Philip M. Halpern

Judge Halpern is rude and unprofessional in his dealings with attorneys before his court. That might be tolerable if he was a strong academic, but he's not. He's a litmus for the broad decline in judicial quality and professionalism in SDNY and a bellwether for the direction that court is going. It really doesn't seem to matter what party appoints to SDNY, both parties keep stacking that court with political hacks while the good judges are all elevated to the 2nd Circuit.

This guy is such a major a**hole with a total chip on his shoulder, for no reason. He is a Trump appointee (which by definition supports my position), but in addition, he actually goes out of his way to favor the AG's office in civil actions, messing with Plaintiffs on such issues as page length, continually denying motions when reasons for additional page length is provided (such as the need to respond to the allegations of the Defendant in the same response), and says things on the record like "so you have no reason to say this" just as you are saying it. He is really one of the worst Judges I have ever been before.