Law Day Demonstrations Highlight Lawyers’ Growing Fears About Rule Of Law

Yesterday, Donald Trump signed an executive proclamation in commemoration of Law Day. Though, in ominous fashion, Trump’s statement leaned into the event as “Loyalty Day,” invoking the event’s 1950s Red Scare origins even though the actual holiday set forth in P.L. 87-20 is “Law Day.”

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2025, as Loyalty Day, and in accordance with Public Law 87–20, as amended, as Law Day, U.S.A.,” the president wrote without a hint of irony, asserting the power to declare a separate holiday on top of the one authorized by statute to celebrate the rule of law.

Despite the president’s perfunctory platitudes about the rule of law, lawyers and other legally minded people flocked to demonstrations around the country yesterday mostly to call out his administration’s ongoing assault on the bedrock principle from making up fake Supreme Court quotes to justify accidentally deporting people to foreign slave camps to arresting judges in their courthouses.

Above the Law O.G. and current Original Jurisdiction author David Lat went to the New York rally sponsored by the New York City Bar Association, the New York County Lawyers Association, the New York Council of Defense Lawyers, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. Between 1,500 and 2,000 folks gathered for the NY event. As Lat said of the rally, “I’ve never seen a protest with this many people in suits.”

Denouncing Trump’s legal misadventures has become a bipartisan project lately, a development reflected in Lat’s account of the NY rally:

Stuart Gerson—a former acting U.S. attorney general, currently of counsel at Epstein Becker & Green—spoke about the importance of an independent, nonpartisan judicial branch. He expressed “a great deal of faith in the judiciary”—including, he noted, a number of appointees from Donald Trump’s first term who have ruled against the administration in his second.

Gerson led the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under President George H.W. Bush, and President Bill Clinton asked Gerson to serve as acting AG at the start of his administration. When Gerson asked Bush if he should accept, Bush said yes, telling him that “this is about country, not party”—words that accurately describe the current rule-of-law crisis, according to Gerson. (Gerson might be familiar to some of you as a board member of the Society for the Rule of Law—a group of conservative lawyers committed to democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law—which I’ve written about previously in these pages.)

The Original Jurisdiction piece provides a speaker-by-speaker account of the demonstration, which included lawyers who’ve left firms swearing fealty to Trump and current and past bar association leaders. Lat also spotted a familiar logo in the crowd, flagging a repurposed Above the Law t-shirt in the background of one of his pictures. Thankfully we got a closer look, in this picture of Janet Falk, Public Relations consultant with Adrienne B. Koch, Partner at Katsky Korins and President of the New York County Lawyers Association. 

Good to see the classic shirts make an appearance!

Anyway, for the many, many lawyers, judges, and support staff out there… we hope you had a Happy Law Day! And for the firms who’ve signed pro bono deals with Trump: Happy Loyalty Day, I guess.

Lawyers Rally For The Rule Of Law: A Photo Essay [Original Jurisdiction]

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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