The oaths taken by U.S. lawyers in order to practice law should be expanded in every state to include a “commitment to upholding democracy and the rule of law” an American Bar Association task force said on Wednesday.
The proposal was part of an ambitious slate, opens new tab of a dozen recommendations meant to remedy the public’s eroding trust in government and rule of law after the ABA’s bipartisan Task Force for American Democracy spent two years examining the problem.
Updating the attorney oaths falls among the more modest of the task force’s recommendations, which include bolstering civics education, adopting non-partisan primary elections and removing redistricting from the hands of politicians.
Task force co-chair and former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told Reuters that restoring faith in democratic institutions is a tall order in the current political climate, but he said the ABA will continue to advocate for the task force’s recommendations with others hopefully joining its efforts.
“Americans distrust their government,” said Johnson, who served under Democratic former president Barack Obama and chaired the ABA task force alongside Republican-appointed former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig. “They are suspicious of power. Elected officials are pandering to that distrust and suspicion of government.”
ABA is the nation’s largest voluntary attorney group with about 170,000 dues-paying members. However, it has no control over public policy. The organization has publicly clashed with the Trump administration in recent months over officials’ attacks on judges and law firms and over the ABA’s diversity efforts.
But America’s 1.3 million lawyers bear a unique responsibility to reinforce the rule of law and preserve the integrity of elections and other democratic institutions, wrote former ABA president Mary Smith in the report of the task force, which she convened in 2023.
American Bar Association task force recommends lawyers take oath to protect democracy, rule of law
