Courts

Former Bar Association Leaders Give Blunt Warning To MAGA Lawyers

But will anyone listen?

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Vote 2024. US Presidential Election background. United States Elections 2024 conceptIn the year of our lord 2024, it’s almost expected that Election Day will not be the end of the actual election. In the last presidential election, it took three days and 628 cases before a winner was declared. But not all those cases were actually necessary to the democratic process — indeed, many of them were designed to disenfranchise voters and sow the seeds of mistrust in the election process.

In the face of this reality, a letter (available in full below) was written by past presidents of state, local, and national bar associations warning lawyers that as members of the bar, they’re “duty-bound to ensure” any lawsuits filed are “backed by law and free from any intent to harass or waste the court’s time,” and reminding them that a “baseless lawsuit not only squanders judicial resources but also undermines the public’s trust in our democracy and our profession.” And while the letter carefully avoids any explicit partisan callouts, you and I both know this is a warning to Donald Trump’s legal team.

Because MAGA lawyers from 2020 are exactly the cautionary tale for attorneys:

We’ve been here before. Following the 2020 election, some 628 legal cases were filed alleging fraud or impropriety, and they were overwhelmingly unsuccessful. Many were voluntarily dismissed. Others were dismissed due to lack of standing or evidence. Five lawyers connected to these cases were disbarred or had their licenses suspended, with others reprimanded. One such lawyer candidly admitted, “We’ve got lots of theories; we just don’t have the evidence.”

These lawyers not only lost their licenses and tarnished their reputations; they also betrayed their communities and the American public. Their baseless cases stirred confusion and anger locally and across the nation, inciting threats against election officials, workers, judges and their staff. These actions likely contributed to the January 6 assault on the Capitol and have further eroded public trust in our justice system and our constitutional democracy.

The letter goes on to pretty much beg attorneys not to cravenly file lawsuits they know are without merit in order to further their political ambitions.

As legal professionals, we must hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards to avoid a repeat of these events. With this election, we call on our colleagues to remember our duties as lawyers and as guardians of the rule of law. When it is our conduct that improperly causes Americans to lose confidence in the rule of law and in our democracy, we have done a disservice not only to our profession, but also to our nation.

We’ll see if anyone in MAGAland heeds the warning.

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Letter of Former Bar Presidents Concerning Ele

Kathryn Rubino HeadshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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