The Time is Now

In 1768, Founding Father John Dickinson wrote “The Liberty Song.” It included the lyrics, “Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!”

Lawyers, American Constitution Society members or not, stand at the edge of a great fall. Attacks on bar associations, on judges, on law schools, and on particular firms are rapidly becoming the norm. President Trump issued an executive order directly aimed at Perkins Coie, but threatening others.

As I wrote in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, lawyers are under special responsibilities, with the preamble to the model rules of professional conduct setting out some particular things we as lawyers must do as responsibilities:

• Have a special responsibility for the quality of justice.
• Demonstrate respect for the legal system and for those who serve it, including judges, other lawyers and public officials….it is a lawyer’s duty to uphold legal process.
• Seek improvement of the law, access to the legal system…. [E]mploy… knowledge in reform of the law and work to strengthen legal education….[F]urther the public’s understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the justice system because legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support….
• Provide services in the public interest for which compensation may not be available.

Not only ACS’s lawyer members take this oath and have these responsibilities — the vast majority of the 1 million-plus lawyers have these responsibilities in their code of conduct. The time is now. To address this crisis, we must reach out—even to colleagues across the ideological aisle—and rally the profession to act, as Dickinson urged.

The alternative? To stand by, comfortably numb, as the profession is dismantled and divided we fall. For me, the choice is clear.

Dan Cotter is a member of the Dickinson Wright law firm in Chicago. He serves on the ACS Chicago Lawyer Chapter Board of Directors and serves as President of the National Conference of Bar Presidents.

Civil rights, Equality and Liberty, Freedom of Press, Individual liberties