Every year — or at least most years — in honor of the NCAA Tournament, Above the Law runs a law-related bracket competition. We’ve crowned the Worst Law School in America. We’ve identified the Greatest Work of Legal Fiction. This year, we’re going somewhere new. And by “new,” I mean “depressingly of the moment.”
In January, we declared that the profession — for its own good — must immediately and fiercely press licensing authorities to pursue discipline against the Trump administration’s lawyers. Disbar them all… or at least all the ones with even a modicum of decision-making authority. The administration’s lawyers have already been caught lying or otherwise misleading tribunals across the country. They have signed off on defying court orders. They’ve breached basic rules of prosecutorial responsibility. Expansive conceptions of immunity mean there is no other recourse to hold these lawyers accountable other than for the state officials to hold these lawyers to their professional and ethical responsibilities. And, if the allegations prove true, protect the public by revoking their licenses. So, the question is…
Which Trump administration lawyer most deserves bar discipline?
The Department of Justice understands that the profession itself is the last remaining check on its lawlessness. That’s why Pam Bondi just proposed a rule to circumvent clear statutory text and block state bar authorities from investigating any current OR FORMER government lawyer. Under the proposed rule, Bondi can unilaterally stop a state from probing a government lawyer’s ethical breaches and prevent that investigation indefinitely until the Justice Department itself chooses to allow the state investigation.
If you’d like to comment on this rule… here you go.
For now, we can satisfy our professional obligations by voting in a series of polls to crown a bracket champion.
Here’s how this works. We’ve seeded 16 current and former administration lawyers into a bracket with four regions. Each region is named after a Trumpworld legal luminary of the past. We pay homage to the legal minds whose professional — for lack of a better term, judgment? — inspired and continues to inspire this regime.
The regions are:
The Roy Cohn Region — Named for infamous Trump’s mentor. A man who managed to leave his despicable mark on the country as the actual bridge between Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump.
The Rudy Giuliani Region — From America’s mayor to disbarred with a detour through the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Never forget, indeed!
The John Eastman Region — The Clarence Thomas clerk behind Trump’s final January 6 stratagem.
The Stephen Miller Region — The man behind America First Legal is not, in fact, a lawyer. But the current shadow president never stopped him from treating the law as a hustle for attention.
Today, we unveil the first two regions today. One in this post, one in a post this afternoon. Tomorrow, we’ll roll out the other half of the bracket. Lawyers will advance based on reader polls, in which we ask you which lawyer is most deserving of bar discipline. You can define “most deserving” however you choose — severity of misconduct, brazenness, incompetence, or simply the gap between what they did and what the profession demands.
Voting is open until Monday at 7:59 p.m. Eastern. [UPDATE: The second region is now available to vote on as well. Check it out here.
