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Trials & Litigation

After US prosecutors mistakenly file confidential memo, is their challenge to congestion pricing doomed?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 28, 2025, 9:51 am CDT

Federal prosecutors have been kicked off a challenge to congestion pricing in New York City after they mistakenly filed a confidential memo saying the government is “very unlikely” to be successful.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York will be replaced on the case by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Law360, Courthouse News Service, ABC News and the New York Times (here and here) have coverage.

“Are SDNY lawyers on this case incompetent or was this their attempt to resist?” the Transportation Department said in a statement cited by news media. “At the very least, it’s legal malpractice. It’s sad to see a premier legal organization continue to fall into such disgrace.”

The U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement the court filing “was a completely honest error and was not intentional in any way. Upon realizing the error, we immediately took steps to have the document removed.”

The confidential memo dated April 11 said there is “considerable litigation risk” in defending efforts by Sean Duffy, the secretary of the Transportation Department, to block the congestion pricing program using an argument that it was not statutorily authorized.

The Federal Highway Administration might be able to properly end the program, however, under regulations concerning the termination of cooperation agreements that no longer further agency priorities, the memo said.

U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York said in an April 24 order the mistaken filing raises two questions. The first is whether there is sufficient basis to seal the document after it was published by media outlets. The second is whether the mistaken disclosure waives the applicable attorney-client privilege.

Liman, an appointee of President Donald Trump during his first term, is temporarily keeping the memo under seal and is asking for parties’ responses with due dates of May 2 and May 7.

Disclosure of the memo is “a lawyer’s nightmare,” but it is unlikely to be a deciding factor in the case, said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group that supports congestion pricing, in an interview with the New York Times.

Little in the memo was surprising, and Liman, the judge in the litigation, is already familiar with the issues after hearing four other challenges to congestion pricing, Goldstein said.

Corey Bearak, a lawyer who opposes congestion pricing, told the New York Times that the Trump administration should consider other ways to challenge the program, including by joining litigants fighting congestion pricing in state court.

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Ethics

Lawyer for Infowars host Alex Jones gets reduced suspension over handling of confidential documents

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 20, 2025, 10:06 am CDT

A lawyer who formerly represented Infowars host Alex Jones has received a two-week suspension for careless handling of confidential documents after an appeals court overturned a lengthier suspension on appeal.

In a March 12 decision, Judge Robin L. Wilson of Waterbury, Connecticut, sanctioned lawyer Norm Pattis after a Connecticut appeals court’s 2024 decision that overturned a six-month suspension. The two-week suspension can be served any time within the next six months, Wilson said.

Law360 and the Darien Times have coverage.

Pattis is seeking a stay of the suspension while he appeals and has asked the judge to credit him for a one-week suspension that he served on the six-month suspension before it was stayed, Law360 reports.

Pattis was accused of violating lawyer ethics rules by careless handling of confidential documents obtained in discovery, including medical records for plaintiffs suing Jones over false claims that the 2012 mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax. Twenty children and six adults were killed by the shooter.

Pattis had represented Jones in a Connecticut defamation case over the false Sandy Hook claims. The plaintiffs obtained a $1.44 billion judgment against Jones.

Pattis’ law firm had released the records to a bankruptcy lawyer who released them to a Texas lawyer representing Jones in a similar case. A paralegal for the Texas lawyer mistakenly released the documents to the opposing counsel.

Pattis has said he thought that the documents could be shared with all of Jones’ lawyers, according to Law360.

Wilson said the sensitive information, which was protected by a court order, “was carelessly passed around from one unauthorized person to another” with no effort by Pattis to safeguard the documents.

“Given the highly litigious nature of this case, Pattis should have been on heightened alert and duty” that the confidential information “had to be handled with the utmost care,” Wilson said.

Wilson wrote in the decision that “there is no acceptable excuse” for Pattis’ misconduct, given his experience.

“Pattis is a well-known attorney who handles high-profile cases on a regular basis,” Wilson wrote. “He was required to appreciate the consequences of his actions when he made the decision” to release the records.

Wilson said factors in mitigation included lack of prior discipline and absence of a dishonest of selfish motive.

Pattis claims that Wilson did not consider character evidence that he introduced in the remand hearing and improperly relied on facts used by the previous judge to determine a sanction.

Pattis told Law360 that the reprimand was too tough under ABA standards for imposing sanctions.

“I understand the passions the Sandy Hook case evokes, but at some point, those passions should cool,” he said. “When do I stop being ‘Alex Jones’ lawyer’ and resume my role as a lawyer who handles tough cases?”

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