Democracies rely on lawyers and their ethical duties to protect unpopular clients from government abuse. For decades, however, lawyers have invoked the principle that “everyone deserves a lawyer” to subvert and attack democracy itself. Somehow, under the cloak of democracy, American lawyers have gotten away with serving clients like Saudi Arabia’s despot Mohammed bin Salman or a Ukrainian oligarch. The lawyers’ real motive is profit.
This month, Jones Day, King & Spalding, and several other firms have faced criticism for supporting outgoing President Donald J. Trump’s attack on a legitimate election. In response to the lawyers’ assault on democracy, the public has demonstrated outside of their firms and demanded that other clients denounce their lawyers. People are angry that coastal lawyers are pouring over absentee ballot rules in Georgia to overturn election results.
As the post-election events should remind us, lawyers import corruption and strengthen authoritarianism in less obvious ways as well. After all, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of dirty money does not launder by itself. As Jack Blum, a former investigator for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, says, “[t]he door is open and American lawyers seem quite willing and able to assist authoritarian kleptocrats who want to hide dirty money inside the United States. Too many people are now engaged in importing corruption into the United States. This is drawing Americans into a game where they make money by entering into corrupt networks around the world and provide them with professional services which can establish them as players in the United States.”
Lawyers need to recall what their ethical duties entail. There is a difference between law firms seeking ways to invalidate thousands of election ballots and, say, representing an indigent client in criminal defense. Law firm support for Trump’s baseless claims further fractures the rule of law in this country whereas public defense expands access to justice (even though the criminal justice system needs greater reform).
The role of Trump’s lawyers in this election underscores that solutions to promote democracy lie at home, not abroad. The American defense department spends billions of dollars every year to “stop” autocrats like those in Russia. I have to wonder whether autocrats would thrive as they do without their American lawyers and our laws that enable their regimes.
As the incoming Biden administration fights Trump’s lawyers, it behooves the administration to realize that we can weaken autocracy and protect democracy (in ways that military alliances fail to) by examining the role of America’s legal profession.