Attorneys in state congress speak on Trump's attack against firms

Sen. Thomas Umberg (D-Santa Ana) gave a short speech about the importance of law at the California Assembly Judiciary Committee June 17. The attorney made the speech while urging the passing of a resolution acknowledging President Donald Trump’s attacks on five large law firms. The resolution passed 9-0. 

“Resolved, That using the office of the presidency as a bludgeon against those who uphold the law and disagree with the Presidents position is not only an attack on the legal system but an attack on the rule of law,” the resolution reads.

Umberg’s comments are republished in full below:

Typically, a Law Day resolution would be like recognizing California's potato growers: not particularly controversial. Not so much this year. This recognizes May 1st as Law Day. I know we passed May 1st, but it's still an important resolution. It's an important resolution to recognize May 1st.

The reason that we have Law Day on May 1st is because President Eisenhower noticed that in what's now the former Soviet Union and in many Eastern Bloc countries, as well as other countries that are controlled by Communist dictatorships, that that was an important day. It was a day of celebration, much like our 4th of July.

And to counterpose what we do in the United States, he established Law Day to recognize the rule of law and the importance in terms of maintaining democracy. I think that that issue has been characterized as fairly esoteric.

In fact, at a recent meeting with some of my constituents, a person asked me, “What does the rule of law do to the price of eggs? Why do I care about the rule of law in connection with the price of eggs?”

And the response is: “The reason you care about the rule of law and the price of eggs is because without the rule of law, we don't have eggs. Without the rule of law, we don't have democracy.”

It's an esoteric topic, but we have not done, and I'll take responsibility myself, for communicating to our constituents the importance of the rule of law. Particularly important today with what's going on in and around California and the United States.

The challenge that we have is that there are some who don't recognize the rule of law as others might.

So, for example, where you basically try to put law firms out of business because you don't like their clients or you don't like the individuals that may be associated or involved or employed by that law firm, you basically attempt to put them out of business.

And this resolution commends those law firms that have stood up and said, look it, this is an abrogation of what we stood for for the last couple centuries and how important it is for those of us in the profession to stand up for the rule of law.

Assm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), also an attorney, spoke following Umberg:

I think that all of us who practice law are reflecting on what the law means at this moment. My first internship in law school was at the ACLU. I remember they were at the time working on a case for protecting the constitutional rights of neo Nazis. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, that made me incredibly uncomfortable, but I also understood that the rule of law is the rule of law, and a constitutional right is meaningless unless it's protected for everybody. I then went on to work at a big law firm.

Many of our clients, people thought, were not folks who you would want to be aligned with. I don't think we believed we were aligned with them.

We believed that the judicial system only works when everybody has access to counsel and that it was our job to represent faithfully our clients, and for the other side to do the same, and for the courts to find justice where appropriate.

And I find it incredibly frightening at this moment that we would have attorneys who would choose clients for any other reason that they deserve representation, because that is what will make the judicial system crumble.

And so I really appreciate this, and I know there are so many lawyers out there who right now are standing up and speaking out loudly to your point, to defend the rule of law, to defend the judiciary. But it is not about whether we agree or disagree on the merits of a case.

It is about allowing for the law to do its thing and decide where the chips fall at the end of very difficult arguments, long cases, and then complying, because that is what allows our society to stand up, which you've so adeptly talked about.”