FILE PHOTO: An informational pamphlet is displayed at an event for community activists and local government leaders to mark the one-year-out launch of the 2020 Census efforts in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday denied an effort by the U.S. Justice Department to shake up the legal team of civil division attorneys that have long handled the 2020 census-related cases.

Adding yet another hurdle for the Justice Department as it struggles to find a new path forward to adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Furman said in a court order the department’s 11th-hour request to change lawyers handling the case is “patently deficient” and provides no “satisfactory reasons.”