The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit is currently facing scrutiny due to allegations of a judge’s mistreatment toward law clerks. The allegations were brought forward by the Legal Accountability Project (LAP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the rights of judicial employees.

Filed earlier this month, the LAP’s complaint accuses U.S. Circuit Judge Sarah A.L. Merriam, appointed by President Joe Biden, of persistently mistreating her law clerks. This accusation arises amidst claims that previous attempts to resolve issues regarding her conduct have been ineffective.

The roots of this controversy stretch back several years, tied to a decision made by the 2nd Circuit in 2023. In October 2022, a request for dispute resolution was submitted, citing allegations of “abusive and harassing conduct” by the judge toward her staff.

Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston, appointed by George W. Bush, led the initial investigation. During this inquiry, two court officials conducted interviews with both current and former staff members, as well as the complainant, to evaluate the work environment in the judge’s chambers.

Judge Livingston noted in her findings that these discussions revealed widespread concerns about workplace conduct, echoing the complaint. While acknowledging the educational value of working under Judge Merriam, many law clerks described her management approach as excessively severe.

“These interviews revealed that the workplace conduct concerns raised in the complaint were shared by other law clerks who, while recounting that they had learned a lot from the Judge, agreed that the Judge’s management style could be overly harsh,” Livingston wrote.

Insofar as the complaint concerned workplace conduct, the matter was “concluded based on voluntary corrective action,” the December 2023 ruling says. Notably, the complaint also included several ethics claims – all of which were summarily dismissed.

Now, the nonprofit “received troubling corroborated information from several former clerks alleging that Judge Merriam continues to mistreat clerks,” according to a press release.

The group says the allegations are unprecedented.

“To the best of LAP’s knowledge, LAP’s complaint is the first instance in which a federal judge has been publicly reprimanded by the court for mistreating law clerks, only to engender a second misconduct complaint for continuing to mistreat clerks in violation of the federal judiciary’s own workplace policies,” the press release reads.

The group says the mistreatment of law clerks is nothing new. The federal judiciary’s own 2023 workplace climate survey suggests as many as 106 federal judges – or one in 17 judges – mistreated their law clerks that year, although some of those complaints could have come from clerks working for the same judge.

Still, the group notes that while 106 allegations were raised by law clerks anonymously responding to the survey, only three formal complaints were filed with judicial misconduct authorities in 2023.

“LAP is filing this complaint because it can afford to take the risk that law clerks cannot. LAP has strength in numbers that a law clerk standing alone does not have,” Aliza Shatzman, president and founder of the Legal Accountability Project, said. “We’ve spent the past several years encouraging every mistreated clerk who reaches out to LAP to file a complaint. Yet clerks tell us routinely that they have not and will not file complaints, because they do not believe their concerns will be taken seriously nor robustly, impartially investigated.”

The group argues self-policing “clearly cannot” suffice to deal with law clerk mistreatment “given the situation in Judge Merriam’s chambers and in other chambers currently under investigation.”

While the precise contours of the complaint are not public as of this writing, LAP’s founder offered some details.

“She is a bully, in all the ways one might bully their employees: yelling, berating clerks, sending all-caps unhinged emails,” Shatzman said in comments provided to National Public Radio.

The group says bringing the Merriam complaint is part of their mission “to ensure positive judicial clerkship experiences, support mistreated clerks, and fight for safe judiciary work environments.”

To hear LAP tell it, the judiciary itself is largely unwilling to address the problem or consider giving law clerks workplace protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“It would be a stain on the judiciary to shield Judge Merriam from accountability under these circumstances,” the complaint concludes.