Doing The Right Thing Is Doing The Right Thing (With Apologies To Spike Lee)

Every once in a while, the good folks win. Definitely not often enough, but when they do, it’s cause for celebration. So, let’s celebrate the Biglaw firms that have told the administration to put it where the sun doesn’t shine. They have either gotten or are in the throes of getting relief from the courts holding that 47’s executive orders are unconstitutional violations of the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. What’s even more fun is that the flimsy excuses the caved Biglaw firms have used are now shown, to paraphrase what movie producer Sam Goldwyn reportedly said, to not be worth the paper they’re not written on.

What a lot of us lawyer types predicted is now extant: the blowback effect that those of us sitting in the cheap seats have been waiting for. Now clients are wondering about the tenacity of those firms. If they won’t fight for their own survival, how can those clients expect them to fight on their behalf? They are not only asking that question but starting to pull work back from those vaunted Biglaw firms. It’s hard to bite the hands that feed those firms while simultaneously giving free food to one who definitely does not need it. 

The Wall Street Journal thinks, and rightly so, that journalists write the first version of history. Never more so than as of January 20, 2025. What will historians think, with the leisure of retrospection, about these tumultuous times that have just begun? For a person who is inordinately concerned with his own public image (we called them “media hounds”), I wonder why 47 doesn’t seem to be concerned outwardly with how history will view him. His control of the narrative will not last forever. 

As one who started as a journalist and has spent almost five decades as a lawyer, I am still fascinated by the intersection of journalism and law, never more than in the past 10 years with the rise of “fake news,” “unsocial media” (my phrase, I don’t know if anyone else uses it, but feel free to do so), and the inability of people to accept factual reality. Disinformation has never been higher, and trust in the media and other institutions has never been lower. 

Long gone are the days when people trusted “Uncle Walter” or ”Huntley-Brinkley,” (Google them) and others. When Walter Cronkite returned after a tour of Vietnam and said that the war could not be won, LBJ responded that if Cronkite didn’t believe the war could be won, then he, LBJ, had lost middle America. LBJ then decided not to run for re-election in 1968.

Flash forward to today. No one believes anything that anyone says. In fact, reading about Cronkite’s remarks (and I remember them vividly as it was the height of the Vietnam war protest era), the AI summary of his remarks disclaimed that it “could contain mistakes” An admission of AI imperfection? Really?

We lawyers also value precision in facts. If you get facts wrong, then we are not trusted. It’s not just the facts anymore; it’s cases, too. Hallucinations live among us. If we don’t take the time to make sure the cases stand for the propositions we argue, and even more fundamentally, that the cases actually exist, then we are in, to use a nonlegal term, deep shit with clients, opposing counsel, and the court. 

Has anyone (I’m looking at you legal ethics gurus) considered whether the deals cut between various Biglaw firms and Trump could run afoul of our professional responsibilities? Who is now the client of those Biglaw firms? The German Bar Association is cautioning its lawyers to be careful about potential conflicts. Who do the Biglaw firms represent? Their pre-existing clients or 47? A PRE question or two?

Is there Taco Tuesday behind bars? It doesn’t matter whether you prefer hard shells or soft tortillas. You should know that TACO is now an acronym for 47’s whirling dervish changes of mind. Perhaps Tom Girardi, the disbarred California lawyer who had been known for his trial prowess extracting huge dollars from various defendants, will have them on his prison menu. He starts serving a seven-year sentence in July for stealing from clients, along with other misdeeds. Yet another example of how the State Bar of California did its best Rip Van Winkle (Google it) impersonation for years. And do you think that the 86-year-old Girardi will actually serve any time in the clink? Your thoughts?

Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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