As Shakespeare famously wrote in Henry VI Part II: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
Even for me as a lawyer, it’s hard not to sympathize with that sentiment. Lawyers are a drag. But in reflective moments, I’m more partial to Sir Thomas More’s line from Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s!”
The evenhanded application of the law is a principle that must be defended. Everywhere, balance and perspective are under attack. Whatever the costs of America’s process-heavy adversarial contests, that feature of our polity is a key bulwark of liberty. Due process is not something to be trifled with, deconstructed, or thrown away based on the passions of the political moment.
Yet that is happening, right now. The Left has set the lines of battle: Any lawyers who worked for President Trump with verve and ingenuity, along with any lawyers he retained to mount his various 2020 election contests, must be crushed, must have their noses rubbed into the dirt, must if possible lose their jobs and even their right to practice law. Read more…