Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
Rights can’t just exist in dusty law books, recited in classrooms and promptly forgotten, or in tiny font in contracts most of us don’t read and can’t understand. And rights can’t be reserved just for corporations and wealthy individuals who can pay for legal representation.
Few chapters in our history have more directly called on our profession’s skills and obligations than this one. The private bar must now step up in defense of equal justice, or we will all fall.
— Kathleen Rubenstein, former executive director of the Skadden Foundation, in an essay published in Bloomberg Law, where she calls upon lawyers to defend the rights of others during a time when the rule of law is under attack by the Trump administration. In the wake of Skadden’s deal with Trump, Rubenstein resigned from the Foundation “rather than endorse actions that [she] believe[s] will undermine its mission.”
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.