Federal Judiciary Workplace Survey Results Suggest Employees Lack Confidence in Internal Complaint Process and Rarely Report Misconduct

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

For Immediate Release

Contact: Aliza Shatzman, 267-481-2095, aliza.shatzman@legalaccountabilityproject.org

Federal Judiciary Workplace Survey Results Suggest Employees Lack Confidence in Internal Complaint Process and Rarely Report Misconduct

On March 31, 2025, the same day a Minnesota federal bankruptcy judge resigned amid misconduct allegations, the federal judiciary released its first-ever workplace conduct report and 2023 survey results, which underscore what The Legal Accountability Project (LAP) has been sounding the alarm bells about for several years: judiciary employees rarely report misconduct to the courts and lack confidence in internal reporting processes. 

The results of the survey were troubling, but not surprising. Perhaps most troubling was the federal judiciary’s latest attempt to spin the results in the press. 

The federal judiciary continues to tout its internal dispute resolution process, known as Employee Dispute Resolution (EDR), framing it as an “alternative” to extending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal anti-discrimination protections to more than 30,000 exempt judiciary employees. Yet the data released this week overwhelmingly suggest that employees lack confidence in the EDR process, do not use the EDR process, and do not report misconduct, when it occurs, to the federal courts. 

Judiciary employees do not report misconduct because they fear retaliation by their powerful superiors. This fear is exacerbated because they lack legal protection against retaliation, since the entire judicial branch is exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Some key findings from the survey results:

(1) Between 64% and 73% of respondents who indicated experiencing wrongful conduct did not use EDR procedures (informal advice, assisted resolution, or formal complaint). 

(2) Respondents were “more dissatisfied than satisfied” with EDR processes, and “more respondents were dissatisfied than satisfied with the outcome.” 

(3) No more than 20% of respondents who used the formal complaint process agreed that the issue was thoroughly and impartially investigated. 

(4) When asked about the outcome of reporting misconduct, the most common response (26-34%) was that no action was taken. The third or fourth most common response (14-19%) was “I don’t know what was done.” 

(5) Respondents who experienced mistreatment but did not report said they did not do so because “they didn’t think anything would be done;” they “didn’t trust that the process would be fair;” and they “feared retaliation or adverse impacts on job or career opportunities”. 

Despite these troubling results, LAP is glad the federal judiciary released them, as well as some accompanying recommendations. This is a positive first step and, frankly, one that would not have been taken five years ago. For the past three years, LAP and its founder, Aliza Shatzman, have been shining a sustained public spotlight on these issues. We are glad the federal courts are sitting up and taking notice. 

However, the judiciary’s troubling framing of the survey results and, more importantly, their continued insistence, in their recommendations, on window-dressing changes to the EDR Plan, evidences a lack of understanding of the scope of abusive conduct throughout the federal courts and fails to meet the moment. It is clear from the survey results that employees overwhelmingly lack confidence in the judiciary’s wholly internal reporting processes and that reporting would be more robust if there were impartial, safe alternatives. 

EDR cannot be the sole mode of redress for mistreated law clerks. Should the judiciary insist on continuing to offer this option, EDR’s investigatory and adjudicatory processes must be taken out of the judiciary’s chain of command. Neutral civil rights investigators and an impartial special counsel–not federal judges–should review employees’ EDR complaints. As long as the EDR process is overseen by fellow judges–the accused judge’s friends and colleagues–law clerks will not perceive the process as fair and impartial, and they will not use it to report misconduct. 

The EDR process, and the judiciary points of contact tasked with administering it, discourage reporting. That is by design. This report does not give LAP any confidence that the judiciary wants to foster a culture of reporting. 

Beyond that, EDR is no substitute for extending federal anti-discrimination protections to more than 30,000 exempt judiciary employees. Employees will not report misconduct until they have confidence that they are legally protected against retaliation for blowing the whistle on their powerful, life-tenured superiors. The judiciary has given no good reason for insisting on this unique exemption from basic civil rights laws. 

Furthermore, survey results are only as good as their methodology. The time of year and point in their clerkships when a survey is circulated to law clerks, as well as the population who completes it, necessarily affect the results. While the judiciary touts their 50 percent response rate for this survey, these same survey results indicate that only 42 percent of employees believe employees are encouraged to report misconduct to the courts. And LAP hears regularly from mistreated clerks who tell us they have not and would not report misconduct to the federal courts, because they do not believe their concerns will be taken seriously and robustly, impartially investigated. 

These circumstances - employees’ distrust of the courts and fear of retaliation for reporting misconduct - lead us to suspect that the 50 percent of judiciary employees who did not complete this survey are disproportionately those who would report negative experiences with the courts, thus potentially skewing the results. 

LAP urges an independent third-party entity to conduct a similar workplace survey of the federal courts. Of course, several such entities - the U.S. Government Accountability Office and National Academy of Public Administration (in collaboration with the Federal Judicial Center) - tried to survey judiciary employees last year, but were stonewalled by the courts and prevented from speaking with employees. 

The federal judiciary has, with this report, once again signaled a lack of commitment to transparency, accountability, and reform. Should anyone from the federal judiciary be interested in real reform, LAP’s door is always open for a conversation about meaningful solutions to both ensure safe work environments for law clerks and hold judges accountable for misconduct.