The integrity of the national judiciary is under direct assault as a campaign to influence federal judges, funded by powerful corporate and ideological interests, intensifies. While the Federal Judicial Center, the publishing body for the federal court system, retracted a critical climate-science chapter from its technical manual in February of the same year following pressure from conservative lawmakers, a separate program closely aligned with the fossil fuel industry and free-market conservatives is actively hosting a symposium for 150 judges in Nashville, Tennessee, continuing through today. This dual approach reveals a concerted effort to reshape the legal landscape, prioritizing elite interests over impartial justice.
Last winter, a coordinated campaign by 22 Republican attorneys general and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded an investigation into the Federal Judicial Center’s publication of material on weighing scientific evidence about climate and weather. They alleged bias from the chapter’s authors, who work for Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and are linked to Michael Burger, executive director of the center, and the law firm Sher Edling, which represents climate plaintiffs. Despite peer review and approval by the Federal Judicial Center and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the chapter was retracted in February.
Elite Capture of the Judiciary
Just 4 days ago, on April 28, Jordan escalated his inquiry, issuing letters accusing Burger, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and Sher Edling of bias, conspiracy, and collusion. He demanded private communications, funding records, and interviews before the committee, asserting that the Sabin Center is “producing materials to be used to bias federal judges about novel climate-related legal theories” and coordinating litigation, raising questions about “the integrity and independence of the judicial process” and “ex parte contact with courts.” The Environmental Law Institute, which oversees the Climate Judiciary Project—a program meant to educate courts about climate science—stated its goal is to provide judges with tools to understand climate science, not to participate in litigation or advise rulings.
In stark contrast, the “Judicial Symposium on Scientific Methodology, Expert Testimony, and the Judicial Role” opened 3 days ago, on April 29, and continues through today. This event, run by the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center (LEC), explicitly aims to educate judges in a manner that prioritizes “American business interests” and questions climate science. The LEC, which oversees a project called the Judicial Education Program, is funded in part by ExxonMobil, a defendant in several climate lawsuits.
An internal fundraising document from 6 years ago, obtained by ProPublica, reveals the explicit objective of these gatherings: to sway judges toward a “libertarian economic viewpoint” in their rulings. The document states, “The goal of this project is to expose judges to the intellectual history of the role of capitalism, economic freedom, and a constitutionally limited government as fundamental features of a liberal society.” It further outlines the intent to establish a community of like-minded justices “with synergistic effects on the judiciary as a whole” and to influence the outcome of cases. The document claims judges “urgently need to cultivate an understanding” of economic analysis to “issue decisions that advance the rule of law and America’s free enterprise system.”
Shaping the Legal Landscape
The symposium’s agenda reflects this ideological mission. Speakers include individuals who have filed amicus briefs in favor of the oil industry in climate cases, as well as lawyers who have represented fossil fuel companies in court. Assigned readings for judges include a Substack post by a climate contrarian accusing the authors of the retracted climate chapter of obscuring authorship, and a law journal argument that a key tenet of climate science used to identify the cause of disasters should be inadmissible in court. Notably, the conference did not offer readings from the retracted climate chapter itself, nor from United Nations climate science authorities or other peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Key figures at the symposium include Philip Goldberg, a managing partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon and special counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers’ policy lobbying arm, the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP). MAP, which describes itself as “the leading voice of manufacturers in the courts,” has publicly rejected claims in landmark climate liability cases. Goldberg authored a brief for the U.S. Supreme Court on the Honolulu case 2 years ago, in 2024, and other briefs in similar cases. Attorney Matthew Wickersham of Alston & Bird, counsel for Chevron in several lawsuits, is also featured, with his 1-year-old paper from 2025 arguing against the admission of attribution science in court being the only assigned reading for his session.
The Cost to National Sovereignty
The funding mechanisms for this judicial influence operation are opaque. According to the George Mason University website, the Law and Economics Center’s 2025 funders include DonorsTrust, a “dark money” pass-through organization known for shielding donor identities and often used by organizations tied to conservative activist Leonard Leo. Leo brought a $20 million gift to George Mason, in addition to $10 million from the Charles Koch Foundation, which enabled the expansion of the law school’s program 10 years ago, in 2016. The Koch Foundation, a libertarian organization, was also solicited for over $930,000 by the center in 2020, 6 years ago.
These gatherings, described in a 2020 fundraising document as often luxurious, all-expenses-paid affairs, are designed to foster lasting relationships and networking opportunities with judges. Over 5,000 judges from all 50 states have attended at least one of the organization’s programs. This systematic cultivation of judges by corporate and ideological interests, alongside the suppression of alternative scientific viewpoints within the federal judiciary, represents a profound challenge to the impartiality and independence of the national legal system, effectively transferring judicial power away from the people and into the hands of elite benefactors.