On May 1, 2025, the National Judicial College (NJC) joined several major judicial organizations in issuing a powerful joint statement defending judicial independence amid escalating threats and political pressure. The statement reaffirms that judges must be free to rule according to the law and Constitution without fear of intimidation or violence, echoing recent comments by …
On Law Day 2025, the American Bar Association warned that the U.S. legal profession is facing growing political pressure and retaliation, echoing patterns seen in authoritarian regimes like Belarus and Poland. Judges and lawyers in the U.S. are increasingly targeted for defending the rule of law, facing firings, disbarments, and public threats. Drawing on lessons …
This document is an amicus brief filed by 777 solo and small firm lawyers in support of Susman Godfrey LLP’s challenge to a 2025 Executive Order issued by President Trump. The brief argues that the order threatens constitutional rights, undermines legal ethics, and endangers the ability of independent lawyers to represent clients—especially those who are politically disfavored. Readers will find a detailed legal argument for why the order should be struck down as unconstitutional.
Democratic lawyers believe-as much of the rest of U.S. society and the bar do not-that ordinary people, acting collectively with peers, receptive professionals, and other allies, can and must play a leading role in efforts to reshape our society and political
This essay suggests that, in a very limited sphere, lawyers play a unique role in the protection of the rule of law.
This Article explores that dilemma in a stark form: through the moral biographies of two lawyers in the Third Reich, both of whom stayed on the job, and both of whom can lay claim to mitigating evil.
This article analyzes the ethical dilemmas faced by Italian lawyers during World War II, focusing on their roles in Fascist society, their responses to Mussolini’s 1938 race laws, and their involvement in addressing the treatment of Jews in Italy, drawing on legal histories and survivor narratives.
This essay argues that the German legal system, including courts, judges, and lawyers, enabled and often supported the Nazi regime’s rise and its race-based atrocities by legitimizing Hitler’s incremental consolidation of power under the guise of law.
This chapter explores how reforms in the recruitment of self-governing lawyer councils between 1989 and 2017 expanded access to the legal profession and improved the availability of legal services through a 15-year process of social and legal change.
Hendley argues that despite political interference in high-profile cases, ordinary Russians do engage with the legal system in everyday disputes, revealing a more nuanced and pragmatic relationship with the law than commonly assumed.