In the waning days of his administration, President Donald Trump sought to abuse the Justice Department and the courts to overturn the election of Joe Biden and remain in the presidency. Perhaps, we should not be surprised by the former president’s unscrupulous use of power, his reckless disregard for the institutions of democracy. But our democracy endured, thanks in part to lawyers in public life who valued the rule of law over ideology. We should pause to acknowledge how well the profession held up under pressure.
As law professors who teach legal ethics, we study the history, traditions, values, norms, rules and regulation of the legal profession. Although the legal profession has its share of “lawyer-statesmen” and “wise counselors,” we often teach our students about rogue lawyers. As John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, likes to recall, legal ethics became a serious subject thanks to the Watergate scandal, during which many government lawyers, who are supposed to uphold the law, broke it.
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