{"id":136936,"date":"2025-11-14T17:28:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T01:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/14\/lawyers-marching-in-defense-of-democracy-tomorrow-since-supreme-court-doesnt-seem-to-care\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T17:28:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T01:28:05","slug":"lawyers-marching-in-defense-of-democracy-tomorrow-since-supreme-court-doesnt-seem-to-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/14\/lawyers-marching-in-defense-of-democracy-tomorrow-since-supreme-court-doesnt-seem-to-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers Marching In Defense Of Democracy Tomorrow Since Supreme Court Doesn\u2019t Seem To Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, a lawyer attending the New York Bar Foundation gala spoke up to heckle Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp over the firm\u2019s deal with the Trump administration<\/a>. Afterward, a prominent authority on the business of law mused to me that we don\u2019t level enough blame on the rest of the legal industry for failing to organize and take collective action. Paul Weiss and the other capitulating firms found themselves in a classic Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma and found that the faster they made a deal, the better the terms. But the best outcome for the hypothetical prisoners is actually<\/em> to stick to their principles, assuming no one rats them out. While many lawyers called out the administration\u2019s lawlessness, there wasn\u2019t the unified sense of purpose across the industry \u2014 especially across Biglaw \u2014 that a firm could rely upon.<\/p>\n

But a number of legal professionals want to change that, and start making a public demonstration of the legal community coming together to defend the rule of law \u2014 since lawyers should consider themselves the rightful guardians of that principle anyway.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow offers something of a second bite at the apple for lawyers. <\/p>\n

\u201cLawyers March for Democracy\u201d kicks off tomorrow at 1 p.m. outside the Supreme Court. The People\u2019s Parity Project<\/a> organized the event, backed by Alliance for Justice, the American Constitution Society, Lambda Legal, and a coalition of other progressive legal organizations to \u201ccall out the Trump administration\u2019s lawlessness and the Supreme Court\u2019s complicity in Trump\u2019s authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Through all of the upheavals of the early months of Trump\u2019s second term, the Supreme Court has not only been complicit but has actively participated in Trump\u2019s authoritarian project, siding with the administration over and over again and allowing him to continue blatantly unconstitutional actions without any public legal justification.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why start at the Supreme Court? Remember the humble ask of the anonymous federal judges<\/a> who asked the Supreme Court to please say something about the Trump administration telling the January 6 people to go to \u201cwar<\/a>\u201d with us?<\/em> At least try \u2014 they asked the Court \u2014 to explain shadow docket opinions so the administration can\u2019t use its media outlets to recast those empty orders as indictments of lower court judges just following existing precedent. Hearing the plea and understanding the gravity of the violent threats mounting against federal judges<\/a>, the Supreme Court said: nah.<\/p>\n

And then Republicans called for a probe to punish the judges for speaking out<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Supreme Court makes a lot of sense as a starting point. <\/p>\n

The New Republic ran a wonderful piece<\/a> this week drawing parallels between tomorrow\u2019s march and successful lawyer-led resistance movements around the world. In Pakistan in 2007, lawyers marched \u2014 through tear gas and arrests \u2014 after President Musharraf suspended the chief justice. They wore their black coats as symbols that the law itself was under siege. Eventually, they prevailed.<\/p>\n

Lawyers love their image as the guardians of democracy. Quoting A Man For All Seasons<\/em> to proclaim themselves the last defense against tyranny is practically the \u201cOh, The Places You\u2019ll Go\u201d of a law school graduation. But when tyranny actually knocks, the incentives are set up to make it easier to invite it in for tea. At the highest levels, law firms run on access to government actors, expensive staff, and\u2026 well, yeah, also big personal paychecks. When an administration launches an existential threat to the business model \u2014 and the current Supreme Court gives few guarantees that it would block those illegal threats if called upon \u2014 it\u2019s hard to convince individual firms to push back if they don\u2019t feel like the rest of the industry has their back.<\/p>\n

And they didn\u2019t. The rest of Biglaw failed to publicly back them up and Karp claims rival firms actively used the Executive Order threat to try to steal talent and business from the firm. At the time when a firm needed industry support the most, at least some of its competitors just saw a chance to throw them under the bus. That those same firms are probably now using the fact that a firm DID make a deal to try to steal talent and business may involve a different ethical positioning, but the underlying problem remains that the industry is so atomized that it presents a custom-built divide and conquer opportunity. <\/p>\n

Which is why marches like the one tomorrow are so important. And conferences like the Rule of Law Society recently held. And initiatives defending bar associations and other legal groups that preach profession over employer. Lawyers need to get back to a little of that corny law school idealism and get together.<\/p>\n

Lawyers March for Democracy<\/a> [People\u2019s Parity Project]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Heckler Asks \u2018For Trump?\u2019 As Paul Weiss Describes Pro Bono Work At Gala Dinner<\/a>
In A Bold Move, Federal Judges Are Calling Out The Supreme Court\u2019s Bullsh*t
<\/a>District Judges Fight To Save The Rule Of Law While DOJ And Supreme Court Snicker<\/a>
Rule Of Law Conservatives Awkwardly Embrace #Resistance<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Lawyers Marching In Defense Of Democracy Tomorrow Since Supreme Court Doesn\u2019t Seem To Care<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, a lawyer attending the New York Bar Foundation gala spoke up to heckle Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp over the firm\u2019s deal with the Trump administration<\/a>. Afterward, a prominent authority on the business of law mused to me that we don\u2019t level enough blame on the rest of the legal industry for failing to organize and take collective action. Paul Weiss and the other capitulating firms found themselves in a classic Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma and found that the faster they made a deal, the better the terms. But the best outcome for the hypothetical prisoners is actually<\/em> to stick to their principles, assuming no one rats them out. While many lawyers called out the administration\u2019s lawlessness, there wasn\u2019t the unified sense of purpose across the industry \u2014 especially across Biglaw \u2014 that a firm could rely upon.<\/p>\n

But a number of legal professionals want to change that, and start making a public demonstration of the legal community coming together to defend the rule of law \u2014 since lawyers should consider themselves the rightful guardians of that principle anyway.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow offers something of a second bite at the apple for lawyers. <\/p>\n

\u201cLawyers March for Democracy\u201d kicks off tomorrow at 1 p.m. outside the Supreme Court. The People\u2019s Parity Project<\/a> organized the event, backed by Alliance for Justice, the American Constitution Society, Lambda Legal, and a coalition of other progressive legal organizations to \u201ccall out the Trump administration\u2019s lawlessness and the Supreme Court\u2019s complicity in Trump\u2019s authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Through all of the upheavals of the early months of Trump\u2019s second term, the Supreme Court has not only been complicit but has actively participated in Trump\u2019s authoritarian project, siding with the administration over and over again and allowing him to continue blatantly unconstitutional actions without any public legal justification.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why start at the Supreme Court? Remember the humble ask of the anonymous federal judges<\/a> who asked the Supreme Court to please say something about the Trump administration telling the January 6 people to go to \u201cwar<\/a>\u201d with us?<\/em> At least try \u2014 they asked the Court \u2014 to explain shadow docket opinions so the administration can\u2019t use its media outlets to recast those empty orders as indictments of lower court judges just following existing precedent. Hearing the plea and understanding the gravity of the violent threats mounting against federal judges<\/a>, the Supreme Court said: nah.<\/p>\n

And then Republicans called for a probe to punish the judges for speaking out<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Supreme Court makes a lot of sense as a starting point. <\/p>\n

The New Republic ran a wonderful piece<\/a> this week drawing parallels between tomorrow\u2019s march and successful lawyer-led resistance movements around the world. In Pakistan in 2007, lawyers marched \u2014 through tear gas and arrests \u2014 after President Musharraf suspended the chief justice. They wore their black coats as symbols that the law itself was under siege. Eventually, they prevailed.<\/p>\n

Lawyers love their image as the guardians of democracy. Quoting A Man For All Seasons<\/em> to proclaim themselves the last defense against tyranny is practically the \u201cOh, The Places You\u2019ll Go\u201d of a law school graduation. But when tyranny actually knocks, the incentives are set up to make it easier to invite it in for tea. At the highest levels, law firms run on access to government actors, expensive staff, and\u2026 well, yeah, also big personal paychecks. When an administration launches an existential threat to the business model \u2014 and the current Supreme Court gives few guarantees that it would block those illegal threats if called upon \u2014 it\u2019s hard to convince individual firms to push back if they don\u2019t feel like the rest of the industry has their back.<\/p>\n

And they didn\u2019t. The rest of Biglaw failed to publicly back them up and Karp claims rival firms actively used the Executive Order threat to try to steal talent and business from the firm. At the time when a firm needed industry support the most, at least some of its competitors just saw a chance to throw them under the bus. That those same firms are probably now using the fact that a firm DID make a deal to try to steal talent and business may involve a different ethical positioning, but the underlying problem remains that the industry is so atomized that it presents a custom-built divide and conquer opportunity. <\/p>\n

Which is why marches like the one tomorrow are so important. And conferences like the Rule of Law Society recently held. And initiatives defending bar associations and other legal groups that preach profession over employer. Lawyers need to get back to a little of that corny law school idealism and get together.<\/p>\n

Lawyers March for Democracy<\/a> [People\u2019s Parity Project]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Heckler Asks \u2018For Trump?\u2019 As Paul Weiss Describes Pro Bono Work At Gala Dinner<\/a>
In A Bold Move, Federal Judges Are Calling Out The Supreme Court\u2019s Bullsh*t
<\/a>District Judges Fight To Save The Rule Of Law While DOJ And Supreme Court Snicker<\/a>
Rule Of Law Conservatives Awkwardly Embrace #Resistance<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Lawyers Marching In Defense Of Democracy Tomorrow Since Supreme Court Doesn\u2019t Seem To Care<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, a lawyer attending the New York Bar Foundation gala spoke up to heckle Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp over the firm\u2019s deal with the Trump administration. Afterward, a prominent authority on the business of law mused to me that we don\u2019t level enough blame on the rest of the legal industry for failing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":136937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Headshot-300x200-sOtxlC.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}