March 18, 2025
Let Us Join Together to Defend the Rule of Law
The rule of law is under grave attack. First and foremost, judicial rulings are being either ignored or willfully flouted by the President and his executive branch agencies. Most notably, the White House admitted Sunday that it had defied a court order to turn around two flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members for deportation. Trump has even called for the impeachment of the judge who disagreed with his assertion of authority to summarily deport the Venezuelans, an unprecedented threat to an independent judiciary. Further, the president has issued executive orders seeking to prevent the law firm Covington & Burling from effectively representing Jack Smith, to punish Perkins Coie for having represented the Democratic National Committee, and to punish Paul Weiss for having long ago employed a lawyer who once served as a prosecutor investigating Trump for crimes for which he was convicted. Trump has even caused lawyers who prosecuted the January 6 defendants to be fired for doing their jobs by convincing juries to convict those who clearly broke the law. All these actions and others are part of a brazen attempt by the Trump administration to impose their will regardless of the Constitution, governing law, and court decisions. And if you think that this is the end of the Trump administration’s efforts to bend the rule of law to the breaking point, I have a bridge to sell you.
As the American Bar Association president indicated in his statement of March 3, 2025, the appropriate response of American lawyers is to oppose these threats and actions in no uncertain terms. The ABA statement appropriately urged all lawyers to join together in a single resounding voice to demand the Trump administration’s adherence to the rule of law. The American Constitution Society statement of March 10, 2025, similarly argued that lawyers have a responsibility to fight back against attacks on the rule of law that would fatally undermine the legal system they are meant to uphold. And while some other legal organizations have spoken up, the response has been much too anemic. As lawyers, we obviously have different political and policy positions, but we can all agree that our democracy depends on all government officials being bound by judicial decisions unless and until they are reversed by higher courts, lawyers being able to represent their clients without suffering reprisals from the president, and judges exercising independent judgment safe from threats of retaliation.
As Washington D.C. is the epicenter of actions attacking the rule of law, it is the duty of Washington lawyers to lead the defense. And it is the duty of every lawyer, no matter where they may practice, to speak out against the grievous threats to our profession and the legal system that it makes possible.
Yes, we can reasonably expect the executive orders issued against Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss to be overturned. In her March 12 ruling, District Judge Beryl Howell temporarily restrained some portions of the executive order against Perkins Coie and signaled that she may permanently enjoin the order in its entirety. We can also reasonably expect Judge Boasberg’s order requiring planes carrying Venezuelan deportees to return to the United States while they were in the air to be upheld, as the White House’s apparent excuse for defying the order - that the planes were then over international waters and beyond the court’s jurisdiction - is nothing more than a contemptuous pretext. But we should not be satisfied and remain quietly in our offices, hoping that the worst has passed. That would be naive. Trump’s executive order against Paul Weiss was issued after Judge Howell had restrained a similar executive order against Perkins Coie. In a speech made at the Department of Justice on March 14, Trump promised to take further actions against lawyers who have either actively exercised their First Amendment rights to criticize his actions or who have previously worked on congressional or other investigations into his conduct. And it appears that refusing to comply with court orders is quickly becoming the norm, as on March 15, the Customs and Border Protection Administration defied a court order preventing it from deporting a Lebanese physician without providing the court with 48 hours prior notice.
Law firms are understandably concerned that because many of their clients have matters pending before the Trump administration, taking a public stand could pose risks to their business. But staying in our respective bunkers with our heads down is a recipe for a greater disaster: the breakdown of the rule of law. When this happens, the very business of lawyers - representing parties in courts of justice - fizzles and the risk to the business of lawyering is even greater, to say nothing about the consequences to the least powerful in our society. Accordingly, we lawyers must join together by the hundreds of thousands to call an end to Trump’s attacks on judges and the legal system. The battle over the rule of law has been joined and we must all rise to defend it.
Steven Salky is a 1981 graduate of Yale Law School who retired from his partnership at Zuckerman Spaeder in 2020, where he primarily represented individuals in federal enforcement proceedings for 35 years. He is an active member of the D.C. Bar, currently practices law part-time with his daughter’s law firm, and volunteers as a nurse assistant at the Bread for the City Medical Clinic.