Second Circuit Judge Sarah Merriam Disciplined Again for Mistreating Clerks, This Time for Creating A “Tense and Challenging” Work Environment
Sunday, June 21, 2026
For Immediate Release
Contact: Aliza Shatzman, 267-481-2095, aliza.shatzman@legalaccountabilityproject.org
Second Circuit Judge Sarah Merriam Disciplined Again for Mistreating Clerks, This Time for Creating A “Tense and Challenging” Work Environment
In December 2023, the Second Circuit Judicial Council issued a disciplinary order, signed by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston, pursuant to the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act (JCDA), the federal law governing judicial discipline, reprimanding a then-unnamed Second Circuit judge for creating an “overly harsh” work environment. That judge was later identified through public reporting as Biden appointee Sarah Merriam. The 2023 disciplinary order delineated toothless remedies: Judge Merriam agreed to watch training videos and check in periodically with Chief Judge Livingston. The Circuit Director of Workplace Relations (DWR), a law clerk point of conduct for workplace issues, committed to check in with Judge Merriam’s clerks every six months over a two-year period. Judge Merriam also pledged a commitment “to creating a better workplace environment for chambers staff.”
Almost immediately, The Legal Accountability Project (LAP) began fielding outreach from concerned clerks–both incoming clerks wondering whether they should withdraw from their clerkships and, soon after, from current clerks—alleging Judge Merriam continued to mistreat clerks, in flagrant violation of the disciplinary order. The disciplinary order was put in place pursuant to a federal law, so to violate the disciplinary order would be to violate the law. Given that Judge Merriam violated the terms of the disciplinary order, continuing to put vulnerable clerks at risk; and judiciary officials tasked with enforcing the disciplinary order, including Chief Judge Livingston, the DWR, and the Second Circuit Executive, either knew or should have known Judge Merriam continued to mistreat clerks in violation of the disciplinary order but did not take sufficient steps to stop the misbehavior, LAP filed our first JCDA complaint in December 2025.
LAP looks out for the best interests of thousands of clerks nationwide; more than 30,000 vulnerable judicial branch employees, who remain exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all federal anti-discrimination, labor, and civil rights laws; hundreds of thousands of individuals in the legal industry and beyond whom our work touches; all who interact with the federal courts; and the public generally. When the moment and circumstances demand it, LAP can and will file JCDA complaints to ensure both that the Court is properly alerted of ongoing misconduct, and it is properly documented to ensure public transparency and accountability.
On April 29, 2026, Chief Judge Livingston issued a second disciplinary order regarding Judge Merriam, this time finding Merriam created a “tense and challenging” work environment and conceding there were still issues with Merriam’s chambers, even after the first disciplinary order and subsequent public reporting. The Court issued additional toothless remedies—this time, Merriam agreed to meet with several judge advisors on workplace conduct; participate in management training; and attend annual workplace training.
Said LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman, “Clearly, Judge Merriam was undeterred after the first disciplinary order was issued in 2023. Perhaps she did not regret her misconduct so much as getting caught again.” Regarding the remedies imposed, Shatzman added, “If the first set of meetings did not change Judge Merriam’s behavior, more meetings won’t change her behavior. This discipline is laughable, just as the first set of disciplinary measures imposed several years ago were laughable.”
Anyone–lawyers, litigants, law clerks, members of the public, and organizations like LAP–is empowered to file a JCDA complaint alleging a judge has committed misconduct prejudicial to the fair and impartial administration of justice, or that a judge suffers from a disability impacting their fitness to serve. LAP is not the first organization to file complaints: several other good-government organizations have filed complaints against judges as well.
Given Judge Merriam’s ongoing misconduct, as well as the Circuit’s unwillingness to discipline her or take sufficient steps to stop it, absent outside pressure, LAP filed our first judicial misconduct complaint, and the second against Judge Merriam in just three years. By filing as the named complainant, LAP expected our President and Founder, Aliza Shatzman, would be interviewed. We also expected Judge Merriam’s law clerks would serve as confidential witnesses, thereby shielding their identities and protecting their anonymity, and, importantly, protecting them against retaliation–which they are not legally protected against, since the federal judiciary and its more than 30,000 employees nationwide are, inexplicably, exempt from all federal anti-discrimination, labor, and civil rights laws, including whistleblower laws. To be clear, the federal judiciary’s publicly-stated position is that they should remain exempt from these workplace laws that apply to everyone else—laws which they interpret from the bench.
LAP’s complaint provided sufficient detail to alert the Circuit of troubling ongoing misconduct and to urge the Circuit to investigate further. LAP did not identify any clerks by name to protect their anonymity because, under the Judicial Conduct and Judicial Disability Rules, a copy of the complaint is immediately transmitted to the respondent judge–in this case, Judge Merriam—who would be effectively allowed to retaliate against clerks. Given Judge Merriam’s proclivity for mistreating staff, LAP aimed to balance the need to alert the Court of an ongoing problem with the desire to protect clerks as best we could.
Between receiving confirmation from the Circuit that our complaint had been docketed in January 2026, and the issuing of the disciplinary order on April 29, 2029, LAP was never contacted for an interview, nor asked to provide any further information. LAP was surprised that we were not interviewed, given that, as the complainant, and as an organization that collects robust information about judicial misconduct from firsthand conversations with clerks, we had much valuable information to provide the Circuit to support its investigation. Sadly, Chief Judge Livingston’s “limited inquiry” was perhaps too limited to compile the evidence necessary to properly investigate LAP’s complaint.
Said Shatzman, “This is just further evidence that the judicial complaint process is ineffective and broken. Internal workplace complaints adjudicated by misbehaving judges’ friends and colleagues should not be the sole method of accountability for life-tenured federal judges who interpret our laws.”
LAP’s complaint would have benefitted from a policy for which LAP advocates: amending the JCDA such that all complaints are inter-circuit transferred outside the subject judge’s Circuit, so the subject judge’s friends and direct colleagues are not tasked with investigating and potentially disciplining them. Additionally, given that Chief Judge Livingston investigated the first complaint against Merriam, and LAP’s complaint suggested Livingston’s self-imposed discipline was ineffective or inadequate, Chief Judge Livingston probably should not have been tasked with adjudicating this second complaint.
Shatzman remarked, “Because Chief Judge Livingston’s order mentions the Employee Dispute Resolution, or EDR, Plan, it’s important to distinguish EDR from the JCDA. Unlike the JCDA, which resulted in this public disciplinary order, and for which the federal judiciary is legally obligated to release annual complaint statistics, no similar transparency or data disclosure obligations apply to EDR. That’s why the judiciary tries to funnel clerks away from formal complaints under the JCDA and to EDR—so they do not have to release public disciplinary orders, nor data on employees’ use of the EDR Plan. Peddling EDR, which clerks regularly tell me is a ‘sham,’ is yet another way the judiciary tries to shield abusive judges from accountability.”
This Merriam order, issued soon after Georgia federal judge Eleanor Ross, who had sex with a law enforcement officer in earshot of clerks and lied to the court about it, received a mere slap on the wrist and private reprimand, is properly viewed as yet another example of a judge behaving badly and who was insufficiently disciplined because the judicial complaint process is broken. LAP has worked for more than four years with lawmakers, the courts, law schools, academics, and practitioners to solve the lack of accountability in the judiciary and lack of transparency in judicial clerkships through legislative and policy solutions, innovative legal technology, advocacy and public awareness campaigns, and programming. Yet in LAP’s work, Shatzman added, “we necessarily encounter some federal judges who wish we were not so effective.”
This situation underscores enormous flaws in the judicial discipline system–one that typically relies on vulnerable, young judicial law clerks, in their first legal jobs, totally dependent on the judges who employ them for references and career advancement, to blow the whistle on their powerful superiors–which they rarely do. This system neither ensures anonymity, nor legally protects clerks from retaliation. It does not impose meaningful discipline, nor deter judges like Judge Merriam from committing further misconduct. And this system requires outside oversight by and reform from Congress, which Congress has been unwilling to do, having wholly abdicated its oversight responsibility over the federal courts.
Whenever mistreated law clerks contact LAP, we encourage them to report the misconduct, including by filing complaints under the JCDA. We always offer to help. But, when the moment and circumstances demand it, LAP is legally empowered to, and will continue to, file complaints ourselves, to ensure judges are held accountable for abusing their power and violating public trust. As long as neither the courts nor Congress will act to hold judges accountable, LAP will.