Opinion: James Ho’s Supreme Court Bid Exposes the Hubris He Condemns

Judge James Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is widely regarded as a leading contender for a Supreme Court vacancy President Donald Trump could fill. In a recent essay for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Ho framed his judicial philosophy as a rebuke to what he called pervasive arrogance and self-importance among judges — yet his public conduct and writings often mirror the very traits he denounces.

A Public Campaign to Shape Legal Education

Ho reproaches colleagues who "won't stay in their lane" and who have "forgotten the virtue and value of humility." But he has left the bench's conventional lane himself. He drew national attention when he announced a hiring boycott of clerks from Yale Law School in protest of the school's treatment of conservative speakers, publicly urging changes to the campus climate and saying, "I refuse to do nothing." He framed the boycott as a way to discourage "thousands of young people" from applying to what he called "woke" law schools and hoped — with limited success — that other judges would follow.

Prolific Concurrences and Political Signaling

Ho also criticizes judges who write opinions "longer than they need to be," yet his own record shows prolific separate opinions. Since taking the bench in 2018, the 25 judges on the Fifth Circuit issued 523 concurring opinions; a Westlaw search attributes 115 of those to Ho — roughly one-fifth of the total and more than five times the circuit average. By comparison, Westlaw indicates the average appellate judge has written about 11 concurrences in that period. Concurring opinions are, by definition, unnecessary to reach the case outcome; Ho's frequent concurrences have been read as unapologetic signaling to the right, often adopting a more explicitly anti-abortion and pro-gun tone than many conservative colleagues.

Downplaying Genuine Safety Concerns

Ho repeatedly assails "cultural elites," claiming they "control the national discourse" and accusing them of hypocrisy for expressing concern about unsolicited pizza deliveries to judges' homes while allegedly applauding protests at justices' residences. Crucially, some of those deliveries have been reported in a context tied to a violent attack — the murderer who posed as a deliveryman in the killing of Judge Esther Salas's son — and have been interpreted by observers and law-enforcement sources as intimidating or menacing. Ho cites reporting on that context in a footnote, yet in the body of his piece he dismisses colleagues' safety worries as fuss over a "$20 large pepperoni," a line critics say trivializes real threats to judicial families.

Partisan Criteria for Judicial Selection

Ho closes with a section titled "Principles of Judicial Selection" that reads more like a partisan litmus test than a neutral guide. He urges selecting judges "who have been with us the whole time" and warns against "Johnny-come-latelies," privileging loyalty and long-term ideological alignment. For many observers, that appeal reinforces the impression that Ho's essay functions partly as a public audition for the Supreme Court.

Bottom Line

Steven Lubet, the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, contends that Ho's public posture mixes principled critique with self-promotion. Whether read as a candid critique of judicial culture or as an ambitious bid for higher office, the essay spotlights tensions over judicial humility, public engagement, and the standards by which judges should be chosen.

About the Author

Steven Lubet is Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and coauthor of the fifth edition of "Judicial Conduct and Ethics."