Never mind.

That sums up the Second Circuit Judicial Council's probe into allegations of sexual misconduct by former U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski.

As my colleague Marcia Coyle reported, the council in an order published Monday stated, “Because Alex Kozinski has resigned the office of circuit judge, and can no longer perform any judicial duties, he does not fall within the scope of persons who can be investigated under the [Judicial Conduct and Disability] Act.”

It's hard to argue with that conclusion, and no doubt Kozinski himself knew it was likely when he resigned effective immediately on Dec. 18.

But it's also exactly what his former clerk Katherine Ku, now a corporate and securities partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, warned about in an essay published in The Washington Post in January.

“With his immediate retirement, it appears that he has essentially shut down the federal judiciary's investigation of his conduct and deflected further revelations in the press,” Ku wrote. “That allows him to disappear, quietly receiving his pension, until the outrage dies down. It allows him a greater chance at redemption.”

Still, the judicial council in its order offered some consolation that it hasn't all been for naught.

“We note that Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in his 2017 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary charged James C. Duff, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, with establishing a Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working Group to review the safeguards currently in place within the judiciary to protect employees from inappropriate conduct in the workplace. That working group has now been formed.”

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SCOTUS Says No but Pennsylvania Republicans—and Their Big Law Lawyers—Won't Quit

Two weeks ago, we named Arnold & Porter's David Gersch and Mimi McKenzie of the Public Interest Law Center as our Litigators of the Week for their win before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in challenging the state's gerrymandered congressional districts.

But there was still the nagging possibility that their historic feat could be undone by an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers from firms including Blank Rome and Baker & Hostetler on behalf of Republican lawmakers petitioned Justice Samuel Alito (who oversees the Third Circuit) to stay the Pennsylvania high court ruling. A second petition by 36 registered Republican voters was filed by Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippell.

They did their best to sound the alarm. “For the first time in United States history, a state court in attempting to play the role of 'lawmaker,' has invalidated a congressional districting plan without identifying a violation of the U.S. Constitution or a state constitutional or statutory provision providing specific redistricting criteria,” lawyers for the lawmakers wrote.

But Alito was not impressed. On Monday, he denied the request without even referring it to the full court.

Still, Pennsylvania Republicans aren't giving up. Last Friday, they filed an application seeking to disqualify Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht, and demanding “full disclosure” by Justice Christine Donohue. They point to prior comments by the judges “demonstrating at least the appearance of bias, if not a blatant bias, against the 2011 [redistricting] plan,” wrote Brian S. Paszamant of Blank Rome; E. Mark Braden of Baker & Hostetler; Jason Torchinsky of Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky and Kathleen A. Gallagher of Cipriani & Werner.

Except a good time to have made that argument would have been before they lost, not after.

“Pennsylvania law requires litigants to seek disqualification at the 'earliest possible moment'—as soon as they knew or should have known of the purported basis,” wrote Benjamin Geffen of the Public Interest Law Center in the response filed Monday for the League of Women Voters. (Also on the brief: McKenzie and Michael Churchill from the law center and Arnold & Porter lawyers Gersch, John A. Freedman, R. Stanton Jones, Elisabeth S. Theodore, Daniel F. Jacobson, John Robinson, John Cella and Andrew D. Bergman.)

Moreover, they argued that the Republican lawmakers “have selectively and deceptively excerpted comments of a justice of this court to impugn the integrity of both the justice individually and this court as a whole,” calling the conduct “unbecoming of any litigant, much less of public officials sworn to uphold the public trust.”

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Lateral Watch

Arnold & Porter (which just dropped Kaye Scholer from its name) snagged a pair of partners from Hogan Lovells in New York, including the head of the firm's digital media practice, Dori Hanswirth.

Hanswirth and Theresa House join Arnold & Porter's media and entertainment practice, focusing on First Amendment, trademark, defamation, right of publicity, and copyright law/fair use.

“The firm's reputation for handling high-profile intellectual property matters and representation of clients in the media, entertainment, and tech industry perfectly complement the work that Theresa and I have handled in our practice,” Hanswirth said in a news release.

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Giving Back in Guam

I'm a big fan of the American College of Trial Lawyers—which recognizes litigators who do exceptional work without being jerks about it—and here's another reason why. Eleven group members just traveled to Guam to lead a workshop with the Pacific Judicial Council.

It wasn't some cushy junket—they all paid their own way. They came to help more than 100 judicial officers, attorneys general, public defenders and lawyers from Guam and neighboring islands hone their trial and advocacy skills.

Among those who went: Charles P. Diamond of O'Melveny & Myers; Brian B. O'Neill of Faegre & Benson; Paul Michael Pohl of Jones Day and Lawrence S. Robbins of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner.

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In Other Guam News….

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher scored a win on behalf of duty free chain DFS, which alleged that the Guam International Airport Authority wrongfully awarded its duty free concession agreement to Lotte Duty Free.

The Guam Superior Court found that the airport violated multiple provisions of Guam procurement law and declared the Lotte duty free concession agreement void—a ruling that surely calls for breaking out a nice tax-free bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue or Veuve Clicquot.

DFS is represented by Gibson Dunn partners Maurice Suh and Jay Srinivasan and associates Daniel Weiss and Zathrina Perez.

Lawyers for the newspaper argue there is “no longer any reason” for the FISA court to keep materials related to Page sealed because of the “extent of information” about the materials revealed in the memo.

How to prove a client with only $3,550 in medical bills suffered permanent, devastating injury worthy of a multimillion-dollar award?

The one-time Arent Fox intellectual property partner worked with co-conspirators who sent emails from compromised or phony addresses to solicit funds from victims.

Quinn Emanuel's Charles Verhoeven seized on the analogy of Rosie Ruiz, the woman who cheated to win the Boston marathon in 1980 by hopping on the subway.

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton partner Michael Tyler was one of the few African American students at Cheyenne Central High School in Wyoming in 1973 when he was expelled.

SG Noel Francisco is urging the high court to deny the petition, which questions whether the IRS has authority to investigate and determine that a taxpayer is engaged in illegal drug trafficking.

Freebird!