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Starting a Tyranny? Job One: Kill All The Lawyers!
“Something Wicked This Way Comes.”
There is a movement afoot, launched by denizens of The Swamp who stealthily slithered out from their dark waters, which is extremely dangerous to the future of the Rule of Law in America. To those who may be saying or thinking something right now to the effect of “just another tale of woe from another lawyer about lawyers — who cares?”, I would ask that you recall when you or a family member or a close friend really needed a good lawyer to advocate for your cause, whatever it might have been. I would wager that one of your first requirements, if the matter was a contentious one as many are by the time they get to the lawyer’s office, was that the lawyer “fight like hell” for your side of the case. And that he or she fight for you against all obstacles no matter what his or her own personal beliefs might be about your cause. It is highly unlikely that you narrowed your field of choices to members of a certain political party, lawyers who wore red hats or blue hats, lawyers who checked off certain “identity boxes” so prevalent these days as most likely none of these artificial “qualities” mattered in the slightest to your selection of an attorney.
Shakespeare’s Misunderstood High Praise of Lawyers.
The line usually cited about the roles of lawyers is from Shakespeare: “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Rarely is enough context given when that line is offered in support of those who hate lawyers for a realization that it is one of the most highly complimentary statements ever made about the legal profession; but that’s for another day. For those who might wish to look further into it, and explore how Dick the Butcher was actually saying that if a tyranny (such as that of Cade) is to succeed, the first thing the tyrant must do is get rid of all the lawyers, see here and here.
A Man For All Seasons Explains Why We -and The Devil- Need Lawyers.
However, to me this passage from A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt paints a vivid picture of what happens when lawyers are removed from society, along with their primary function: to be a warrior for a client’s cause, come hell or high water and to “Never, never, ever give up” as Sir Winston so memorably phrased it. Here is what Sir Thomas More had to say on the subject:
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
The Tyrannical Thinking Behind the New Movement Threatening The Rule of Law.
While I am no longer in the arena where the battle lines are drawn, the basic foundational principles on which our kind of practice, trial advocacy, was based have remained unchanged. And the move afoot, primarily spearheaded by The 65 Project, is described as:
“A dark money group with ties to Democratic Party heavyweights will spend millions this year to expose and try to disbar more than 100 lawyers who worked on Donald Trump’s post-election lawsuits …”
This kind of thinking is so foreign and antithetical to everything we learned and experienced in many years of trial practice that when I first started reading about this new movement, fueled by far-leftists in the throes of the most extreme form of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I thought it couldn’t possibly be a serious effort on the part of responsible Americans who had even a minimal knowledge of the duties and responsibilities of a lawyer under our legal system. The more I read, the more frightening this Stasi-like organization became and the more obviously evil – I use that word advisedly- the thinking of some of its leaders became.
The Actual Sworn Duties of an Actual Lawyer to a Client.
Before taking a closer look at the bizarre activities of the hatemongers of this despicable “non”-profit, it might help to take a brief look at what are the actual duties of a lawyer to the client, whether the client is Joe the Plumber, Jack the Deplorable Clinger or President Donald J. Trump. Here are the current rules by which we were bound, from the Louisiana Code of Professional Responsibility:
Rule 1.2 [partial]: “… A lawyer shall abide by a client’s decision whether to settle a matter. …”
(b) “A lawyer’s representation of a client, including representation by appointment, does not constitute an endorsement of the client’s political, religious, economic, social or moral views or activities.”
Rule 1.3: “A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.”
Rule 3.1: “A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. … ”
(Emphasis added.)
Nowhere in these rules is there an exception for lawyers who have the unmitigated gall to actually (!) represent, and -even worse!- advocate for, President Trump, nor a limitation as to the points which may be argued for him- or any client. And one will search in vain to find the words Democrat or Republican, left or right, red or blue, liberal or conservative. They are not there, and hopefully never will be, something The 65 Project is striving mightily to change. If they are successful, our society may well wind up in the situation Sir Thomas More warned Roper about, with all the laws cut down and nothing to protect its citizens from the all-too-rapacious demands of the far left for utter tyranny and subjugation in the true form of 1984 or Kafka’s The Trial. Or, for that matter, to protect its citizens from precisely the kind of despicable and disgraceful treatment to which the Federal Courts in the District of Columbia are subjecting the January 6 defendants, with total disregard for their rights under the Constitution and The Bill of Rights.
The 65 Project: A Clear and Present Danger to the Anglo-American Adversarial System of Law.
To fully appreciate the vile and vicious nature of The 65 Project’s aims, it is only necessary to quote the words of its “Senior Advisor” and apparent founder, David Brock, and here it is necessary that I include a note about that name. I must note, with sorrow, that my Mother’s family name was Brock and we named our Son Brock in honor of the family. My Grandfather, obviously a man of another era with very different standards of personal decency and manners, would have been horrified to learn that this cretin carried his family’s name. Here, with some background on the organization, is the way he describes what they hope to achieve:
Here’s what Brock describes as the mission of his project: “[Project 65] will not only bring the grievances in the bar complaints but shame them and make them toxic in their communities.” According to Axios, Brock’s plan is nothing less than a war of the strong against the weak: “I think the littler fish are probably more vulnerable to what we’re doing… You’re threatening their livelihoods. And you know, they’ve got reputations in their local communities.”
Give Brock points for honesty, at least. Not everyone has the guts to gloat about being pure evil. Project 65 is torn right from the playbook of Saul Alinsky (“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”): Shame lawyers, plague them with hefty legal bills, and especially pick off ones who are less famous and backed by fewer resources. Given all that, it’s better to call Project 65 Project Shame, Project Fear, or the Project of Personal Destruction. And wait, why is it even called Project 65? Because (groan) that’s the number of lawsuits filed to support the “Big Lie,” of course.
One must ask: Who appointed David Brock to be some kind of deity with the power to “shame” his fellow Americans and to threaten their livelihoods, by which they feed and clothe and keep a roof over the heads of their family? The hubris involved in such a statement may fairly be called breathtaking, but it is typical of the mindset of the “Masters of the Universe” in Washington these days. And it is also fair to ask who gave this person (?) and others like him in the leadership of The 65 Project the power to deem those even raising questions about the legitimacy of the 2020 election guilty of “spreading The Big Lie”? I appreciate, regretfully, that there is such a deep and abiding hatred of President Trump that it has affected the mental health of many on the left—and the right, a/k/a NTers- but the idea that one cannot even advance arguments to that effect have been, until recently, unknown in our society.
I should also note that the article from which the above quote was taken was authored by Jeffrey Clark, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, who has recently been the subject of an ethics charge by the District of Columbia Bar. A cursory review of the report outlining the charges against him, which can be found here, bear the faint aroma, to be kind about it, of a pure vendetta as they relate to a research document in the form of a letter he drafted for his superiors at the DOJ which was never sent. One must ask: is faulty research now the stuff of disbarment? If so, I am thankful my research memoranda are not being examined by the ghouls of The 65 Project or I would be a goner.
Who Are The Targets of The 65 Project?
It has filed many ethics complaints in several states and the targets, as outlined in one of the first articles about the group, fall into three categories:
- Trump’s legal inner circle, including lawyers such as campaign hands Jenna Ellis and Boris Epshteyn and post-election lawyers like Sidney Powell and Joe DiGenova.
- Lawyers who signed on as “alternate electors,” who planned to submit their names to the Electoral College in lieu of legitimate elector slates if Trump-aligned legal challenges succeeded.
- Licensed attorneys who participated in or were present at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Before examining these claims a bit closer, it should not have to be said that conduct such as a lawyer lying to a Court in a document filed in the record of any matter, for example, should be punished to the full extent of any applicable ethical rules. An example of this would be the FBI lawyer who forged documents filed with FISA, received a ludicrously light discipline by the DC Bar and is now back in practice with his license fully restored. Maybe not a perfect fit for our discussion, but that definitely is the kind of blatant conduct which should be addressed by the Bar.
But, and it is a critically important “but” in this discussion, arguing various positions for a client, even if those are unpopular or are viewed as “frivolous” or a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law, are permissible, in the latter case, expressly permitted under the Louisiana Rule cited above. If the latter category were a basis for ethical charges, would the Attorney General of Mississippi be in jeopardy of losing his license for arguing, in the Dobbs case, that Roe v. Wade should be overturned? While the answer is obvious, the hypothet is no more outlandish than claiming that an attorney lied to a Court in making arguments based on sworn testimony and affidavits as were made by many of the attorneys targeted by this sleazy group. Examples of —at the minimum – irregularities are legion and are collected, to name just one such publication, in my opinion the best, Mollie Hemingway’s excellent book Rigged.
A very few examples of how far this group is reaching in order to assure no lawyer in his or her right mind will ever agree to represent a client who does not get the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from the ruling elite may suffice. Cleta Mitchell, a member of the DC Bar with impeccable credentials, is the target of a complaint because she was on a conference call between President Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State. The details are available here on The Project 65 website. Another attorney, Professor John Eastman, whose integrity was, before he became a target for these thought police patrols, unquestioned has today been hit with an ethics charge filed with the Supreme Court for advancing arguments which troubled the elite’s enforcers; it can be accessed here. Another attorney, in Pennsylvania, was charged with an ethical violation because he made an appearance in a Trump lawsuit-in other words, simply signed a document in behalf of Trump. There are a depressingly large number of other examples available.
Possible Bases for Counterattacks Against These Thought Police Enforcers for the Elite.
There are several arguments available to counter these charges, as noted by Mr. Clark’s article:
Their goals run afoul of the First Amendment’s Petition Clause, as often citizens’ petitions for a redress of grievances come in the form of lawsuits.
It can be argued that forming an organization to hound lawyers who served as advocates for Republicans may be a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the lawyers and their clients.
Counter-complaints can be filed against any 65 Project complainant in his or her own State Bar.
Especially in view of the stated aims, as so graphically stated by one of its own directors, to “shame” and damage the reputations of the targeted attorneys, libel and slander actions could be brought and recent examples have shown these suits can be very, very successful, as in the case of the young student who was slandered by such guardians of the truth as CNN and others.
What is the Future of this Vicious Crusade?
An indication of what could be a powerful backlash against these enforcers is found in a statement of a legal ethics scholar at Fordham University, here:
Some legal scholars have also questioned the 65 Project’s tactics, worrying that their campaign — buttressed by TV ad buys and publicity-heavy rollouts of new complaints — upends the traditionally confidential process for attorney disciplinary proceedings.
”It’s unclear whether the point is to use the publicity and the website and the public nature of it to pressure disciplinary authorities to do something they might not otherwise do,” said Bruce Green, a legal ethics scholar at Fordham University, “or whether the point is to use the filing as a way to publicly shame lawyers.”
While no one knows where this unsavory group will take their campaign of personal destruction or how successful it may be, in the opinion of this “well-seasoned” (euphemism for old) relic of a lawyer, it does seem to me that they have picked some fights with some very competent, very skilled, very able lawyers. Those highly respected lawyers did not get their reputations by being intimidated by the likes of David Brock and his band of hoodlums. In other words, as so memorably exclaimed by Bette Davis long ago, “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!”
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This reminds me of the efforts have John Yoo be disciplined, which went nowhere.
A timely post.
The lawyer who won the Supreme Court 2nd Amendment case was told by his firm that he had to drop his gun clients…or leave the firm. Which he did.
This is all terrifying. It is the same pattern as the ‘cancellation’ of speakers, the suppression of Wrongthink on the Internet, the assertion that what Science is all about is believing approved experts without question.
We are seeing a return of the attitude of the medieval heresy-hunters: ‘error has no rights’…asserted by people who cannot admit any possibility that they themselves could ever be in error.
Wasn’t Brock a Clinton flunkey? Chances of disbarment of any of the lawyers is about zero. State Bar Associations have enough work to do getting rid of drunk lawyers and thieving lawyers. In 52 years, and a member of 3 different state bars, have never seen a lawyer disbarred for political reasons or because some court pleading is arguably false. Not worried about these idiots.
I find lawyers abandoning their ethics pretty telling. It appears that modern lawyers care not for ethics. It is all about tribalism.
Bryan I think that is very small part of our profession. Maybe the guys and gals into politics but rarely run into those types. Most of us concerned with making money, or saving money, for our clients. Most of the political types, like the firm that ran interference for Hillary and suborned the FBI, are in D.C.
“To those who may be saying or thinking something right now to the effect of “just another tale of woe from another lawyer about lawyers — who cares?”, I would ask that you recall when you or a family member or a close friend really needed a good lawyer to advocate for your cause, whatever it might have been. I would wager that one of your first requirements, if the matter was a contentious one as many are by the time they get to the lawyer’s office, was that the lawyer “fight like hell” for your side of the case.”
Exactly. I used to listen sometimes to the Michael Savage show. He routinely was disparaging lawyers. But then he was telling some story about dealing with his book publisher, I think, and he suddenly starting talking about how wonderful HIS lawyer was. This is very common – people hate lawyers, except they love their own.
Regarding the problem that is the topic of your post, I would look to state bar associations. They all have detailed ethics rules, and disparagement or harassment of another lawyer for having represented an unpopular client should be a violation of attorney ethics. Obviously, this would only apply to lawyers, but it is a start.
Here is the thing: Where is the condemnation?
Your professional leaders endorse this. There is no outcry by your profession against it.
No dispute. The ABA is controlled by the same leftists jerks that run the AMA. Politicians. But lawyers are not required to join the ABA. I never did. It’s the State Bar Associations and govern attorney ethics. And they tend to be a pretty professional group. Will not be impressed with the political b.s. when the cost is taking away a person’s right to make a living.
In the end the lawyer may not be disbarred. But there are changes in public and professional attitudes that make disbarment today a non-zero possibility, something we considered unthinkable until a couple of years ago. Politically driven lawyer discipline is no longer a fringe idea. Law school faculties are now voting to encourage disbarring lawyers who represent politically disfavored clients, not just politicians themselves but also energy companies, defense contractors, gun owners and manufacturers, and so forth. And once the politically motivated file their complaints with the state bars, the complained-against lawyer has to work to prepare a defense, there is political and economic pressure on the law firm to fire the lawyer, and the political actors pressure the law firm’s other clients to drop the firm unless the firm fires the lawyer. Many younger lawyers in the firm also have demanded the firm drop the politically disfavored client and lawyer. The filing of the complaint also discourages other lawyers from representing politically unpopular clients. So even if the end result is not disbarment, politically motivated Bar complaints and investigations impose a heavy cost on the administration of justice.
Law school faculties? Who ever listens to these idiots. Glenn Reynolds the exception. Obviously they will lobby to keep conservatives off their faculties. So what? You are right the guy who won the Supreme Court case got ushered out of his firm. Which he had been in for about 4 years. He will land just fine. So the message is do not get involved in touchy political cases. How many lawyers work in this political crap? 1%? 2%? Don’t pay attention to them.
Moderator Note:
Amended pursuant to earlier moderator intervention.Hey guy it’s your birthday. Take the night off. Can get back to lawyer crap in the am.
Critical Race Theory started in law school faculties. Ideas from those idiots do find their way into wider circulation.
Don’t disagree. From my experience the State Bar ethics gurus are pretty professional. To date, even in California, never heard of an attorney targeted for political reasons, Trump or otherwise. Will keep checking.
This is part of the overall cancel culture. They Are out to render others outcasts. Once you render people non people, then comes other worse things.
Trump has been a focus for it because he was effective. Thus, cancel culture is mandated. This will be expanded to any conservative cause.
I expect someday not to be able to bank.
The reasons we need so many lawyers is evidence of complex rot, top down governance, We should want fewer lawyers because we don’t want to need them.
The very important book on the transgenderism, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” was written by a lawyer, not a counselor or psychologist. A counselor or psychologist would be facing ethics complaints that the writer does not support “life affirming” gender therapy. A lawyer can rest in the protection of the First Amendment.
Unfortunately, almost all judges are lawyers.
Fortunately, the largest employment group in the Second Continental Congress which adopted the Declaration of Independence were lawyers.
Disbarment is a stretch. If they get some bar association to disgracefully overreach to pick off a couple of licenses that would be a bonus but this is mostly about harassment, exclusion, and damage to careers. The left can no longer tolerate the existence of those who do not bend the knee.
As much as I enjoy making fun of lawyers (heck, I don’t really need a reason to make fun of anybody), I am sympathetic to the argument that the problem with North American legal systems is not that there are too many lawyers but rather that there are too few, at least in the areas of law that most honest folk are likely to encounter (i.e. pretty much anything other than personal injury and/or harassment lawsuits). The very high barriers to entry into the legal profession mean that lawyers may charge very high rates for their services thereby putting the judicial system out of reach for many (most?) citizens. Accepting more lawyers to the bar, or granting paralegals more authority to handle “more routine” legal matters, would go a long way towards democratizing the judicial system further.
At least, that’s how the argument goes.
And none of ’em went to law school, which sorta kinda speaks to my point.
And yet (and this data point sorta kinda rebuts my quip about barriers to entry, but whatever)…
https://www.thoughtco.com/are-there-too-many-lawyers-4026025
This is true. However, most people these days prefer the oft-quoted line out-of-context . . .
I was targeted for political reasons 2004 for participating in an anti-Kerry ad. Fortunately for me, the Oregon bar eventually dismissed all the allegations.
The lawyer you refer to, Paul Clement, is highly regarded as one of the top Supreme Court appellate advocates in Washington; when I saw this I thought of it as a classic case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face as that firm lost one hell of a valuable asset in protecting its pristine woke credentials! Another group which just suffered a huge loss was George Washington University as Justice Thomas just informed them he will not be returning to their annual seminar series, at which he has taught, as I understand it, for a number of years. I guess this fine and honorable man, who will surely go down in history as one of the great Justices, just finally got tired of being called every name in the book by people he gave his time to; it is incomprehensible to me what some of these people have to go through at the hands of the far left and their pals in academia and the media. On your note about the medieval heresy hunters, I thought of dropping a mention of The Scarlet Letter into the post in view of Brock’s statements about “shaming” lawyers who represented Trump–especially “the littler fish”! So disgusting and despicable he makes my skin crawl.
But most are pretty fair. Only recall running into 4 or 5 idiots that had no sense of justice in my experience. Even the average ones are trying to do the right thing. Not a bad system. Humans screw up from time to time.
Bryan, I see your point and that is the way many people feel about the way the leaders of the Bar are so silent when it comes to such open and blatant abuses as the subject of my post. However, there is another side and it is this: the only bar association which can actually do anything about abuses in the District of Columbia is the DC Bar. Like so many things/associations/institutions/Courts in DC, it has at least the appearance of being thoroughly corrupt as it is not only not going after some of the people associated with The 65 Project- some of whom are very prominent members of that Bar– it is going after some of the targets of the project, if not all of them; totally upside down. As to where is the condemnation, not to self-promote my post but to help make your point, I only wish many others would write the kind of piece I did and especially those with much bigger megaphones so the public could better understand there are many lawyers across the country who are sick of this kind of corruption and want the world to know it and want and need help in getting it cleaned up. It is painfully clear, the way those courts up there are treating the J6 defendants, that nothing can be expected by way of self-policing in DC; it is just rotten to the core.
OB you must be referring to the law firm partner that exited his firm after a S. Ct. victory. Those are the seven figure super stars. Will have no problem getting new clients. Almost all firms, from my experience, are much more concerned about the number of billable hours being cranked out by the lawyers than the politics. D.C. might be different.
Glad no one figured this out 50 years ago. Might not have made enough money to get the 3 kids through college.
@navyjag, I fully agree with your statement about state bar associations being in large part very professional. I was heavily involved with the Louisiana State Bar’s programs on professionalism and ethics and most of the people in the leadership I worked with were fine professionals. As to the ABA, I got out of that strange group so many years ago I can hardly remember ever being a member. As I recall, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when they started announcing foreign policy declarations and positions with regard to such issues as abortion. It was immediately obvious when they started doing all of that that they did not in any way, shape or form speak for us or our firm or our practice. Your characterization of them as “leftist jerks” is an insult to leftist jerks everywhere! :-)