The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, helmed by Harmeet Dhillon, just filed a 14-page joint motion to terminate the consent decree with the Springfield, Massachusetts Police Department with a giant gray “DRAFT” watermark plastered diagonally across every single page.
You cannot, as they say, make this up, folks.
Under Dhillon’s leadership, the Civil Rights Division has endured mass defections owing to its chief’s avowed mission to contort the Justice Department’s storied civil rights legacy into ambulance chasers for mediocre white men crying “reverse discrimination.” While the DOJ faces talent shortages across the board — it’s why the once-prestigious Department now recruits off candidates sliding into Twitter DMs — the Civil Rights Division has (along with the Public Integrity Section) uniquely suffered. Roughly 70 percent of the Civil Rights Division’s attorneys quit, were reassigned, or accepted deferred resignation in the first months of the second Trump administration.
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And that’s how you end up filing drafts.
A lot of hands touch a legal filing, and it’s important to make sure no one accidentally files the wrong version. A sound document management platform can do wonders, but if lawyers want a belt-and-suspenders approach, visibly and garishly marking the draft version can prevent accidental filings.
That said, the Wall Street Journal once wrote that Dhillon told them that “[she] wakes up around 6 a.m. and begins her workday scrolling through X, searching for claims of discrimination,” which doesn’t describe a workflow defined by conscientious attention to the serious work of the Department.
The Civil Rights Division under Dhillon has run around the country seeking to lift consent decrees imposed upon local law enforcement for past police brutality or systematic racial discrimination. In the instant case, the Springfield, Massachusetts police entered the agreement in April 2022 after a DOJ investigation found a pattern of excessive force in its narcotics unit, including kicking and spitting on detained juveniles. The consent decree included a four-year timeframe for a scheduled reevaluation, and the final report found substantial compliance. So the DOJ moved to lift the decree.
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In the laziest manner possible.
This is an embarrassing, but ultimately superficial mistake. While the “DRAFT” version was still up on PACER the last time we checked, it’s presumably going to be replaced soon. But it’s yet another indicia of the DOJ’s cratering professionalism. It’s not as extreme as filing a motion in 4th grade English and riddled with grammatical errors, or bringing criminal charges citing the wrong legal standard over a bunch of sea shells, or getting caught over and over openly lying to the courts, but it’s all part of the same rich tapestry. This is an institution in turmoil. And it’s a catastrophe that runs at the macro and micro level.
The next time someone in this administration suggests that the DOJ’s talent drought just means that it’s being run more efficiently with fewer lawyers… point them to the cover page.
(Filing — or at least the Draft Filing — on the next page…)
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.