Ex-Judge Wolf’s Staff Describe Walking on Eggshells in Chambers

Former Massachusetts federal Judge Mark Wolf, who said he stepped down from the bench last year to freely raise concerns about President Donald Trump, created a stressful culture for his chambers staff, according to seven former employees.

Wolf, 79, a Ronald Reagan appointee, frequently yelled at his staff, made demeaning comments, and threw papers in frustration in chambers, according to some former law clerks and other staff who spoke to Bloomberg Law on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

The former employees—whose time working for the judge spanned decades—spoke with Bloomberg Law after the First Circuit’s chief judge said a federal district judge may have treated employees or litigants in a hostile manner or created a hostile work environment.

The conclusion came in a three-page order that didn’t elaborate on the judge’s identity or the judge’s conduct. Wolf confirmed Friday to Bloomberg Law he was the subject of the order, but he declined to comment further on the inquiry, citing judicial conduct rules.

The specifics of Wolf’s workplace conduct, which haven’t previously been reported, complicate the legacy of a judge known for a four-decade-long career on the bench. He presided over high-profile cases, including FBI corruption related to notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger and the “Varsity Blues” university admissions bribery scheme. 

Wolf publicly announced his resignation from the bench in a Nov. 9 essay in The Atlantic, where he wrote that he felt “compelled to speak out” about the Trump White House’s “assault on the rule of law.” He is now senior counsel at Todd & Weld.

Around the same time, the judiciary was conducting an inquiry into the judge’s workplace conduct. In his Nov. 24 order, First Circuit Chief Judge David Barron found “probable cause” to believe a judge, who is unnamed as is typical in these orders, had engaged in misconduct but said further action wasn’t necessary given “intervening events.”

The order stemmed from an interview between a chief district judge and a former law clerk, who wasn’t one of the sources for this story. No formal complaint was filed, according to Barron’s order.

In response to written questions, Wolf said in an email Friday to Bloomberg Law that he “retired solely for the reasons explained” in his article for The Atlantic.

He also acknowledged he held his clerks, and himself, to high standards, which may have created a tense environment.

“The responsibility I gave my clerks may have made them tense in varying degrees. I am sure that in 40 years the pressure of the work got to me at times and I raised my voice. I may have also slammed papers on the table,” Wolf wrote. “However, I also had lunch with my Judicial Assistant for 38 years and my clerks almost every day, and greatly enjoyed our conversations as the clerks often said they did.”

Unpredictable Outbursts

Some former staffers said they walked on eggshells in Wolf’s chambers to avoid his unpredictable outbursts. The judge would yell at or make belittling or demeaning comments to his staff, according to seven former employees.

One former staff member recounted sometimes crying before work. Another recalled seeing clerks leaving the judge’s office in tears several times a month.

Wolf would also throw objects in frustration, such as paper files or filled-up accordion file folders, according to five former employees. In at least one instance, he threw an accordion folder in the direction of an employee, several said.

These outbursts could be triggered by minor mistakes or miscommunications, such as omitting a paper from a file given to him or misalphabetizing a list of the names of case, they said.

Some said they’d witnessed outbursts seemingly at random, or over inconveniences unrelated to the employees’ performance, such as when Wolf couldn’t find something he himself had misplaced.

For some former staffers, Wolf’s workplace demeanor has had lasting negative effects. One former staffer said it took years to no longer feel nervous in subsequent workplaces, while another tries to avoid the Boston federal courthouse.

The allegations underscore the power imbalance between life-tenured federal judges and their clerks, usually recent law school graduates.

Judiciary employees are also exempt from federal laws prohibiting workplace discrimination that protect private sector and other government employees and must rely on the judiciary’s internal system for reporting misconduct.

Clerks depend on their judges for recommendations, want to avoid résumé gaps, and worry reporting mistreatment can result in retaliation.

“The headwinds against reporting are enormous,” said Aliza Shatzman, founder of the Legal Accountability Project that advocates for law clerks.

Other former staffers recalled their time with the judge more fondly.

Five other former employees said Wolf was demanding and held his staffers to high standards, but they described positive experiences working with him overall and didn’t witness him yelling or throwing objects. 

Benjamin Goldberger of Anderson & Kreiger, who clerked for Wolf from 2002 to 2004, said while he was aware Wolf had a reputation for being a tough judge, that didn’t match his own experience.

“Judge Wolf always demanded perfection from himself, so he demanded it from everybody who worked for him, but never in a hostile manner,” Goldberger said.

Michael Kendall of White & Case, who worked for Wolf for three years in the early 1980s while he was a prosecutor, also described him as a friend and mentor whose high work expectations made him a better lawyer.

Judge Mark Wolf speaks during a naturalization ceremony in Boston.

Photographer: David L Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Some of those former employees who raised concerns about Wolf also described him as smart and hardworking. Wolf was known to advocate professionally for his employees after they left his chambers, according to a former staffer and a lawyer familiar with the judge.

In an email Friday, Wolf said that he had a “great sense of responsibility for trying to assure that I made legally correct and just decisions in every case.”

“I had high and demanding standards for myself and for the clerks who assisted me in this endeavor, and striving to meet them required hard work,” he wrote.

He also wrote that “almost all of my clerks also worked hard to meet those high standards and were, and remain, grateful for the experience.” Wolf pointed to a gift he received from his clerks, in honor of his 35th anniversary on the bench, of a “book of letters,” in which “all who wrote praised and thanked me.”

Wolf also co-founded and led a fellowship that placed students from Boston Latin School, one of the city’s prestigious exam schools, in public offices during summer breaks.

Dawn Smalls, a Jenner & Block attorney who participated in the fellowship as a teenager in 1992, credited Wolf with investing early in her and others’ careers, including by writing her a law school recommendation. Smalls said the former judge “has a core vision of public service that is very genuinely held for himself and others.”

Courtroom Demeanor

Wolf’s temperament—and to varying degrees, his treatment of his clerks—was widely known in the Boston federal courthouse and legal community, according to half a dozen former staffers and lawyers familiar with the judge. 

Inside his courtroom, Wolf had a reputation for being tough on the attorneys who appeared before him, according to five lawyers. 

Wolf would berate attorneys in court for minor errors, according to the five lawyers. He was also known for threatening professional consequences for lawyers over mistakes, more so than other judges, creating a sense of fear among lawyers who appeared before him that they could face serious penalties, the five lawyers said. 

One attorney said Wolf often was looking to target a litigant, and once he found a target, he didn’t let up.

Attorney Leonard Kesten still remembers the first words Wolf spoke to him as a judge decades ago: “Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t sanction you?” Kesten said he was three days late with a filing, but Wolf never followed through with sanctions.

“I’ve seen him working on lawyers; I’ve seen him yelling at staff in public. I’ve seen him abuse his staff,” Kesten said, recalling a time when Wolf berated his clerk because he disagreed with when the jury should be brought into the court.

During a meeting in Wolf’s chambers, the judge—seated at the head of a conference table—once loudly objected to an attorney placing a chair at the foot of the table and ordered him to reposition the seat at an angle, one attorney said.

Still, others praised the judge’s grasp of the law and judging.

Robert Goldstein, a Boston criminal defense lawyer, said by email that Wolf is “one of the finest trial judges I have appeared before” during his decades-long career. 

He wrote that “if you were fully prepared, took your role and responsibilities seriously, and truly value our procedural and substantive constitutional protections, there was no better courtroom to appear.”

Kendall, who has also appeared before Wolf, said the judge is “tough on prosecutors that are not scrupulously honest and fully competent.”

Wolf said in his email Friday that he always expected lawyers to “be prepared, do their best, obey court orders, and be candid with the court.” He also said that he “did take seriously” misconduct by prosecutors, such as when they failed to turn over evidence as is constitutionally required.

Wolf was appointed to the Boston federal court in 1985. He served as its chief judge from 2006 to 2012, after which point he took senior status, a form of semi-retirement. He testified before the Senate in 2023 about his concerns over the judiciary’s handling of Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial disclosures.

He is also known for his work fighting public corruption.

He notably oversaw proceedings in the late 1990s over the FBI’s relationship with organized crime figures Bulger and Stephen Flemmi. Before he became a judge, he was a Boston federal prosecutor who led the office’s public corruption unit. 

He also formed the nonprofit Integrity Initiatives International to combat global corruption.

In announcing his retirement in a public release, Denise Casper, chief judge of the Massachusetts federal trial court, praised Wolf’s “steadfast commitment to the rule of law, determination in wrestling with novel issues of fact and law, and dedication to making fair, equitable and legally sound decisions without fear or favor.”