Remember Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congressional representative from Georgia? Elected in 2021, she quit Congress in 2026. She had been an acolyte of 47, having drunk the Kool-Aid. However, on the theory that nothing lasts forever, she became a vocal critic of him during his second term. She favored policies that did not curry his favor, such as expansion of health care coverage, and advocating the release of the Epstein files. 47 then took after MTG. She spit out the Kool-Aid. Was she prescient?
Finally, after years, in fact, decades of elder statespeople clinging to their seats, clueless about the state of their constituents’ worlds, many of them received well deserved boots back to their home states. Instead of retiring with dignity, they suffered ignominious defeats. The Hill called it a “youth quake.” Whatever you choose to call it, it was long overdue.
More than 40 nonincumbent millennials won seats. Gen Z representation tripled. As a dinosaur lawyer (and voter), I am delighted to see that new ways of thinking, creating, and innovating may help how we are governed going forward. While there is certainly value in institutional memory, that memory dims with time’s passage.
A headline in one of the post-slaughter articles of the midterms read (and I am paraphrasing here), that 47 didn’t learn anything. Really? I disagree. 47 did learn something and that is to double down in his final two years in office. He ousted Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, and replaced her with Stephen Miller, a Trump mini-me, and the architect of Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. So those who think the final two years of a lame duck presidency will be better than the first two years are in for a rude surprise. It will be an unpleasant Mr. Toad’s wild ride.
What about all those Biglaw firms that bent a knee or otherwise twisted themselves into pretzels resulting from 47’s second-term flurry of executive orders? Will they now have a change of heart? Will those firms still engage in kissing the ring? Will they unbend those knees that only four of the Biglaw firms never bent? Or will those firms, at least some of them, start to kiss 47 good-bye, and advise him to not let the door hit him on the way out? Lawyers are professional
chameleons, and so it will be fun to see groveling go from red to blue. ATL will have a front-row seat to all of these acrobatics. Break out the popcorn.
So, questions that have no answers, at least not now. What do you think will happen to DEI during the next two years? Will the Mansfield Rule rise from the dead? Do you think that Biglaw and Big Corporate Law will peek out from beyond the curtains that they have been hiding behind over the past two years and resume that which needs to be encouraged, not discouraged? What about a return to, ahem, civility? Will the mud-wrestling language of the past decade, not just by 47 but his minions, diminish over time? Perhaps there will be less bullying and more civility, less nastiness and more courtesy, not just in Washington but across the country. We still have to endure two more years of the Name Caller in Chief.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.
The post The Blue Wave And MTG appeared first on Above the Law.
Remember Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congressional representative from Georgia? Elected in 2021, she quit Congress in 2026. She had been an acolyte of 47, having drunk the Kool-Aid. However, on the theory that nothing lasts forever, she became a vocal critic of him during his second term. She favored policies that did not curry his favor, such as expansion of health care coverage, and advocating the release of the Epstein files. 47 then took after MTG. She spit out the Kool-Aid. Was she prescient?
Finally, after years, in fact, decades of elder statespeople clinging to their seats, clueless about the state of their constituents’ worlds, many of them received well deserved boots back to their home states. Instead of retiring with dignity, they suffered ignominious defeats. The Hill called it a “youth quake.” Whatever you choose to call it, it was long overdue.
More than 40 nonincumbent millennials won seats. Gen Z representation tripled. As a dinosaur lawyer (and voter), I am delighted to see that new ways of thinking, creating, and innovating may help how we are governed going forward. While there is certainly value in institutional memory, that memory dims with time’s passage.
A headline in one of the post-slaughter articles of the midterms read (and I am paraphrasing here), that 47 didn’t learn anything. Really? I disagree. 47 did learn something and that is to double down in his final two years in office. He ousted Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, and replaced her with Stephen Miller, a Trump mini-me, and the architect of Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. So those who think the final two years of a lame duck presidency will be better than the first two years are in for a rude surprise. It will be an unpleasant Mr. Toad’s wild ride.
What about all those Biglaw firms that bent a knee or otherwise twisted themselves into pretzels resulting from 47’s second-term flurry of executive orders? Will they now have a change of heart? Will those firms still engage in kissing the ring? Will they unbend those knees that only four of the Biglaw firms never bent? Or will those firms, at least some of them, start to kiss 47 good-bye, and advise him to not let the door hit him on the way out? Lawyers are professional
chameleons, and so it will be fun to see groveling go from red to blue. ATL will have a front-row seat to all of these acrobatics. Break out the popcorn.
So, questions that have no answers, at least not now. What do you think will happen to DEI during the next two years? Will the Mansfield Rule rise from the dead? Do you think that Biglaw and Big Corporate Law will peek out from beyond the curtains that they have been hiding behind over the past two years and resume that which needs to be encouraged, not discouraged? What about a return to, ahem, civility? Will the mud-wrestling language of the past decade, not just by 47 but his minions, diminish over time? Perhaps there will be less bullying and more civility, less nastiness and more courtesy, not just in Washington but across the country. We still have to endure two more years of the Name Caller in Chief.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].
