiction.
And where did the fake citations come from? Apparently a Reddit blog post. By someone named… Sassafras Patterdale. I am not joking:
Bonar did not submit any declaration of her own, but she submitted one from her client Munoz. Munoz explained that the Twigg case was discussed in a Reddit article a paralegal friend had sent her, and Munoz did not realize the case was fictitious. The Reddit article was attached as an exhibit to Munoz’s declaration. It was authored by “Sassafras Patterdale,” who was identified as “a blogger, podcaster, and animal rescuer, who writes about divorce, custody, and the messy, beautiful lives we weave.” The article was about pet custody battles. It cited “Marriage of Twigg (1984) 34 Cal.3d 926” as a “watershed” California Supreme Court case holding “that custody determinations must consider the emotional well, being [sic] and stability of the parties.”
The Reddit article did not include the parallel reporter citations and date of decision for Twigg that were included in Bonar’s opposition to the second motion to reinstate the appeal. Neither Bonar’s response to our order nor Munoz’s declaration explained where this additional fictitious information came from.
And then Torres’s own lawyer — a reminder: he’s the one who filed the lawsuit to get visitation with the dog — drafted the proposed court order and included the same fake citations the opposing party had used, without verifying them either.
And the court signed it. Because of course it did.
Torres’s counsel submitted a proposed Findings and Order After Hearing, which the court approved as conforming to its oral ruling. The order cited the fictional Twigg and Teegarden cases as follows:
“The Court notes the follow[ing] cases: Marriage of Twigg (1984) 34 Cal.3d 926 and Marriage of Teegarden (1995) 33 Cal.App.4th 1572 [(Teegarden)], in which the Court has to take the well-being and stability of the parties involved when deciding pet visitation and custody….”
So to recap: the fake citation originated on Reddit, traveled into the defendant client’s declaration, was used by the defendant client’s attorney, was then included by the opposing attorney in the draft order, and was signed by the judge. Nobody — not either attorney, not the judge — looked up the cases.
But that’s just the warm-up.
Torres appealed. His appeal was dismissed for failure to file an opening brief. He moved to reinstate it. In her opposition to that motion, Bonar — still representing Munoz — cited the fake cases again, this time telling the appellate court: “This isn’t new, courts decide these based on what’s best for everyone involved (Marriage of Twigg (1984) 34 Cal.3d 926; In re Marriage of Teegarden (1995) 33 Cal.App.4th 1572).”
Torres filed a second motion to reinstate, and this time finally pointed out that these were “invented case law.”
Now, a reasonable response to being told your citations are fabricated might be to quietly check, discover the problem, and apologize to the court — ideally with some groveling, in hopes of limited sanctions.
Bonar, however, chose a different path. She doubled down. Hard.
Bonar filed another opposition on behalf of Munoz. The opposition stated: “Appellant’s Claim of Fabricated Case Law is Baseless.” It asserted: “This is a grave accusation, but it is entirely unfounded and reflects Appellant’s own failure to conduct basic legal research. Both cases are valid, published precedents, and Appellant’s inability to locate them underscores the incompetence that led to his appeal’s dismissal.”
And then she went further, providing additional citation details for the fake Twigg case — parallel reporter citations, a specific date of decision — none of which appeared in the original Reddit article and all of which were also completely fabricated:
“Marriage of Twigg (1984) 34 Cal.3d 926: This is a legitimate California Supreme Court case, reported at 34 Cal.3d 926, 195 Cal.Rptr. 718, 670 P.2d 340, decided on July 5, 1984. The ruling addresses custody determinations in dissolution proceedings, emphasizing the importance of the emotional well-being and stability of the parties involved.”
None of those parallel citations correspond to a Twigg case. No California case by that name was decided on July 5, 1984. The additional details were just as fake as the original citation — almost certainly generated by an AI tool when Bonar went looking for backup. During oral arguments (i.e., well after the judge had already issued an order to show cause about the fictional citations) she finally admitted maybe she had used AI:
At oral argument, Bonar claimed she could not remember where this additional fictitious citation information came from. She acknowledged she did not have a paid subscription to a legal research service at the time, and she was using other online resources including AI for this purpose. She also conceded she may have obtained fictitious information about Twigg and Teegarden using AI tools.
But the cherry on top — the part where you have to put the ruling down and go for a walk just to remind yourself that some other part of the world is good — is that in this same filing where she doubled down on fabricated case law with additional fabricated details, Bonar accused opposing counsel of being the incompetent one and mocks them for being unable to search and find the non-existent cases.
Appellant’s assertion that no such case or parties exist is incorrect; a simple search for ‘Teegarden marriage California’ reveals the 1986 decision involving Anne and Byron Teegarden. This misrepresentation not only fails to prove misconduct but exposes Appellant’s counsel’s deficient preparation, which mirrors the neglect that caused the default.
Again: she called the lawyer who (eventually) correctly identified her fake citations incompetent for failing to find cases that don’t exist.
The court was not amused. It hit Bonar with $5,000 in sanctions — significantly more than the $1,500 that the same court imposed in a recent similar case — specifically because she “persisted in and aggravated the misconduct by providing additional fictitious citation information” and “still has not been completely forthcoming with this court.” The opinion is also being forwarded to the State Bar of California.
As for Torres, the appellant who did finally correctly identify the fake citations? He lost anyway. The court found that because his own lawyer drafted and submitted the order containing the fake citations without objecting or verifying them, he forfeited his right to challenge those citations on appeal. In other words: his lawyer helped propagate the hallucinated citations by including them in the draft order, and he can’t now complain about the very thing his lawyer failed to catch.
Torres forfeited his claim of error both by his affirmative conduct and his inaction. Although Munoz and Bonar were responsible for improperly citing these fictitious authorities in the first place, Torres’s own counsel affirmatively drafted and submitted the proposed order with these citations that was ultimately signed by the family court. And even though his own counsel drafted the order, Torres failed to object to the court’s reliance on these citations or call the court’s attention to the issue.
There’s a lesson here that goes well beyond “lawyers should verify their citations” — though they really, desperately should. This case shows how hallucinated AI output achieves a kind of credibility laundering as it passes through the system. The fake citation looked more legitimate in the client’s declaration because it had been in a blog post. More legitimate in the court order because it had been in the declaration. More legitimate in the appellate filing because it had been in the court order. At each step, someone assumed that someone earlier in the chain had already done the checking. Nobody had.
In a legal system built entirely on the idea that citations to precedent mean something — that every case cited in an order actually happened and actually stands for the proposition claimed — this kind of cascading failure is really, really bad. And as AI tools get better at generating plausible-sounding legal citations — complete with reporter volumes, page numbers, and dates — the obligation on every participant in the system to actually verify what they’re citing becomes that much more important.
The court itself apparently recognized that its “please just check your citations” message might need some institutional reinforcement. Its footnote at the end of the sanctions section quietly recommends that the Judicial Council consider adopting formal guidelines or rules requiring verification of citations — particularly in party-drafted orders submitted for a judge’s signature. Which is, in hindsight, an obvious hole in the system. But it took Sassafras Patterdale, a Reddit post, and a dog named Kyra to expose it.
If asked, do you think corporate America would prefer to hire (1) lawyers who fight, or (2) lawyers who immediately surrender, I think you’d know the answer.
And now we have some fairly unambiguous empirical data to support what the answer is.
Oracle’s Larry Ellison loves Trump. Morgan Stanley contributed one of their top execs to the Trump administration. But even they won’t work with law firms that capitulated to Trump’s bogus executive orders targeting lawyers who dared to challenge him in court.
The WSJ reports that at least 11 major companies are dumping law firms that struck deals with Trump’s obviously bogus executive orders targeting lawyers. Meanwhile, the firms that fought back keep winning in court and picking up the fleeing clients.
The message from corporate America shouldn’t require an expert at $1,000+ per hour to decipher: if you won’t fight for yourself against an obviously frivolous legal threat, why would anyone pay you to fight for them?
Support for the law firms that didn’t make deals has been growing inside the offices of corporate executives. At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving—or intend to give—more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions.
Among them are technology giantOracle, investment bankMorgan Stanley, an airline and a pharmaceutical company.Microsoftexpressed reservations about working with a firm that struck a deal, and another such firm stopped representingMcDonald’sin a case a few months before a scheduled trial.
In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump. The general counsel of a manufacturer of medical supplies said that if firms facing White House pressure “don’t have a hard line,” they don’t have any line at all.
When these law firm executive orders first came down, plenty of legal commentators called it a “no win situation.” Some argued that if you didn’t cave, clients would leave, because the firm would have a target on its back from the executive orders (and if those EOs were upheld, it would limit the ability of the law firms to do any business at all). But it looks like the reverse is true. The EOs are being tossed out easily, and the firms that fought them look like fighters.
The economics here are pretty straightforward. If you’re a general counsel, you have two main concerns about your outside lawyers: (1) Can they win? and (2) Can I trust them to fight for me when it matters? The firms that caved just answered both questions with a resounding “no.”
The firms that caved look just as weak and bad at their jobs as many of us expected.
Not long after Latham struck a deal in April, the firm’s chair, Richard Trobman, met with Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer, Eric Grossman, people familiar with the meeting said. Grossman heard him out about the firm’s reasoning for striking a deal and acknowledged that companies have to do what is best for themselves.
Soon after that meeting, Grossman and other Morgan Stanley lawyers communicated to law firms targeted by the White House that hadn’t signed deals that they were looking to give them new business, the people familiar with the meeting said.
[….]
The day after Paul Weiss struck its deal, female general counsels gathered for a conference in Washington. During a panel at the Women’s General Counsel Network event, a lawyer stood up and said her company had taken steps that morning to pull its business from Paul Weiss. The lawyer received thunderous applause.
[….]
In April, the general counsel of Microsoft, Jon Palmer, discussed with leaders of Latham his concerns about the deal the firm had struck, including how it could affect Latham’s ability to represent Microsoft, especially before the government, according to people familiar with the discussion.
On April 17, Microsoft put its concerns in writing, removing Latham from a list of about a dozen preferred firms that it has vetted to handle outside legal work, according to a document described to the Journal.
Here’s the thing about the biggest law firms: they’re essentially selling confidence. When you hire BigLaw at $1,000+ per hour, you’re not just buying legal expertise — you can often get that much cheaper. You’re buying the confidence that when things get really ugly, your lawyers will be the last people standing in the room.
These firms spectacularly failed that test. They faced a legal threat that was so obviously bogus that conservative judges keep laughing it out of court, and their response was immediate capitulation, with bizarre justifications about how this bending of the knee would somehow work. It’s like hiring a bodyguard who runs away at the first sign of trouble.
The market’s response makes perfect sense. If you’re Oracle or Microsoft, you have lawyers on speed dial because someday you’re going to face an existential legal threat — maybe antitrust, maybe a massive lawsuit, maybe regulatory overreach. When that day comes, do you want lawyers who fold under pressure, or lawyers who fight?
The firms that caved have answered that question for everyone to see. They’ve essentially put up a giant billboard saying “We Will Fold Under Pressure” and then acted surprised when clients started shopping elsewhere.
In an unprecedented 102-page ruling that methodically dismantles the Trump administration’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, Judge Beryl Howell has issued a permanent injunction that goes far beyond her initial temporary restraining order. The ruling represents a stark rebuke of what the court calls an “overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints” through the targeted destruction of a law firm that represented Trump’s political opponents.
The ruling excoriates not just the Trump administration’s unconstitutional overreach, but also delivers a withering critique of the law firms that chose to capitulate to similar threats. Drawing on sources from Shakespeare to the Founding Fathers, Judge Howell frames the order as part of a dangerous historical pattern of would-be autocrats targeting lawyers as a path to power:
No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VI, PART 2, act 4, sc. 2, l. 75. When Shakespeare’s character, a rebel leader intent on becoming king, see id. l. 74, hears this suggestion, he promptly incorporates this tactic as part of his plan to assume power, leading in the same scene to the rebel leader demanding “[a]way with him,” referring to an educated clerk, who “can make obligations and write court hand,” id. l. 90, 106. Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power. See Walters v. Nat’l Ass’n of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 371 n.24 (1985) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (explaining the import of the same Shakespearean statement to be “that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”).
The importance of independent lawyers to ensuring the American judicial system’s fair and impartial administration of justice has been recognized in this country since its founding era. In 1770, John Adams made the singularly unpopular decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder for their roles in the Boston Massacre and “claimed later to have suffered the loss of more than half his practice.” DAVID MCCULLOUGH, JOHN ADAMS 68 (2001). “I had no hesitation,” he explained, since “Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want in a free Country,” and “the Bar ought . . . to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance.” 3 DIARY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN ADAMS 293 (L.H. Butterfield et al. eds., 1961). When the Bill of Rights was ratified, these principles were codified into the Constitution: The Sixth Amendment secured the right, in “all criminal prosecutions,” to “have the Assistance of Counsel for . . . defence,” U.S. CONST. amend. VI, and the Fifth Amendment protected “the right to the aid of counsel when desired and provided by the party asserting the right,” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68 (1932). This value placed on the role of lawyers caught the attention of Alexis de Tocqueville, who in reflecting on his travels throughout the early United States in 1831 and 1832, insightfully remarked that “the authority . . . intrusted to members of the legal profession . . . is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy.” ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 301 (Henry Reeve trans., 2002) (1835).
Quoting Shakespeare, John Adams, and Alexis de Tocqueville all in the first two paragraphs? You can tell we’re in for quite a ride. But the key point is this: Trump is acting like a dictator, doing things he cannot be allowed to do:
The instant case presents an unprecedented attack on these foundational principles. On March 6, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14230 (“EO 14230”), 90 Fed. Reg. 11781 (Mar. 11, 2025), entitled “Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP.” By its terms, this Order stigmatizes and penalizes a particular law firm and its employees—from its partners to its associate attorneys, secretaries, and mailroom attendants—due to the Firm’s representation, both in the past and currently, of clients pursuing claims and taking positions with which the current President disagrees, as well as the Firm’s own speech. In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase “Let’s kill all the lawyers,” EO 14230 takes the approach of “Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,” sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.
At the end of this paragraph, there’s a footnote which calls out those law firms that capitulated, noting that this should scare clients away from using those law firms, as you can never believe that they’re not just aligned with the government’s interests over a client’s.
This message has been heard and heeded by some targeted law firms, as reflected in their choice, after reportedly direct dealings with the current White House, to agree to demand terms, perhaps viewing this choice as the best alternative for their clients and employees. Yet, some clients may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel, since at least the publicized deal terms appear only to forestall, rather than eliminate, the threat of being targeted in an Executive Order. As amici former and current general counsel caution, a “fundamental premise of the rule of law” is that “when parties challenge the government, their lawyers ‘oppose[] the designated representatives of the State,’ and ‘[t]he system assumes that adversarial testing will ultimately advance the public interest in truth and fairness.’ This safeguard against government overreach fails when attorneys cannot ‘advanc[e] the undivided interests of [their] client[s]’ for fear of reprisal from the government.”…
Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits, as was done in this case by plaintiff Perkins Coie LLP, plaintiff’s counsel Williams & Connolly, and the lawyers, firms, organizations, and individuals who submitted amicus briefs in this case. As one amicus aptly put it, “[o]ur judicial system is under serious threat when determining whether to file an Amicus Curiae brief could be a career ending decision. But, when lawyers are apprehensive about retribution simply for filing a brief adverse to the government, there is no other choice but to do so.”….If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.
This echoes what we wrote back in March. When the history books are written on this, those who capitulated will be remembered as pathetic cowards lacking the backbone to stand up for themselves against injustice.
Judge Howell then calls out just how unconstitutional this is, rightly pointing to two free speech cases that MAGA celebrated in the past two years when they came down: 303 Creative (the case about the fictional homophobic website designer) and Vullo (in which an elected official tried to coerce companies who worked with the NRA to stop doing business with them).
Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution, which requires that the government respond to dissenting or unpopular speech or ideas with “tolerance, not coercion.” 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570, 603 (2023). The Supreme Court has long made clear that “no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics . . . or other matters of opinion.” W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). Simply put, government officials “cannot . . . use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.” NRA v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 188 (2024).
This is smart, even if the MAGA faithful don’t care about their own hypocrisy. Judge Howell is putting an exclamation point on that hypocrisy by directly calling out how their stance is a complete 180 to what they claimed to celebrate from the Supreme Court in the last two years.
She’s both calling out their total lack of principles and signaling to the same Supreme Court that made those rulings that, to be consistent with them, they should come to the same conclusion: that these executive orders are both unconstitutional and unconscionable.
I won’t go through all the reasoning (it is a 102-page order, after all), I will call out a few key bits, starting with the Court calling out just how incompetent the DOJ’s filings in the case were:
Neither the government’s motion to dismiss itself or its proposed ordercites to any procedural rule as the basis for the requested dismissal, see Gov’t’s MTD; id., Proposed Order, ECF No. 43-2), and the government’s memorandum in support likewisecontains no clear statement of the procedural rulesrelied upon as to each claim, leaving the legal bases for the motion tothe Court to discern from vague headings used in the government’s memorandum or to tease outof the text of the same document, despite the critical differences in applicable standards depending on which rule is relied upon. Regardless of whether this reflects a strategy to “disguise[] the nature of its motion,” Pl.’s Opp’n at 5, plaintiff requests denial of any intended government cross-motion for summary judgment “for failure to comply with [D.D.C.] Local Rule 7(h)(1), which requires a statement of undisputed material facts supported by record citations,”
This is notable, if only to call out how almost all of the lawyers at the DOJ who know what the fuck they’re doing in court are either gone or sidelined from these cases. The lawyering from those left over is incompetent, and judges recognize that.
Also called out: the idea that the President can just claim something is “in the national interest” and that makes it unreviewable by a court. Not how it works:
When the government does not even claim that a general policy about security clearances was motivated by national security, judicial review of that policy could not threaten unduly entangling the judicial branch in questions of national security. Instead, the EO invokes “the national interest,” id., a concept seemingly far broader and more nebulous than threats to national security.When asked, government counsel was unable to define what exactly falls within the scope of “the national interest,”see, e.g., TRO Hr’g Tr. at 52:21-53:4, and the scope appears to be essentially unlimited, since disagreements about the benefits of diversity programs in hiring apparently qualify, see EO 14230 § 1, 90 Fed. Reg. at 11781 (stating that plaintiff’s alleged discrimination “represents good cause to conclude that they [should not] have access to our Nation’s secrets”); Gov’t’s Reply at 1 (complaining about plaintiff’s “aggressive DEI practices”).Finding any such government actions judicially unreviewable simply because the Executive branch invoked “the national interest” would represent a breathtaking expansion of executive powerat the expense of the constitutionally mandated role of the judicial branch and the concomitant safeguards for the individual rights of Americans.
Judge Howell is also paying attention to Trump bragging about how much money he’s getting from capitulating law firms for doing nothing wrong:
President Trump referred to these deals being cut with law firms, in a speech on April 8, 2025, stating: “Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump? $100 million, another $100 million, for damages that they’ve done. But they give you $100 million and then they announce, ‘We have done nothing wrong.’ And I agree, they’ve done nothing wrong. But what the hell, they’ve given me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong. And we’ll use some of those people, some of those great firms, and they are great firms too—they just had a bad moment.”….
The end result of all this is that a permanent injunction has been issued, which Trump is likely to appeal.
The U.S. Constitution affords critical protections against Executive action like that ordered in EO 14230. Government officials, including the President, may not “subject[] individuals to ‘retaliatory actions’ after the fact for having engaged in protected speech.” Hous. Cmty. Coll. Sys., 595 U.S. at 474 (quoting Nieves, 587 U.S. at 398). They may neither “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,” Vullo, 602 U.S. at 188, nor engage in the use of “purely personal and arbitrary power,” Yick Wo, 118 U.S. at 370. In this case, these and other foundational protections were violated by EO 14230. On that basis, this Court has found that EO 14230 violates the Constitution and is thus null and void. For the reasons explained, plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment and declaratory and permanent injunctive relief on Counts II through IX of the Amended Complaint. The government’s motion to dismiss is denied.
What makes this ruling particularly powerful is how Judge Howell deliberately frames it within recent Supreme Court precedents that Trump’s own supporters celebrated. By name-checking both 303 Creative and Vullo, the court makes it clear that those who cheered decisions protecting a website designer’s right to discriminate or defended the NRA against government coercion must now reckon with those same principles protecting law firms from presidential retaliation. While many will fall back on cognitive dissonance to ignore the contradictions, it will hopefully work on some (especially those at the Supreme Court).
The ruling also exposes, yet again, the institutional decay within the Justice Department, where competent career attorneys appear to have been sidelined in favor of those willing to advance legally incoherent arguments. When government lawyers can’t even properly cite procedural rules or define what constitutes “the national interest,” it signals a department that has abandoned legal principle for political compliance.
While this ruling alone won’t stop Trump’s campaign of lawless retribution, it creates a crucial judicial record documenting Trump’s continued weaponization of executive power to destroy those who challenge him. Judge Howell’s opinion doesn’t just reject Trump’s order — it methodically exposes it as part of a deliberate strategy to dismantle the rule of law itself. The question now is whether other courts — and the legal profession as a whole — will demonstrate similar courage in defending constitutional principles against authoritarian assault.
In what may be one of the most shameful displays of institutional cowardice we’ve seen, law firm Paul Weiss has completely capitulated to Donald Trump’s ridiculously unconstitutional executive order targeting the firm. This cave-in comes mere days after another targeted firm, Perkins Coie, successfully obtained a court order blocking an almost identical order. The contrast could not be more stark: one law firm stood up for basic constitutional principles, while another folded at the first sign of pressure.
Paul Weiss, a firm that has long touted its commitment to democratic principles, had multiple obvious paths to fight this blatantly unconstitutional order. They could have filed their own challenge or sought to join Perkins Coie’s successful case. Instead, they chose perhaps the worst possible option: complete surrender.
In short, they caved. They folded like a cheap suit. They made it clear that Paul Weiss not only won’t fight for its clients, it won’t fight for itself.
The announcement of the total and complete capitulation came via a post by Donald Trump on Truth Social:
The full text is insane. If I were a lawyer at Paul Weiss, I would be looking for another job, starting immediately. Everything about this is shameful.
Today, President Donald J. Trump agreed to withdraw his March 14, 2025 Executive Order regarding the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP law firm (“Paul, Weiss”), which has entered into the following agreement with the President: 1. Paul, Weiss agrees that the bedrock principle of American Justice is that it must be fair and nonpartisan for all. Our Justice System is betrayed when it is misused to achieve political ends.
Lawyers and law firms play a vital role in ensuring that we live up to that standard as a Nation. Law firms should not favor any political party when it comes to choosing their clients. Firms also should not make decisions on whom to hire based on a person’s political affiliation. To do otherwise is to deny some Americans an equal opportunity for our services while favoring others.
Lawyers abandon the profession’s highest ideals when they engage in partisan decision-making, and betray the ethical obligation to represent those who are unpopular or disfavored in a particular environment.
2. Paul, Weiss affirms its unwavering commitment to these core ideals and principles, and will not deny representation to clients, including in pro bono matters and in support of non-profits, because of the personal political views of individual lawyers.
3. Paul, Weiss will take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society, whether “conservative” or “liberal.”
4. Paul, Weiss affirms its commitment to merit-based hiring, promotion, and retention, and will not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies. As part of its commitment, it will engage experts, to be mutually agreed upon within 14 days, to conduct a comprehensive audit of all of its employment practices.
5. Paul, Weiss will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump’s term to support the Administration’s initiatives, including: assisting our Nation’s veterans, fairness in the Justice System, the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.
Statement from the White House: “The President is agreeing to this action in light of a meeting with Paul, Weiss Chairman, Brad Karp, during which Mr. Karp acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul, Weiss partner, Mark Pomerantz, the grave dangers of Weaponization, and the vital need to restore our System of Justice.”
In response to the President’s announcement, Paul, Weiss’s Chairman Brad Karp said: “We are gratified that the President has agreed to withdraw the Executive Order concerning Paul, Weiss. We look forward to an engaged and constructive relationship with the President and his Administration.”
Yes, the executive order was a potential existential threat to the existence of Paul Weiss, but that’s why you fight it, rather than cave. Everything about this decision is ridiculous and puts anything that Paul Weiss does from here on out at an incredibly suspect level.
The pro bono requirements in this agreement are perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this capitulation. Trump’s original executive order bizarrely attacked Paul Weiss’s pro bono work as harmful, claiming it somehow deprived others of access to justice:
Additionally, they have sometimes done so on behalf of clients, pro bono, or ostensibly “for the public good” — potentially depriving those who cannot otherwise afford the benefit of top legal talent the access to justice deserved by all. My Administration will no longer support taxpayer funds sponsoring such harm
This Orwellian logic — that providing free legal services somehow reduces access to justice — is incredibly dangerous. But rather than challenge this absurd reasoning, Paul Weiss has now agreed to redirect $40 million worth of pro bono work specifically “to support the Administration’s initiatives.” In other words, they’ve agreed to let the government dictate how they allocate their charitable legal services.
This is nothing less than government compelled speech – a textbook First Amendment violation. The government is explicitly forcing a private entity to dedicate resources to supporting specific political initiatives. That a major law firm would accept such an obviously unconstitutional demand, rather than challenge it as Perkins Coie did, represents a complete abdication of their professional responsibilities.
The agreement’s Orwellian doublespeak only compounds the offense. While claiming to prevent “partisan decision-making,” it literally requires the firm to engage in partisan pro bono work supporting specific administration initiatives. And everyone (including the firm’s current and potential clients) knows exactly what happened here.
And, even if their earlier work was “partisan” (it wasn’t really, the firm worked for Fox News!), being partisan is core political speech and association rights protected by the First Amendment. The attack on that violates the First Amendment.
The silence from those who previously claimed that mere suggestions from the Biden administration to social media companies constituted First Amendment violations is deafening. Here we have explicit government compulsion of speech and association rights, backed by threats of economic destruction, yet these supposed defenders of the First Amendment are nowhere to be found.
This capitulation, even more than the original unconstitutional order, should mark the end of Paul Weiss as we know it. A law firm that won’t even defend its own constitutional rights cannot be trusted to defend anyone else’s. Any current Paul Weiss attorney with an ounce of professional integrity should be updating their resume — not just because of the shame of this surrender, but because the firm has demonstrated it will abandon principle at the first sign of serious pressure.
History has shown repeatedly that appeasing authoritarianism only invites more aggressive demands. The MAGA movement’s pattern of escalating bullying after each successful intimidation is well documented. Paul Weiss’s surrender, especially after watching Perkins Coie successfully obtain an immediate restraining order against an identical threat, signals to every would-be autocrat that even our most powerful legal institutions can be cowed through raw intimidation.
And, as if to immediately prove that capitulating won’t lead Trump to stop the bullying, soon after the surrender was announced, the NY Times revealed that despite Paul Weiss’ chairman, the powerful Brad Karp, spending days working out the exact wording of the “agreement” with Trump people, the statement that Trump posted? Wasn’t what they agreed to. Trump simply added in all that nonsense about DEI.
According to two people familiar with the matter, the White House and Mr. Karp had reached an agreement on the wording of the statement. But despite that agreement, the wording of the statement changed, including a reference to the fact that the firm would “not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies.”
Trump altered the deal. And everyone has to know he may alter it further.
The damage here goes far beyond one law firm’s reputation. Paul Weiss has just helped normalize government compelled speech and association, while providing a blueprint for future attacks on the independence of the legal profession. Any lawyer who remains at the firm after this isn’t just accepting a resume stain — they’re becoming complicit in the steady erosion of core constitutional principles that the legal profession is supposed to defend.
It took exactly three days for Trump to prove that Judge Beryl Howell’s “Alice in Wonderland” comparison wasn’t just apt, but prescient. After the judge blocked his executive order attempting to destroy Perkins Coie for representing his political opponents, Trump has now issued an almost identical order targeting another major law firm, Paul Weiss. Because when you’re living in Wonderland, why stop at just one “off with their heads”?
Last week’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie represented an unprecedented abuse of executive power to punish lawyers for representing political opponents. The court’s swift rejection made clear just how far beyond constitutional bounds Trump had stepped. But rather than accept those bounds, Trump has decided to test just how many law firms he can threaten before someone stops him.
The targeting of Paul Weiss isn’t just another swing at Trump’s enemies list — it’s a calculated escalation. Like Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss is a large, well-known law firm, representing a long list of major companies, handling all sorts of corporate law issues, from mergers and acquisitions to cybersecurity. But Trump’s new executive order makes it crystal clear that the firm’s real crime was daring to challenge his actions.
The executive order reads like a confession of unconstitutional retaliation, explicitly laying out two “crimes” that… are not crimes. Or even unethical or problematic things. It’s just doing regular law work that just so happened to target Donald Trump and his violent supporters.
First, a Paul Weiss partner dared to represent the DC Attorney General in litigation over January 6th:
In 2021, a Paul Weiss partner and former leading prosecutor in the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought a pro bono suit against individuals alleged to have participated in the events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, on behalf of the District of Columbia Attorney General.
And second — perhaps even more telling — the firm hired someone who tried to hold Trump accountable while serving as a prosecutor:
In 2022, Paul Weiss hired unethical attorney Mark Pomerantz, who had previously left Paul Weiss to join the Manhattan District Attorney’s office solely to manufacture a prosecution against me and who, according to his co-workers, unethically led witnesses in ways designed to implicate me. After being unable to convince even Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that a fraud case was feasible, Pomerantz engaged in a media campaign to gin up support for this unwarranted prosecution.
That’s it. That’s the justification for trying to destroy one of America’s premier law firms — they represented clients Trump didn’t like and hired someone who investigated him. The nakedness of this retaliation should be terrifying. Trump isn’t even bothering with the usual pretense of national security or public interest — he’s essentially declaring that investigating or opposing him legally is grounds for destruction.
The executive order also mentions some nonsense about DEI, which is just Trump continuing to pretend that that shit matters to anyone, but also reinforces just how unconstitutional all of this is.
The mechanisms of destruction in this order are identical to those used against Perkins Coie — and just as constitutionally grotesque. First, it weaponizes federal contracts: any company doing business with the government (which includes most major tech companies and countless others) must now effectively choose between keeping Paul Weiss as counsel or keeping their government contracts. It’s economic assassination dressed up as executive action.
But the most chilling provision might be the one about federal buildings. As with the Perkins Coie order, the order allows the government to bar any Paul Weiss lawyer from entering any federal building if officials decide their presence would be “inconsistent with the interests of the United States.” Think about what that means: they could be blocked from entering federal courthouses to represent their clients. While the DOJ suggested that kind of result would be “unlikely” in the hearing over Perkins Coie, it didn’t deny that the order could be used that way.
This needs to be called out for what it is: a president is literally trying to physically prevent lawyers from doing their jobs because they represented the “wrong” clients or hired the “wrong” people.
There’s no pretense of due process. No actual allegations of wrongdoing. Just naked retaliation against lawyers for doing lawyer things — representing clients in court and hiring experienced prosecutors. The fact that Trump is doubling down on this strategy mere days after a federal judge called the same exact thing unconstitutional shows exactly how far his administration is willing to go to destroy any mechanism of accountability.
The silence from self-proclaimed defenders of limited government is deafening. The same voices that spent years spinning conspiracy theories about the Biden administration’s supposed “weaponization” of executive power through “lawfare,” are mysteriously quiet when faced with actual, documented attempts to destroy law firms for representing the “wrong” clients.
This goes far beyond partisan hypocrisy. What we’re witnessing is the methodical dismantling of the legal profession’s ability to challenge executive power. Today it’s firms that represented Democrats or investigated Trump. Tomorrow it could be anyone who challenges or pushes back on what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing. This is a direct assault on any attempt to hold this administration accountable.
When a president can simply declare “off with their heads” to any law firm that dares to represent opposition, we’ve moved well past constitutional crisis into genuine authoritarianism.
The courts blocked the first attempt. Now they’ll need to block this one too. But the real question is: how many more law firms will Trump target before either Congress or the courts put a permanent stop to this abuse of power? And how many firms will think twice about representing the next client challenging executive overreach?
Trump isn’t just acting like a mad king — he’s become one, complete with his “off with their heads” declarations against any who dare challenge him. His supporters in Congress can no longer pretend otherwise. The only question left is whether they’ll help him destroy everything or finally use their authority to stop him.
When a president uses executive power to not just blacklist but effectively destroy a major law firm, solely for representing political opponents, it means he’s given up any pretense that he’s not an authoritarian hellbent on destroying anyone who opposes him through any means necessary. Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie isn’t just an attack on one firm — it’s a blueprint for how authoritarian leaders can grossly abuse government power to chill speech and discourage legal challenges to a vast campaign of abuses of their authority.
There are so many things happening with the current ruling junta that it’s impossible to cover all the craziness. But some moments stand out as so far outside the normal realm of things that they need to be described plainly. Donald Trump’s executive order about the law firm Perkins Coie is one of those things. Even if you are a true believer in the MAGA movement, this is one of those things that should cause you to question how much Trump is focused on punishing his perceived enemies, rather than leading the country.
Perkins Coie represents a who’s who of major tech (and other) companies, handles crucial cybersecurity work requiring security clearances, and yes, sometimes represents Democratic politicians and causes. That last bit — a small fraction of their overall practice — is apparently enough for Trump to try to destroy them. The firm’s thousand-plus lawyers handle everything from patent litigation to privacy compliance to national security matters. But none of that matters to an administration focused solely on punishing perceived enemies.
This isn’t just about politics — it’s about whether a president can use executive power to cut off legal representation for any entity that opposes him. Today it’s a firm that represented Democrats. Tomorrow it could be lawyers representing tech companies challenging government surveillance, or defending platforms’ content moderation rights, or fighting against political pressure to unmask anonymous users.
The executive order itself reads like a political hit piece rather than a legitimate exercise of presidential power. And while executive orders have increasingly been used by presidents to push policy agendas without Congress, they’re at least supposed to maintain a veneer of legitimate government purpose. Even Trump’s previous controversial orders attempted (however poorly) to make them look like they were about national security or somehow in the public interest.
But this order barely even pretends. It mentions national security, but with no actual explanation, and it’s clearly there as a fig leaf. This order is nakedly using executive power to punish political opponents — exactly the kind of abuse that critics of executive orders have warned about in the past.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, “Mr. President we are a nation of laws & we are supposed to follow our #Constitution. You do not get to ‘act alone.'”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “Over and over again this president has disregarded the law, has disregarded the Constitution and has asserted presidential power that simply doesn’t exist and that ought to worry regardless of whether you agree with his policies or not.”
Of course, those were about relatively mild executive orders from President Obama. Where are Senators Paul and Cruz regarding Trump’s abuse of executive orders?
The order’s text reads like a Trump campaign speech. Rather than even attempting to articulate a legitimate government purpose, it launches directly into partisan grievances:
The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP (“Perkins Coie”) has affected this country for decades. Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false “dossier” designed to steal an election. This egregious activity is part of a pattern. Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws, including those requiring voter identification.
This is a president using the power of his office to punish lawyers for representing clients he doesn’t like. If that doesn’t terrify you, imagine how this precedent could be used against any law firm that helps fight government overreach. Imagine what it means for firms considering whether to help challenge unconstitutional surveillance programs, or defend whistleblowers, or protect platforms’ rights to moderate content as they see fit.
The order doesn’t just attack Perkins Coie for representing Democrats — it explicitly attacks them for challenging laws in court. Think about that: the White House is using executive power to punish lawyers for filing legitimate court challenges to potentially unconstitutional laws. That’s not just an attack on free speech — it’s an attack on the very concept of constitutional checks and balances.
The order’s punitive measures are carefully crafted to effectively destroy the firm’s ability to operate. First, it effectively strips security clearances from everyone at Perkins Coie — a move that doesn’t just impact their political work, but devastates their ability to handle cybersecurity matters, represent defense contractors, or work on sensitive tech policy issues. This isn’t collateral damage — it’s a deliberate attempt to cut off the firm’s ability to represent clients in some of their core practice areas.
Even more dangerous is the contractor ban. Any company with a federal contract — which includes most major tech companies and countless smaller ones — must now “disclose any business they do with Perkins Coie.” This creates an impossible choice for these companies: either cut ties with a trusted legal advisor or risk their government contracts. It’s a move straight out of an authoritarian playbook — using government contracts as leverage to force private companies to blacklist political enemies.
But perhaps the most chilling aspect of the order is its attempt to bar Perkins Coie personnel from “federal government buildings.” The language is deliberately broad and vague:
The heads of all agencies shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide guidancelimiting official access from Federal Government buildings to employees of Perkins Coiewhen such access would threaten the national security of or otherwisebe inconsistent with the interests of the United States.
Let’s be crystal clear about what this means: federal government buildings include courthouses. This order could be used to physically prevent Perkins Coie lawyers from entering federal courts to represent their clients. It’s a direct assault on the fundamental right to legal representation and due process.
Think about the precedent this sets. A president who doesn’t like how a law firm is defending anyone against government overreach could simply bar that firm from federal buildings. Don’t like how lawyers are challenging surveillance programs? Ban them from the courthouse. Fighting too hard against government attempts to weaken encryption? Sorry, you’re now a “national security threat.”
This order shows exactly how far he’s willing to go to silence legal opposition to his agenda.
The order’s chilling effects were immediate and exactly as intended. Just days after Trump declared he had “brought free speech back to the White House,” major law firms are already self-censoring out of fear:
In private conversations, partners at some of the nation’s leading firms have expressed outrage at the president’s actions. What they haven’t been willing to do is say so publicly. Back-channel efforts to persuade major law firms to sign public statements criticizing Trump’s actions thus far have foundered, in part because of retaliation fears, people familiar with the matter said.
Advocacy groups and smaller law firms say it has been more difficult to recruit larger firms to help with cases against Trump, which now number more than 100.
This isn’t just about silencing criticism. It’s about cutting off access to legal representation for anyone challenging government power. And Trump made it explicit over the weekend — this is just the beginning:
Anyone wondering whether law firms might face similar threats or actions didn’t have long to find out. In an interview on Sunday morning, Trump suggested to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News that he isn’t done yet. “We have a lot of law firms that we’re going to be going after, because they were very dishonest people,” he said. “It was so bad for our country.”
That Williams & Connolly has stepped up to represent Perkins Coie is both admirable and telling. As the NY Times reports, many feared no major firm would risk Trump’s wrath:
There were concerns in the legal community that no firm would step forward to represent Perkins Coie. But now Mr. Trump’s Justice Department will be forced to face off against some of the top litigators in the country to defend what legal experts consider one of his most direct attacks on his perceived enemies, and the American legal system.
This is the reality of Trump’s America: law firms must now weigh whether defending basic constitutional rights is worth risking their own destruction. And while it’s easy to get numb to the daily assaults on democratic norms, this attack on the legal profession represents something fundamentally different and more dangerous.
This isn’t just about Perkins Coie or partisan politics. It’s about whether anyone will be able to find lawyers willing to challenge government overreach. It’s about whether tech companies can defend their rights to moderate content or protect user privacy. It’s about whether anyone will dare to represent whistleblowers or privacy advocates or civil rights organizations when the government comes calling.
Even those who supported Trump’s previous attacks on those he hates should recognize this for what it is: a blueprint for using government power to silence any effective opposition to authoritarianism. Today it’s lawyers who represented Democrats. Tomorrow it could be anyone who dares to stand up for individual rights against government power.
Over a decade ago, we wrote about how the flurry of trademark lawsuits seen at that time over competitors buying up Google Adwords to get their company ads displayed when competitors are searched might finally be coming to an end. While these types of suits have certainly reduced in number based on anecdotal evidence, they have not disappeared entirely. And they make no more sense today than they did a decade ago.
Buying an Adword that would cause a prospective buyer to search for a direct competitor isn’t trademark infringement except in the rare cases where the ads are constructed such that actual substantial customer confusion occurs. Otherwise, it’s not different than ads and coupons in retail stores appearing next to a competing product. Because, you know, that’s where the potential customer is. If I go down the aisle looking for Oreos and next to them is a coupon for Chips Ahoy, that isn’t infringement. Buying Google Adwords for competitor’s search terms is no different.
You would think law firms of all groups would know this sort of thing. One national law firm, Lerner & Rowe, appears to need several court-taught lessons on the matter. They brought one of these suits against a competitor in Arizona, the Accident Law Group (ALG), lost, and then lost again on appeal recently.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld, opens new tab a lower court’s ruling that granted a bid by the Arizona firm, the Accident Law Group, for summary judgment in the trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Lerner & Rowe over ALG’s ads that appeared on Lerner & Rowe’s Google search results. Lerner & Rowe had accused ALG of attaching ads for its firm to search terms or “keywords” associated with Lerner & Rowe and siphoning off potential clients.
The appeals court said that despite Lerner & Rowe’s “strong” trademark and its expenditure of more than $100 million on marketing in Arizona, data from Google and ALG showed that only a tiny fraction of people who called ALG about potential legal representation mentioned Lerner & Rowe and therefore may have been confused.
As the court went on to note in its analysis, that’s likely because ALG didn’t actually engage in anything deceptive beyond buying the Adwords. The ads it displayed made it plain that the ad was for ALG and not Lerner & Rowe. The two firms’ branding is otherwise not confusing. There’s just nothing here, other than the Adword buy itself.
Which is why the number of people who even cited Lerner & Rowe to ALG is so tiny.
In 2023, U.S. District Judge David Campbell granted ALG’s bid for summary judgment, in part relying on data from ALG’s intake department, which said it received a little more than 200 phone calls from people who specifically mentioned “Lerner & Rowe.” In contrast, ALG’s ads appeared on “Lerner & Rowe” searches more than 109,000 times between 2017 and 2021, Campbell said.
The appeals court on Tuesday said that the district court was correct to conclude that the case was “one of the rare trademark infringement cases susceptible to summary judgment.
While this shouldn’t be surprising any longer, it is nice to note when the courts get these sorts of trademark questions correct.
As most of you will readily recall, last summer there was quite a lot of attention paid to a case involving a lawyer who had submitted a brief in a personal injury case that had a whole bunch of made up case citations. After this was brought to the attention of the judge, the lawyer on the case admitted that (1) he hadn’t actually done the work, but rather it was another lawyer at his firm who did all the work, and (2) that lawyer had stupidly relied on ChatGPT for his research and hadn’t done the most basic thing to check whether or not the cases were real. This was dumb for oh so many reasons, including that you’re supposed to check case citations against later rulings to make sure the cases you’re citing were still valid.
That whole mess resulted in a $5k fine for the lawyers, as well as a lifetime of embarrassment.
But, on the plus side, hopefully the widespread news coverage of the story would get lawyers to never, ever do that again, right?
Ah, well, silly me. Of course it’s happened again, and this time the culprit is former Trump fixer-turned-Trump accuser (and convicted criminal) lawyer Michael Cohen. There were some shenanigans in his situation over the last few weeks, in which he initially sought early termination of his probation.
Over the last few months, there has been a lot of back and forth on the docket over that motion, and in early December, Cohen switched his own lawyers, as lawyer Danya Perry took over from earlier lawyer David Schwartz. A few days later, Perry filed a letter in support of Cohen’s motion for early termination, and noted in passing that the most recent motion (a week and a half earlier, filed by Schwartz) mentioned some cases that Perry was unable to locate. The following was put in a footnote connected to a paragraph naming a bunch of cases:
Such rulings rarely result in reported decisions. While several cases were cited in the initial Motion filed by different counsel, undersigned counsel was not engaged at that time and must inform the Court that it has been unable to verify those citations.
That footnote appeared to catch Judge Jesse Furman’s attention, and he quickly issued an order to show cause (OSC) to explain all of this:
On November 29, 2023, David M. Schwartz, counsel of record for Defendant Michael Cohen, filed a motion for early termination of supervised release. See ECF No. 88. In the letter brief, Mr. Cohen asserts that, “[a]s recently as 2022, there have been District Court decisions, affirmed by the Second Circuit Court, granting early termination of supervised release.” Id. at 2. He then cites and describes “three such examples”: United States v. Figueroa-Florez, 64 F.4th 223 (2d Cir. 2022); United States v. Ortiz (No. 21-3391), 2022 WL 4424741 (2d Cir. Oct. 11, 2022); and United States v. Amato, 2022 WL 1669877 (2d Cir. May 10, 2022). Id. at 2-3.
As far as the Court can tell, none of these cases exist.1 64 F.4th 223 refers to a page in the middle of a Fourth Circuit decision that has nothing to do with supervised release. See United States v. Drake, 64 F.4th 220 (4th Cir. 2023). 2022 WL 1669877 corresponds to a decision of the Board of Veterans Appeals. See (Title Redacted by Agency), Bd. Vet. App. A22004268, 2022 WL 1669877 (Mar. 11, 2022). 2022 WL 4424741 appears to correspond to nothing at all. Moreover, the Court contacted the Clerk of the Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who found no record of any of the three decisions and reported that the one listed docket number (for Ortiz) is not a valid docket number.
In light of the foregoing, Mr. Schwartz shall, no later than December 19, 2023, provide copies of the three cited decisions to the Court. If he is unable to do so, Mr. Schwartz shall, by the same date, show cause in writing why he should not be sanctioned pursuant to (1) Rule 11(b)(2) & (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, (2) 28 U.S.C. § 1927, and (3) the inherent power of the Court for citing non-existent cases to the Court. See, e.g., Mata v. Avianca, Inc., No. 22-CV-1461 (PKC), 2023 WL 4114965 (S.D.N.Y. June 22, 2023). Any such submission shall take the form of a sworn declaration and shall provide, among other things, a thorough explanation of how the motion came to cite cases that do not exist and what role, if any, Mr. Cohen played in drafting or reviewing the motion before it was filed.
There’s so much craziness to come that I’ll just breezily mention how insane it is that it was Cohen’s own (new) lawyer, and then the judge, who started exploring this and not the DOJ, but… let’s move on.
At this point, there was plenty of speculation that we had another ChatGPT lawyer situation on our hands, but I held off reporting on this until we got more details. And, as each new detail came out, things got dumber.
A few days later there was another order from Judge Furman (who, in the past, has shown that he has little patience for lawyers playing games), saying that Cohen’s previous lawyer, David Schwartz, had not just lawyered up but had requested that his response to the OSC be sealed, noting that it might implicate attorney-client privilege:
On December 15, 2023, Schwartz — through counsel of his own — filed a response to the Court’s Order to Show Cause accompanied by a letter-motion to seal his response. In the letter-motion, counsel opine that Schwartz’s response to the Order to Show Cause “implicates the confidentiality of the attorney-client privilege,” but that, “under the unique circumstances present here,” the New York Rules of Professional Conduct permit — indeed, require — disclosure of those communications to the Court. The letter-motion requests that Schwartz’s submission be maintained under seal “until” the Court resolves “whether Mr. Schwartz can reveal the information stated in his affirmation without violating the attorney-client privilege.”
This resulted in even more speculation, as it certainly seemed to suggest that Cohen had sent him the made up case citations, and thus revealing the details of how he got them would disclose confidential attorney-client communications.
Judge Furman let Schwartz seal “on a temporary basis.” On December 28th, the sealed filing was made, and on the 29th Judge Furman said that Cohen had granted to unseal the response.
There are a few different things in the unsealed filings worth highlighting. First, there’s a declaration from Cohen’s former lawyer David Schwartz, in which hs basically throws Cohen’s new lawyer, Danya Perry under the bus:
In preparing the current submission, on November 12, 2023, I sent Mr. Cohen a draft of my proposed letter to the Court. Notably, my original draft letter did not cite any cases. It was never my intention to cite any cases as I felt that the application was strong enough, based on all the facts and circumstances. The original draft letter sent to Mr. Cohen was dated May 30, 2023 (Exhibit B)
It was apparent and clear to me that E. Danya Perry, counsel for Mr. Cohen in prior proceedings1 , reviewed my original draft letter, dated May 30, 2023. Ms. Perry, a renowned and skilled trial lawyer, is the Founding Partner at Perry Law. She is a recognized white collar criminal defense attorney and commercial litigator who has represented various corporations and individuals in high-profile matters. Notably, she is a former Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District and served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.
On November 12, 2023, Michael Cohen sent me a redlined draft of the letter, ostensibly prepared by Ms. Perry. It contained comments and, specifically, a suggestion that “you should have a few in-district court cases where judge granted early termination.” The comments were labeled “DP”, which I believed were attributed to Danya Perry. (Exhibit C)
In Exhibit “c” we see the suggestions:
Schwartz also says that Cohen says these edits were “sent to me from Danya.”
A few days later, after Schwartz made the changes Perry had suggested, but had not added any citations, he received emails from Cohen with citations:
On November 25, 2023, my office received three emails from Mr. Cohen with the three cases in question plus summaries of the cases. (Exhibit E) As Mr. Cohen had previously forwarded Ms. Perry’s edits of the draft letter, and as Ms. Peny had suggested that case law be added to the letter, I believed that Mr. Cohen was now sending me cases that had been found by Ms. Perry. Prior to receiving these emails, Mr. Cohen communicated to me that cases would be provided by Ms. Perry.
Admittedly, because of Ms. Perry’s reputation, I relied on her skills as an attorney and as someone who had been working with me in preparing this submission; as a result, I did not independently review the cases.
I failed to review what I thought was the research of another attorney.
I never contemplated that the cases cited were “non-existent.”
In the exhibits it shows the emails from Cohen, which are actually forward from what appears to be Michael Cohen’s wife’s email account. There are three emails, each with a different citations. Here is just the first one:
Schwartz then notes that after the OSC was issued, he reached out to Perry’s law firm, telling them he thought Perry had found the citations, and was told that Cohen had found them via Google:
After I was served with the Show Cause Order on December 12, 2023, I spoke with Lilian M. Timmerman, a Partner at Perry Law. After I explained to her that I believed that her office had “found” the cases in question, she told me that Mr. Cohen had admitted to them that he had found the cases on Google.
If I had believed that Mr. Cohen had found these cases, I would have researched them. It was my belief, however, that Mr. Cohen had sent me cases found by Ms. Perry.
Perry then filed a response, effectively saying “well, wasn’t this all a big misunderstanding, ha ha ha” while noting that Cohen had no responsibility to investigate the reality of the case citations he had found — but also throwing Schwartz under the bus himself, noting it really should have been his responsibility to check the cases:
Mr. Schwartz’s recollection of the events is largely consistent with Mr. Cohen’s. While this response provides a few clarifications, we believe the Court could well find them to be immaterial. To summarize: Mr. Cohen provided Mr. Schwartz with citations (and case summaries) he had found online and believed to be real. Mr. Schwartz added them to the motion but failed to check those citations or summaries. As a result, Mr. Schwartz mistakenly filed a motion with three citations that—unbeknownst to either Mr. Schwartz or Mr. Cohen at the time—referred to nonexistent cases. Upon later appearing in the case and reviewing the previously-filed motion, I discovered the problem and, in Mr. Cohen’s reply letter supporting that motion, I alerted the Court to likely issues with Mr. Schwartz’s citations and provided (real) replacement citations supporting the very same proposition. ECF No. 95 at 3. To be clear, Mr. Cohen did not know that the cases he identified were not real and, unlike his attorney, had no obligation to confirm as much. While there has been no implication to the contrary, it must be emphasized that Mr. Cohen did not engage in any misconduct.
Hilariously, in a footnote, Perry notes that Cohen also sent an actual real citation that was relevant… but that Schwartz didn’t include that one in the filing.
And here, finally, we find out where Cohen convinced an AI to dream up these results. It wasn’t ChatGPT like that earlier case, but rather in Google’s Bard, which has recently expanded to provide AI-generated responses to search terms directly in search:
The invalid citations at issue—and many others that Mr. Cohen found but were not used in the motion—were produced by Google Bard, which Mr. Cohen misunderstood to be a supercharged search engine, not a generative AI service like Chat-GPT. Cohen Decl. ¶ 20. Mr. Cohen had used Google Bard to successfully identify accurate information in other contexts before and did not appreciate its unreliability as a tool for legal research. Id. Like most lay clients, Mr. Cohen does not have access to Westlaw or other standard legal research tools to verify any citations he finds online. Id. Instead, he trusted his attorney to verify them on his behalf. Id.
Mr. Cohen is not a practicing attorney and has no concept of the risks of using AI services for legal research (Cohen Decl. ¶ 20)—nor does he have an ethical obligation to verify the accuracy of his research. Mr. Schwartz, conversely, did have an obligation to verify the legal representations being made in a motion he filed. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11; Rules of Professional Conduct (22 NYCRR 1200.0) Rule 1.1. Unfortunately, Mr. Schwartz did not fulfill that obligation—as he was quick to admit, to his credit. Schwartz Decl. ¶¶ 21–22.
Mr. Cohen sent Mr. Schwartz and his paralegal the citations and summaries on November 25. Cohen Decl. ¶ 15; Schwartz Ex. E. Mr. Schwartz and his team then added the citations and descriptions to the motion, went through several additional rounds of revisions (in which Mr. Schwartz was actively involved), and then filed the motion at Mr. Schwartz’s direction. See Cohen Decl. ¶ 21. As Mr. Cohen’s attorney and fiduciary, Mr. Schwartz had final sign-off on the submission and its content. Cohen Decl. ¶ 11. Unbeknownst to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Schwartz signed off on the motion without having ever checked the citations it contained. Cohen Decl. ¶ 22; Schwartz Decl. ¶¶ 21–22. In summary, Mr. Schwartz’s inclusion of the invalid citations was a mistake driven by sloppiness, not malicious intent.
Perry then also further drives the knife into Schwartz:
Also unbeknownst to Mr. Cohen, this is not the first instance in which Mr. Schwartz has been less than meticulous about the accuracy of his citations. In his May 2023 letter to the Court— long before he could have believed that I had any background involvement—Mr. Schwartz (somewhat oddly) offered characterizations about the Seventh Circuit’s approach to terminating supervised release claiming his account was “per a published opinion of the 7th circuit dealing with supervised release.” ECF No. 84 at 2. In reality, Mr. Schwartz simply cited a blogpost—not a “published opinion” at all—which itself is thinly sourced and appears to overstate the rigidity of Seventh Circuit law. For example, the motion and blogpost both claim that “five purposes of supervision” are used to indicate satisfactory completion of supervised release’s “decompression stage” but the undersigned has been unable to locate a discrete case substantiating that rigid framework in which the five purposes become “factors that mark [the completion of] this decompression state and satisfy that requirement [of completing a decompression state postprison].” Id. (citing PCR Consultants, “Federal Supervised Release is not Punishment,” https://pcrconsultants.com/federal-supervised-release-is-not-punishment/).
Further, even a quick read of the non-existent cases at issue here should have raised an eyebrow. For example, one of the citations purported to have a 2021 docket number, yet also purported to describe a matter in which a defendant had served a 120-month sentence before being placed on supervised release, the early termination of which had purportedly been affirmed by the Second Circuit—a chronological impossibility on its face. Had Mr. Schwartz skimmed that citation before submitting it to the Court, he might have noticed something awry.
That filing also includes Cohen’s own declaration which itself has some fun tidbits:
I must rely on my attorneys in this matter because I was disbarred nearly five years ago…
The declaration also serves to throw Schwartz under the bus, saying that he “trusted that Mr. Schwartz would pursue and incorporate my ideas to the extent he thought they were appropriate…” but that “as my fiduciary, Mr. Schwartz had final sign-off on each of those submissions.”
He details how he found those case citations:
Specifically, the citations and descriptions came from Google Bard. As a non-lawyer, I have not kept up with emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology and did not realize that Google Bard was a generative text service that, like Chat-GPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not. Instead, I understood it to be a super-charged search engine and had used it in other contexts to (successfully) find accurate information online. I did not know that Google Bard could generate non-existent cases, nor did I have access to Westlaw or other standard resources for confirming the details of cases. Instead, I trusted Mr. Schwartz and his team to vet my suggested additions before incorporating them.
The thing is… this is bullshit. For federal cases, you don’t actually need Westlaw to confirm their existence. But… whatever.
I work in a law office in which Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis are readily available. I would never, and certainly did not, use any type of Artificial Intelligence tool to draft my motion papers on behalf of Mr. Cohen (nor would I do so for any other client). In fact, after reading Mr. Cohen’s declaration, I found out for the first time that he used Google Bard to find those cases. I can assure the Court that I had never heard of this program and our attorneys only use Westlaw or Lexis/Nexis for their legal research.
I realize I made a serious error when I trust Mr. Cohen to be the conduit between myself and his other attorney, Ms. Perry.
Then he goes on to explain why he believed the citations came from Perry, pointing out that Cohen had given Perry a copy of Schwartz’s original draft, and sent back comments and a redline from her.
And, the key point, Schwartz now claims that Cohen told him over the phone that Perry would provide citations:
After receiving the redline changes from Ms. Perry, through Mr. Cohen, I spoke with Mr. Cohen via telephone, as I did frequently. On those calls, he reiterated to me that Ms. Perry “would be” providing the cases. I was in error in failing to communicate with Ms. Perry to confirm this.
In other words, Schwartz is arguing that his real mistake was not talking directly to Perry, but letting Cohen be his main communication source. He also later claims that Cohen screwed up other communications as well, including telling Perry not to alert Schwartz about the false citations, saying that he (Cohen) would tell Schwartz himself, but did not.
I understand that when asked by my attorneys why she failed to alert me about the fictitious citations before notifying the Court, Ms. Perry told them that she was going to contact me, but Mr. Cohen wanted to notify me himself. Ms. Perry apparently relied on Mr. Cohen to do that. But Mr. Cohen did not notify me about the citation issue. If Ms. Perry had notified me, instead of using Mr. Cohen as a conduit, I would certainly have withdrawn these citations immediately.
In other words “many mistakes were made, and there’s a lot of blame to go around here.”
Unfortunately, it appears to me that when Mr. Cohen submitted cases to me, he was submitting them to his friend of many years and neglected to focus on the fact that I am an officer of the court. The lines here were clearly blurred between friendship and attorney/client.
I mean, it seems like that’s accurate representation of what happened, but still, if you’re a lawyer filing documents with a court, you still kinda gotta do the underlying work.
