HUNDREDS OF LAWYERS and legal advocates turned out at the federal courthouse in San Francisco’s Civic Center neighborhood as part of a nationwide protest against attacks on the legal profession by President Donald Trump.
The protest, organized by the Bar Association of San Francisco on national Law Day, was one of at least 50 other gatherings across the country objecting to Trump’s executive orders targeting certain law firms and trying to restrict who they can take on as clients, as well as attacks on the judiciary.
Trump signed executive orders in March targeting the federal contracts and security clearances of law firms including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, as well as Elias Law Group LLP and Perkins Coie LLP, citing their work for Democratic clients. He has also called for the impeachment of judges who rule against him, including U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.
Among those gathered outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Thursday were protesters with cowbells and others with signs that read “No Retaliation for Representation,” “Defend Justice/Defend Democracy,” “In America, the Law is King,” and “I Heart the Constitution.”
The crowd heard speeches under a sunny sky before being re-administered their Attorney’s Oath by retired Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell. The crowd then marched down the street to San Francisco City Hall, where their protest converged with another May Day protest focused on immigrants’ and workers’ rights, creating a briefly chaotic scene on the City Hall steps.
‘Hands off our courts!’
Bar Association of San Francisco President Charles Jung rallied the crowd with calls of “Hands off our courts!”
“We are here to collectively sound an alarm for our system of government,” Jung said, standing in front of a large banner that read “San Francisco Stands for the Rule of Law.”
He said judges should be able to rule without fear of reprisal, and that lawyers should be able to defend whomever they choose.
“If we allow the independence of our courts and the independence of our profession to be compromised today, make no mistake, that our rights will be subject to compromise and negotiation tomorrow. Because no freedom survives when those who defend it are silent. And we, here, refuse to be silenced!” he told the crowd.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, who is leading several lawsuits against the Trump administration on behalf of the city — including challenges to the administration’s withholding of funding from sanctuary cities, the erasure of online public health data, and firings by Elon Musk’s government efficiency department — said that the annual Law Day observation, begun under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958, had taken on new significance in the wake of several controversial federal policies that have triggered hundreds of lawsuits.
“We’ve just experienced the most disturbing first 100 days of a presidency in our country’s history,” Chiu said. “So many rights being trampled. Citizens being deported; a culture war against our trans kids; ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ becoming the three most controversial words in the English language. Abortion rights further eviscerated, our planet being destroyed. Issues so fundamental, we need to fight for them,” Chiu told the crowd.
If we allow the independence of our courts and the independence of our profession to be compromised today, make no mistake, that our rights will be subject to compromise and negotiation tomorrow.
Charles Jung, Bar Association of San Francisco President
Kelly Dermody, an attorney with Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, and a former San Francisco Bar Association president, said the courts were the last line of defense against an unchecked administration.
“Over the past three months, we have witnessed unprecedented attacks on our civic norms and national values,” Dermody said.
She said the administration’s “my way or the highway” attitude was unconstitutional.
“The only brakes on this runaway train have been court cases, chipping away at the most egregious abuses of power. But in response to those, the administration has retaliated. Attacking courts, suggesting judges should be impeached, questioning the very legitimacy of the judicial branch,” she said, calling it a “scary time.”
Retired judge LaDoris Cordell then led the hundreds of attorneys gathered in a recitation of their attorney’s oath, administered when lawyers join the Bar Association, which concludes that, as officers of the court, attorneys will conduct themselves with “dignity, courtesy and integrity.”
“Now turn to one another and high five the hell out of ‘em,” she told the crowd.
The crowd then marched a block south to City Hall where they gathered at the steps for more remarks from Jung, who was quickly drowned out by another protest group who had gathered for a May Day event focused on immigrants and workers’ rights. Many held signs calling for the return of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal resident whom the administration illegally deported by has so far refused to bring back, despite a judge’s order.
Outside City Hall, attorney Susan Lee said she joined the gathering to reassert the equality of the branches of government.
“Democracy is dwindling,” she said. “We must wrest back our rights.”
She said her mother became a citizen through birthright citizenship, which has also come under attack from the Trump administration.
“We must maintain the independence of the judiciary so we can uphold the rights under the constitution that our democracy was founded on,” she said, before adding, “hands off our courts.”
Another protester who joined the rally would only give his first name, Daniel, because he said people were now “being persecuted for speaking their minds,” said he was affiliated with a legal aid group that supported the Bar Association’s message.
“Everyone deserves due process,” he said. “Attorneys and judges are here for a reason — to deliver that process to us. If they disappear, our rights will disappear eventually,” he said.
The post On Law Day, attorneys and advocates protest Trump’s attacks on legal profession, judiciary appeared first on Local News Matters.