Eliminate Lawyers

Dear Readers, There is a famous quote from Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, spoken by Dick the Butcher, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”  The context of the quote is in a revolutionary zeal to overthrow the existing government.  This has resonance today.

On paper, El Salvador is a constitutional democracy, not unlike our own.  On May 18^th, President Nayib Bukele had arrested Ruth Eleonora López, the head of the Anti-Corruption and Justice Unit of the rights organization Cristosal.  According to a public post made by the Salvadoran Attorney General, she was accused of being active in a phantom conspiracy stealing from the country’s coffers.  There was no warrant for her arrest and she was spirited away, having no contact with her family or organization for over 40 hours.

Two (2) weeks later, a Salvadoran Judge sentenced her to six (6) months in detention on illegal enrichment charges in proceedings closed to the public.  Ms. Lopez was defiant, shouting from the courtroom, “I am a political prisoner, the accusations are for my legal work, for my reporting this administration’s corruption. There are not institutions that guarantee Salvadorans rights. I am innocent …  They’re not going to silence me, I want a public trial.”  

President Bukele is metaphorically taking Dick the Butcher’s advice to cement his power.  El Salvador teeters ever closer to authoritarianism.  Eliminate lawyers and the Law as guardrails, and a tyrant’s pathway to absolute power has no impediments.

In America, President Trump has been on a revenge rampage; he made a promise during the presidential campaign and he is keeping it.  He was singed by the law; privately, as well as in trying to carry out an imperial political agenda.  After all, he is a convicted felon.  He seethes in resentment of our legal system.  Everywhere his administration turns, it is hemmed in by lawyers and the courts, losing nearly 200 court cases. 

The full weight of the Office of the Presidency is aimed at lawyers, those law firms of which he harbors a grudge.  He has issued Executive Orders stripping them of security clearances and banning them from federal courthouses.  If fully executed, these EOs would effectively erase them from the legal community.  

Some law firms buckled to the threat of annihilation; clients took this as a message of cowardice and fired them anyway.  Some law firms bristled at this blatantly unconstitutional attempt to squelch dissent and stood on principle and sued.  

On behalf of these firms, the American Bar Association has also stepped in and filed suit on its behalf and lawyers nationwide, complaining that EOs have chilled law firms’ willingness to handle pro bono legal work.  The ABA asserts that litigators “have withdrawn from such work because it is disfavored by the Administration, particularly work that would require law firms to litigate against the federal government.”

A law firm known as “Perkins Coie” is squarely in the middle of the resistance.  This is the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election and had commissioned the infamous “Steele Dossier” about Russian and Trump Campaign collaboration.  

In a ruling issued by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, Perkins Coie secured an injunction against the EOs.  She found them to be a blatantly coercive message of “toe-the-line or else.”  Further, they were unconstitutional “Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution, which requires that the government respond to dissenting or unpopular speech or ideas with ‘tolerance, not coercion.’”  

Judge Howell made a broader point, echoing Shakespeare and the more transparent abuse of authority by President Bukele in El Salvador.  She wrote, “Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.”

Lawyers are often vilified.  Having an “Esquire” appended to your signature does not necessarily convey having a moral compass.  We are trained to find ways to render the law malleable.  We are often at the spear tip of legal devastation.  We have to champion our clients while maintaining cool, dispassionate objectivity; we are not always “warm and cuddly.”

Nevertheless, we are Paladins of the law, cultivating its vibrancy.  We protect the wrongly accused, helping you fight Goliath to achieve justice.  Eliminating lawyers leaves common folks scorching in the rays of unfettered power.  Yes, eliminate lawyers … The first step towards tyranny.

Warner Robins attorney Jim Rockefeller is the former Chief Assistant District Attorney for Houston County, and a former Assistant State Attorney in Miami.  Owner of Rockefeller Law Center, Jim has been in private practice since 2000.  E-mail your comments or confidential legal questions to ajr@rockefellerlawcenter.com.