How Reading for Leisure Can Improve Your Legal Writing

Reading is part of the lawyer’s job. Reading becomes integral to our day-to-day job as we research, edit, and perfect our best arguments for our clients. In this career, we get sucked into the technical world of legalese and formulate arguments to win our cases. So why spend time outside of work reading for leisure? Because it helps us humanize the very people we represent and helps us be creative in our legal writing. Reading Humanizes Your Legal Clients Ultimately, we represent human beings with issues that affect their lives, much like the characters in the books we read for fun. Reading nonlegal material, whatever it may be, must have a problem that needs to be resolved. The main character must navigate the world alone or with others to solve their problem. Much like the characters in books, we must find a way to solve our clients’ problems. Yet characters in books inevitably find themselves along their journey. They learn something about themselves that helps them solve the problem. A hero, for example, learns they cannot rely solely on themselves to defeat the enemy; they must rely on the best characteristics of others. As lawyers, we often forget this human aspect of our work. We are narrowly focused, researching and arguing to best advocate for our client. Yet how do we accomplish this without knowing the client? What caused the client’s problem that now needs to be solved? What is the client’s goal? Winning a case is always a positive goal, but what do we learn along the journey? These questions highlight why reading for leisure has many benefits in this profession. It humanizes us and keeps us in tune with the realities of the world and how imperfect it is. Reading reflects the world back at us and presents us with challenges for which we may not have solutions. This is a good thing. It makes us change our thinking, taking us outside our respective boxes to see how to achieve our goals and tackle new challenges. Reading translates to creative legal writing. Inspiration can lie within the pages of a good, fast-paced book that may have nothing to do with the issue you are tackling at work. The creativity and humanity we gain from reading can help our legal writing by showing the reader that you are advocating for a real person, for real change. Arguments become more compelling and enlightened. Reading Clears Your Mind and Develops Your Vocabulary Reading for fun also has the benefit of cleansing the mind’s palate. It erases thoughts related to the legal task at hand and transports you into the plot of the book. With a clear head, your mind has a clean slate to build from and create better arguments in your legal writing. Reading for fun can expand your knowledge about the world, increase your vocabulary, and help you develop creative solutions to problems. Reading has brought me many benefits that are reflected in my legal writing. The mental clarity that comes with reading fiction gives my mind the respite it needs to develop better arguments for my clients and better advocate for them. Reading has exposed me to many different worlds, some of which are even like the world in which my clients live. This exposure helps me write in a compelling manner so that I can educate the reader about the kind of situation my client is going through and help them develop empathy for my client. Reading fiction has not only helped me keep my legal writing client-focused but has also helped me cultivate innovative arguments to appeal to the reader’s sense of empathy and humanity. Reading for pleasure has also helped me develop a vocabulary the reader can relate to and understand. The wide variety of material gives me insight into how readers think and relate to the world around them. Hence, when writing, I consciously try to use the tools and skills developed in my reading to make the writing understandable to the reader. While still necessary in legal writing, I try to minimize the use of complex legal jargon so the reader can easily understand legal concepts. And when legal jargon is used, I explain it in terms that the reader can comprehend. Thus, reading for fun develops my writing skills to provide understandable legal writing to my readers. Reading Keeps Us Connected In a world that is evolving toward the increased use of artificial intelligence and its influence on the legal world, reading keeps us grounded; it reminds us that we are making the best of our human minds to develop legal answers for people. Reading for fun helps us connect with one another in meaningful ways, and when you become the writer, those connections expand and reach people in ways automated writing cannot. As lawyers, we tend to think that we must read only those books that will help us in our careers, books that boost our skills in our profession. Reading for fun, even for the avid reader, becomes secondary and often abandoned because of negative biases. I used to think that my reading had to be limited to books related to law, legal writing, and books that would generally stimulate my mind to become a better lawyer. Like how parents play Mozart for their children, I was stuck in the mindset that there were only intelligent books, and those were the ones with the most value to my career and my legal writing. Reconnecting with other genres, even the most trivial ones, helped reset my mindset. It reminded me that inspiration can come in many forms. In my reading journey, I have found mystery and thriller novels to be the most helpful with my legal writing. They present a problem, a mystery that seems unsolvable at first. But as the story develops, more clues appear, leading the reader closer and closer to the ultimate revelation. Sometimes, authors add plot twists that throw you through a loop—an unexpected event the reader could not predict. The same thing happens to us in real life. Our clients’ lives are not linear and predictable. At times, your writing will need to reflect developing events. As an immigration attorney, this is especially true when developing declarations for clients. Circumstances such as trauma or newly discovered information can alter how their story will develop before a judge or immigration officer. My line of work requires me to reflect on these changes in writing and formulating arguments that match the facts of each case. Reading mystery and thriller novels has helped me narrate my clients’ stories in a way that points the reader to the ultimate revelation: the reason my clients are in the United States. Regardless of your reading level on your off time, consider reading for fun. Not only will it reshape the way you think and approach issues in real life, it will definitely improve your legal writing skills.

Lawyer went the extra 29 miles to shut down refinance scam - Paralegal and Certified Legal Document Preparer Mark Smith, LL.M.

A lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, put the knowledge that he gained at a fall conference to use when he visited a homeowner and averted a financial scam. WSOC-TV has the story on lawyer Charles W. Hands III of the Hands Law Firm and his paralegal Devera Alston, who became suspicious when a man seeking a cash-out refinance was a no-show for a Zoom meeting. The man claiming to be the homeowner was in touch with the broker, UMortgage, by phone and text. He provided all the needed documents, including a copy of the homeowner’s driver’s license and tax records. Hands had attended a conference that discussed refinancing fraud and advised lawyers to always meet the homeowner face to face. Hands and Alston decided that they should visit the property being refinanced and made a 29-mile round trip to the home of Samuel Helmick. Hands told WSOC-TV that Helmick’s face matched that of the driver’s license sent to them online, but Helmick “had no idea who we were or knew anything about a refinance with us at all.” Helmick’s home was completely paid off. He told WSOC-TV that he was “absolutely stunned” to learn that someone was seeking about $450,000 in cash by refinancing his home. “They shut everything down, thank God,” Helmick said of Hands and Alston. “They took the time to come to my home, knock on the door and come on inside, and lay it all out for me. And I’ll always be appreciative of that.” UMortgage gave WSOC-TV a statement crediting “a system of checks and balances” for preventing financial loss to Helmick. “UMortgage takes cybersecurity very seriously and is committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity and security in our operations,” the statement said. WSOC-TV advises homeowners to freeze their credit and open all their mail, even if it looks like junk mail, to avoid such scams. Hands, Alston and Helmick would also like to see a rule requiring lenders to verify a homeowner’s identity in person.

'Spirit of Aloha' clashes with 'federally mandated' gun lifestyle, Hawaii Supreme Court says - Paralegal and Certified Legal Document Preparer Mark Smith, LL.M.

The Hawaii Supreme Court has upheld state laws that generally ban carrying guns in public in an opinion that criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s historical approach to Second Amendment cases. “In Hawaii, the Aloha spirit inspires constitutional interpretation,” the state supreme court said in its unanimous Feb. 7 decision. “The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.” A man named Christopher Wilson had challenged Hawaii’s “place to keep” laws that required him to keep guns and ammunition at his “place of business, residence or soujourn,” according to the decision and Bloomberg Law. The laws had an exception that allows people to carry a handgun for self-defense if they have a license. Wilson cited the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which found a Second Amendment right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home. In that decision, the Supreme Court said gun restrictions should be evaluated based on the nation’s historical tradition. The Hawaii Supreme Court said it would interpret the state constitution first and then the U.S. Constitution. The section of the opinion evaluating the laws under the Constitution did not begin until page 52 of the 53-page opinion. The Hawaii Supreme Court evaluated a section of the Hawaii Constitution that mirrors Second Amendment language. Despite the similarities, the state supreme court concluded that the Hawaii Constitution does not create a constitutional right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense. The state’s historical tradition supports a “collective, militia meaning” for the right to bear arms, rather than an individual right, the state supreme court said in an opinion by Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd W. Eddins. “When the Hawaii Constitution was first ratified, courts throughout the nation’s history had always interpreted and applied the Second Amendment with the militia-centric view,” Eddins wrote. The state supreme court also concluded that the original purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect states’ rights to have militias. “That’s what they were thinking about long ago,” Eddins wrote. “Not someone packing a musket to the wigmaker just in case.” “Bruen unravels durable law,” Eddins wrote. “No longer are there the levels of scrutiny and public safety balancing tests long-used by our nation’s courts to evaluate firearms laws. Instead, the court ad-libs a ‘history-only’ standard.” “We believe it is a misplaced view to think that today’s public safety laws must look like laws passed long ago,” Eddins said. “Smoothbore, muzzle-loaded and powder-and-ramrod muskets were not exactly useful to colonial era mass murderers. And life is a bit different now, in a nation with a lot more people, stretching to islands in the Pacific Ocean.” The Hawaii Supreme Court also quoted a Bruen concurrence by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that said states retain the authority to require that people have a license to carry firearms in public. Hawaii’s two “place to keep” laws at issue have an exception allowing people to carry a handgun for self-defense if they have a license, the state supreme court said. The laws “do not graze Wilson’s Second Amendment right,” the state supreme court concluded. The case is Hawaii v. Wilson.

AI-Generated Fake Case Law Leads To Sanctions In Wage Suit

The owner of a Missouri-based technology business that was ordered to pay an ex-employee roughly $311,000 in unpaid wages, damages and legal costs was sanctioned Tuesday by an appellate court for briefing "deficiencies," including submitting fake cases generated by artificial intelligence. The ruling was the first time the appellate court has had to weigh in on the "impact of fictitious cases being submitted to our court," the opinion said. (iStock.com/photoschmidt) In a ruling Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern Division rejected Jonathan R. Karlen's appeal of a 2022 order levying the $311,000 penalty against him and two companies associated with him, Indigo Three Limited and The Karlen Group, in a wage fight with Molly Kruse. It was the first time the appellate court has had to weigh in on the "impact of fictitious cases being submitted to our court," the opinion said. "Due to numerous fatal briefing deficiencies under the Rules of Appellate Procedure that prevent us from engaging in meaningful review, including the submission of fictitious cases generated by artificial intelligence, we dismiss the appeal," Judge Kurt S. Odenwald wrote for the panel. "Given the frivolousness of the appeal, we also award damages to respondent [Kruse]." The appellate court ordered Karlen to pay Kruse $10,000 "in damages for filing a frivolous appeal." At issue in the case is a yearslong wage dispute between the parties. In a court filing, Kruse said she was hired by Indigo Three Limited, which operates as Indigo Three Strategies, in 2015 as its chief creative officer. She worked for the business, which identifies itself on its LinkedIn page as a builder of websites and applications, until 2019, according to the filing. After she was terminated, the company refused to pay her wages from 2018 and 2019, she said. Karlen is "the only known owner, officer and director of" Indigo Three Strategies and The Karlen Group, according to her filing. Kruse had filed a petition in 2021 seeking damages, and the following year a state judge ruled against Karlen and the two companies. The judge ordered Karlen and the companies to pay Kruse $72,936.42 for unpaid wages, $145,872.84 in damages and roughly $92,000 in attorney fees and legal costs. Karlen then mounted his appeal, "acting pro se purportedly on behalf of all defendants named in the original action," the appellate court's decision said. In its decision, the appeals court took Karlen to task for inadequate and problematic filings. Multiple issues arose during the appeal, the opinion said, including untimely filings, numerous deadline extensions and claims by Kruse that Karlen had failed to make certain required filings. "Particularly concerning to this court is that appellant submitted an appellate brief in which the overwhelming majority of the citations are not only inaccurate but entirely fictitious," the opinion said. "Only two out of the twenty-four case citations in appellant's brief are genuine." The panel said Karlen "offers citations that have potentially real case names — presumably the product of algorithmic serendipity — but do not stand for the propositions asserted." He also "erroneously" cited Missouri statutes and rules, the opinion said. "Throughout the appellate brief, appellant's cited statutory and rule authorities do not state what appellant claims," the ruling said. "For instance, some statutes and rules concern a completely different legal matter than what appellant purports, while others misstate the substance of the law." The appeals court also took aim at a reply brief in which Karlen "apologized for submitting fictitious cases and explained that he hired an online 'consultant' purporting to be an attorney licensed in California to prepare the appellate brief." "Appellant stated he did not know that the individual would use 'artificial intelligence hallucinations' and denied any intention to mislead the court or waste respondent's time researching fictitious precedent," the opinion said. "Appellant's apology notwithstanding, the deed had been done, and this court must wrestle with the results." The "bogus citations" in Karlen's filing represent "a flagrant violation of the duties of candor appellant owes to this court," the panel said. "We regret that appellant has given us our first opportunity to consider the impact of fictitious cases being submitted to our court, an issue which has gained national attention in the rising availability of generative A.I.," Judge Odenwald wrote for the panel. In its ruling, the panel referred to the Mata v. Avianca case in New York federal court, in which a judge last year reprimanded attorneys for submitting a brief prepared by artificial intelligence that cited nonexistent case law. "To protect the integrity of the justice system, courts around the country have been considering and/or enacting local rules specifically geared towards prohibiting or disclosing the use of generative A.I. in court filings," the Missouri appellate court said Tuesday. Karlen's "fictitious citations alerted us and respondents to the probability of generative A.I.'s involvement even prior to appellant's disclosure after the fact," the panel said. "We urge all parties practicing before this court, barred and self-represented alike, to be cognizant that we are aware of the issue and will not permit fraud on this court in violation of our rules," the appeals court said. Judges Odenwald, Michael E. Gardner and Renée D. Hardin-Tammons were on the panel for the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District. Karlen, who confirmed to Law360 that he is a candidate for a state legislature seat in Missouri, declined to comment Tuesday about the decision. Counsel for Kruse didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Karlen is representing himself. Kruse is represented by Bridget L. Halquist of Summers Compton Wells LLC. The case is Kruse v. Karlen et al., case number ED111172, in the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District. --Additional reporting by Ryan Boysen. Editing by Alanna Weissman. Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly identified the state in which Karlen is a candidate for public office. The error has been corrected.

'She Didn't Ask, And I Didn't Tell,' Ex Says Of Fraud Scheme

Both federal prosecutors and defense counsel for a Georgia woman accused of using her small business to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegally obtained pandemic loans agreed Tuesday that her ex-husband was not just a philanderer, but a fraudster to boot. But where their agreement ended — and the question for jurors weighing the guilt or innocence of defendant Carla Jackson — is just how much she knew about her former husband John Gaines' illegal activities. John Gaines, who is divorced from Jackson and was convicted last month of money laundering charges, took the witness stand to tell jurors during week two of a federal trial that he'd kept his wife in the dark about the scheme he was involved in with Darrell Thomas. Thomas, according to prosecutors, was the mastermind of a fraud ring encompassing more than 20 defendants who orchestrated the scheme to illegally obtain $11 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans. "I didn't tell her anything," John Gaines insisted Tuesday, later adding, "She didn't ask, and I didn't tell." John Gaines' criminal behavior, Jackson's attorney David Marshall said, was just the latest in a series of secrets he'd kept from his wife over the course of their nearly 20-year marriage. He'd had affairs behind her back and fathered two children out of wedlock, Marshall said. Why, he suggested, should the PPP scheme have been any different? By John Gaines' own admission, he had partnered with Thomas and his cousin, Andre Gaines, during the early months of the pandemic to prepare fraudulent PPP applications on behalf of businesses that effectively existed only on paper. Also allegedly involved in the scheme was Teldrin Foster, who is being tried alongside Jackson and is accused of working with Thomas to prepare his own bogus applications. After securing the loans, which were intended to help small businesses shuttered by the pandemic keep their workers on their payroll, John Gaines then moved the money into a business run by Jackson in an attempt to hide the fraud from the government. John Gaines said Jackson believed the money was for a purportedly above-board real estate development project they were undertaking together in Alabama. The project never came to fruition because, as John Gaines put it, "Everything went to shambles before we got a chance ... the FBI showed up, and things got ugly." But on cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tal Chaiken first hammered John Gaines' credibility by casting doubt on Andre Gaines' role in the scheme. She noted Andre Gaines had suffered a stroke in 2018, and he was in his late 60s with cognitive disabilities by the time of both the fraud scheme and the joint real estate venture. Chaiken then pointed to email exchanges between John Gaines and a woman who, for years before the PPP scheme, had helped him prepare forged documents of all kinds: drivers' licenses, tax records, pay stubs, car titles, utility bills and more. "Is it fair to say you've used her to make so many fake documents over the years that you don't even remember what you've asked her for?" Chaiken asked as John Gaines continued to say he didn't remember the emails in question. Chaiken further scorned the notion that John Gaines and his disabled, retired cousin had "all of a sudden decided to do a construction project together" on a property that didn't appear to have been listed for sale. John Gaines, for his part, said his recollections of a visit to the property were hazy, thanks to having "had a couple drinks" before scoping out the parcel in 2020. Finally, Chaiken circled around the claim that Jackson was unaware of the scheme John Gaines was involved in, even as he was moving six-figure sums of cash into her business's bank accounts. As Chaiken pressed John Gaines on his assertion that his ex-wife never questioned the transactions in the midst of a global pandemic, he continued to maintain her ignorance. "She didn't know how we obtained that money," he said. Marshall, meanwhile, implied John Gaines' and Jackson's continued contact and work together after their divorce stemmed not just from business concerns, but more personal ones as well. At one point, Marshall asked John Gaines why he still stayed at his ex-wife's house on occasion even after their divorce. John Gaines, not making eye contact with Marshall or the jury, took a long pause before answering. "She still loved me," he said. The government is represented by Siji Moore of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division, and Nathan Parker Kitchens, Tal C. Chaiken, Radka T. Nations, Sekret T. Sneed and Samir Kaushal of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia. Carla Jackson is represented by David D. Marshall. John Gaines is represented by Deana Timberlake-Wiley of the Law Offices of Deana Timberlake-Wiley. Teldrin Foster is represented by Saraliene Durrett of Saraliene Smith Durrett LLC and Leigh Ann Webster of Strickland Webster LLC. The case is USA v. Thomas et al., case number 1:20-cr-00296, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Bank Trade Chief Warns Of Rules 'Masquerading As Guidance'

The American Bankers Association's chief executive fired off a warning shot at federal regulators on Monday over their use of agency guidance, cautioning that several recent documents addressing certain bank fees and other practices are no substitute for formal rulemaking. Speaking at a conference in Texas, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols criticized what he described as a trend toward "regulation masquerading as guidance" at the banking agencies and said they should not be "circumventing the notice-and-comment process" by using guidance to prescribe new standards. "Banks welcome guidance that helps them understand and comply with legal requirements," Nichols said in prepared remarks at the conference, an ABA-sponsored event for community bankers. "But we're seeing a disturbing pattern lately of federal agencies — including federal bank regulators — issuing so-called 'guidance' documents that are, in fact, regulatory rules." Nichols expanded on those concerns in letters that he and other ABA officials sent Monday to top officials at the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Recent agency guidance has "too often" consisted of binding legal requirements that must go through notice-and-comment, and in the "most egregious cases," it has even exceeded their statutory authority, Nichols wrote in his letter. Other letters addressed to the FDIC and CFPB singled out five of their recent guidance documents as examples of what Nichols called "guidance gone wrong" in his Monday speech. Among the five were missives issued by the FDIC in 2022 that frowned on charging repeated non-sufficient fund fees, or NSF fees. That guidance is already the subject of an industry challenge pending in Minnesota federal court. The letters also flagged CFPB guidance from last year that warned about fees for "basic" bank account-related information, "pay-to-play" arrangements on mortgage comparison shopping sites, adverse action notices for lenders using artificial intelligence, and immigration-related credit discrimination. According to the ABA, these documents suffer from significant legal and procedural flaws, often create more uncertainty for banks, and should be scrapped until the agencies revise and re-issue them as proposals for public comment. "The failure to confer with industry about interpretive questions, operational impacts, and system constraints limits the utility of guidance, undermines its acceptance, and may limit its durability as administrations change," Nichols wrote.  Monday's letters built on an ABA white paper published last week that raised similar concerns about regulators' use of guidance and urged restraint going forward, including the adoption of a specialized notice-and-comment process for "significant" agency guidance. The paper said that while guidance can be "useful" as a way to clarify legal ambiguities and articulate enforcement approaches, regulators have frequently missed the mark by issuing guidance that is either poorly written or verges into rulemaking territory governed by the Administrative Procedure Act. This latter category of "ineffective" guidance, according to the paper, has included the FDIC and CFPB guidance highlighted in Monday's letters as well as an OCC bulletin issued last year on overdraft practices. But the paper also cited a few examples of "effective" guidance to emulate, such as an anti-money laundering-related issuance that the Fed, FDIC and OCC put out in April 2021. Neither the paper nor Monday's letters identified any specific Fed guidance documents as "ineffective" or otherwise problematic. Industry complaints about regulators exploiting guidance for backdoor rulemaking aren't new. A decade ago, for example, similar criticisms featured in debates over CFPB indirect auto lending guidance that federal lawmakers ultimately struck down as a de facto rule. During the Trump administration, the banking agencies and CFPB sought to reassure the industry by promising that they would limit how they use guidance and would not enforce based on it. The agencies codified this stance in a final rule published at the start of the Biden administration that remains on the books. But more recent regulatory efforts to rein in banks' fee practices, tighten the screws on digital assets and address other fintech-related risks have prompted renewed concerns in the industry about overuse of guidance. Bank trade groups have also shown greater willingness to push back in court on perceived agency excesses. The ABA, for example, is involved in two lawsuits against different CFPB regulatory actions and joined other trade groups last week in suing the Fed, FDIC and OCC to block their new community reinvestment rules. "It's never our preference to bring these kinds of lawsuits," the ABA's Nichols said in his Monday speech. "But we won't shy away from doing so when it's necessary and when we have no other recourse."

BREAKING: Trump Turns To Supreme Court In Criminal Case - by Certified Paralegal and Legal Document Preparer Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

Former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to stay a D.C. Circuit panel's ruling that he is not immune from federal charges for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election.  The high court's intervention is needed to "forestall ... an unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures," Trump argues, referring to the D.C. Circuit panel's order allowing the district court to move forward with proceedings even if the former president requested review by the entire bench. Trump wants the Supreme Court to grant a stay so that he can seek an en banc review with the D.C. Circuit. He adds the prosecution of a former president would be a "breach of precedent and historic norms" that the Supreme Court shouldn't allow.  "The threat of future criminal prosecution by a politically opposed administration will overshadow every future president's official acts – especially the most politically controversial decisions," Trump says.  A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel – comprising two Biden appointees and one H.W. Bush appointee – issued a unanimous per curiam opinion Feb. 6 rejecting Trump's assertion that he has so-called presidential immunity from prosecution for any official acts taken in the White House. The panel said Trump's claim for sweeping immunity "is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution." Trump is facing a four-count indictment in D.C. federal court that accuses him of undertaking a wide-ranging strategy to overturn the 2020 election results, including pressuring state lawmakers and organizing alternate slates of electors. He is charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S., conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring against citizens' right to vote. He contends the indictment must be tossed for three reasons. The courts, Trump claims, are powerless to review official presidential acts, public policy favors immunity and the U.S. Constitution bars the prosecution of former presidents who have not already been convicted through impeachment. The D.C. Circuit panel addressed each argument separately in a 57-page opinion, first finding Trump's reading of Marbury v. Madison to say that official presidential acts "can never be examinable by the courts" was incorrect. The foundational ruling allows for judicial review of "ministerial" actions that officials are bound by law to perform while prohibiting review of discretionary decisions, the panel said. Trump had no discretionary authority to defy "generally applicable" criminal laws and must be held "answerable in court for his conduct," the panel ruled. The public's interest in criminal accountability and the executive branch's interest in upholding presidential elections also outweigh any risks that Trump alleges would arise if former presidents could be criminally prosecuted, the appellate panel held. The judges rejected claims that future presidents wouldn't take necessary actions during their time in office due to a threat of post-term prosecution. "Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the president, the Congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute and the judiciary could not review," the panel said. "We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter." Finally, the panel held that Trump's argument that the impeachment clause prohibits prosecution of former presidents who have not already been convicted through impeachment rests on a "logical fallacy." The clause was explicitly written to not limit an official's criminal liability, and it shouldn't be read any other way, the panel said. Trump is represented by John F. Lauro and Gregory M. Singer of Lauro & Singer, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove of Blanche Law, and D. John Sauer, William O. Scharf and Michael E. Talent of James Otis Law Group LLC. The federal government was represented at the D.C. Circuit by Jack Smith, J.P. Cooney, Michael R. Dreeben, James I. Pearce, Molly Gaston, Thomas P. Windom, Raymond N. Hulser, John M. Pellettieri and Cecil W. VanDevender of the U.S. Department of Justice's Special Counsel's Office. The case is Trump v. United States, case number 23A745, in the Supreme Court of the United States.