“First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” — Shakespeare, Henry VI
Being a lawyer, I’m not in favor of that, and anyway it doesn’t mean what you think. (For what it does mean, go here.)
However, I do support disciplining the “Stop the Steal” lawyers responsible for the numerous baseless lawsuits that challenged the 2020 election on groundless claims of voting fraud that didn’t happen, to the extent they violated ethical rules by doing so, especially if they lied in their legal filings.
They were part of a broader conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the 81 million voters who elected Biden, and more broadly to undermine our democracy by trying to discredit elections — a movement that has spawned threats of violence against public officials, election workers, and their families. This can’t go unpunished.
A group called the 65 Project (website here) is raising money (donate here) to support organized efforts to pursue ethics complaints against 111 lawyers in 26 states who “were involved in pushes to challenge or reverse 2020 election results,” The Hill reported on Monday, March 7, 2022 (read story here).
The group contends these lawyers “knew they were a key component of a larger effort to discredit the 2020 presidential election — and all future elections in which their preferred candidate lost,” The Hill says.
It’s a high-powered effort; the group’s advisory board includes a former U.S. senator, state supreme court justice, and American Bar Association president.
The reason for doing this is the same as for punishing any bad behavior. As Val Kilmer’s character in the movie “Tombstone” says, “It’s not revenge; it’s a reckoning.” It also serves to deter such conduct in the future. Hopefully, the assault on our democracy that followed the 2020 election will never be repeated; but we can’t be sure of that, and a repetition is more likely if there are no consequences for the 2020 participants.
There’s also the matter of upholding the standards of the legal professions. Lawyers aren’t allowed to abuse the court system, period. Filing frivolous, or poorly investigated, legal claims in the courts can result in sanctions and discipline, including disbarment in extreme cases.
This is an extreme case; not a single one of these lawsuits had enough merit to go to trial; all were thrown out by judges, including Republican judges, some of whom were Trump appointees. The “stop the steal” lawsuits collection represent one of — if not the most — egregious examples of abusing the legal system for ulterior purposes in American history.
Each of these cases must, of course, be evaluated on its individual merits by the relevant disciplinary authorities, and discipline must (and will) be proportionate to the nature and severity of the individual lawyer’s conduct; so it’s not appropriate to say all should be disbarred or make other categorical pronouncements. All I’m saying is complaints should be pursued against lawyers where and as warranted by their actions.
I believe 65 Project is going about that in a responsible manner, and I made a donation (here) to support their work.
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