Two [XYZ firm] lawyers working with a national clemency initiative are in trouble with a federal judge in Washington for sending a letter the judge said violated court rules.

The lawyers' run-in with the judge was rooted in recent changes in how volunteer attorneys working with Clemency Project 2014 access prisoner records. Earlier this summer, the Clemency Project worked with the federal judiciary and Bureau of Prisons to make it easier for its lawyers to obtain confidential presentence reports. Under the revised Bureau of Prisons protocol--which judges were made aware of in July--lawyers had to notify judges when they requested the reports from the Bureau of Prisons, and judges had two weeks to object to their release. The protocol didn't specify how lawyers would notify judges.

XYZ associates _______ and _______, volunteer lawyers with the Clemency Project, last week sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who presided over their client Ronald Toms' criminal case. The lawyers explained that they had requested Toms' presentence report from the Bureau of Prisons and that if Lamberth wanted to object, he should respond to a special Bureau of Prisons email address within two weeks.

Lamberth bristled at the letter and the two-week deadline. In an order published on Wednesday he said the letter appeared to be an "improper ex parte request."

"That is not how this court operates," Lamberth wrote. "This court does not accept deadlines set by attorneys or by the Bureau of Prisons." If the Bureau of Prisons released the inmate's records without his approval, Lamberth said, it would be in contempt of court.