Law, Purpose and Context
From Estonian World: One of the Singing Revolution concerts, on 17 June 1988, at the Tallinn Song Festival grounds. Photo by Tõnu Talivee. https://estonianworld.com/culture/estonia-how-the-singing-revolution-sparked-independence/
A step was taken recently in the necessary task of restoring the rule of law, by the State Bar of California, which publicized on May 9th a message to all attorneys under its jurisdiction. The Bar reminded attorneys that:[1]
Attorneys have an ethical duty to provide competent and diligent representation to clients, regardless of how unpopular or controversial their causes may be.
Attorneys must exercise independent professional judgment, free from external pressures or influences that might compromise their representation.
Attorneys must not reject, based on personal considerations, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed.
All attorneys swear an oath to uphold the United States and California Constitutions, and to faithfully discharge the duties of an attorney to the best of their knowledge and ability.
In both the federal and state legal systems, courts determine the meaning of the law, and all attorneys, including those in other branches of the government, have an obligation to comply with court orders.
In Trump 2 people are being seized on the street by unidentified officials in unmarked cars. As an American I am in shock to see a form of secret police operating in our country and its mission is to go after certain people. ICE chopped through the car window of a legal immigrant the other day, not the man they were looking for, and finding he was not a citizen (but he had recently won asylum!) imprisoned him for a month, and he is wearing an ankle monitor as if he is a criminal.[2] In the prison in Strafford County, NH, to which he was taken from Southeastern Massachusetts, he heard many, like him, weeping.
[1] Statement on Recent Executive Actions Threatening the Availability of Legal Counsel and the Rule of Law - The State Bar of California - News Releases
[2] “Held by ICE: ‘I would dream that I was free’”, Esmy Jimenez, Boston Globe, Metro Section, May 18, 2025.
Attorneys have an ethical duty to provide competent and diligent representation to clients, regardless of how unpopular or controversial their causes may be.
Attorneys must exercise independent professional judgment, free from external pressures or influences that might compromise their representation.
Attorneys must not reject, based on personal considerations, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed.
All attorneys swear an oath to uphold the United States and California Constitutions, and to faithfully discharge the duties of an attorney to the best of their knowledge and ability.
In both the federal and state legal systems, courts determine the meaning of the law, and all attorneys, including those in other branches of the government, have an obligation to comply with court orders.
In Trump 2 people are being seized on the street by unidentified officials in unmarked cars. As an American I am in shock to see a form of secret police operating in our country and its mission is to go after certain people. ICE chopped through the car window of a legal immigrant the other day, not the man they were looking for, and finding he was not a citizen (but he had recently won asylum!) imprisoned him for a month, and he is wearing an ankle monitor as if he is a criminal.[2] In the prison in Strafford County, NH, to which he was taken from Southeastern Massachusetts, he heard many, like him, weeping.
[1] Statement on Recent Executive Actions Threatening the Availability of Legal Counsel and the Rule of Law - The State Bar of California - News Releases
[2] “Held by ICE: ‘I would dream that I was free’”, Esmy Jimenez, Boston Globe, Metro Section, May 18, 2025.
Surely the many tasks for people who care, such as shutting down state violence and helping those Americans who voted for cruelty to see it that way and turn from that, must be viewed as necessary if we are to reclaim our honor as inheritors of a land of freedom. The New Yorker had the Statue of Liberty behind bars recently, on its front cover.[3]
There is much to be done and the California State Bar helps show the way, as Harvard did when it spoke back to the power that happens to be illegitimately wielded right now. For America to again to be in the running to ever be great in the first place, we must help every state bar association, every Board of Bar Overseers, every attorney to follow this statement, just as every university must follow Harvard now for the American people and the world to breathe free again. Otherwise the grip will tighten.
The CA Bar statement reminding attorneys of their duties explains:
Recent actions of the current federal administration’s executive branch (the Administration) threaten these core principles. The Administration has taken actions against law firms, including through executive orders against certain law firms and negotiations that have resulted in agreements with others, based on those law firms’ representation of clients and positions unpopular with the Administration. Many of the representations criticized by the Administration are matters undertaken on a pro bono basis for indigent individuals, such as providing immigration legal services.
I must confess that there is a side of me that can – for a moment or more sometimes - lack the capacity to generate hope – and can’t dispel the specter of the threat that faces us. I allow that side of me to be heard, because we must always have the threat before us. This side of me says the statement can only encourage lawyers to do what’s right and to stand up for what’s right. That worrying part of me says, “will this be enough?” Trump’s people are still loving his “Fight, Fight, Fight!”
It makes me think about Estonia’s Singing Revolution. It is worth noting that Estonia lives under the dark threat of Russia, and how fragile is their liberty, as all of the old Soviet properties are, and as we here must now newly see ourselves. Part of the reason Estonia and the other two Baltic states have their liberty now is due to singing. It is not just a name, the Singing Revolution, but a real series of consequential historical events.[4]
If every group of attorneys, every organization, every state agency regulating attorneys, reminded themselves and the public of these things – made them clear and visible so that everyone can remember what this is all about – it would be something like that. It would be a chorus of voices. They would be saying the same thing. They would be voicing the harmony of agreement on basic principles. The voice of the people, not some group combatting others within the larger group, would be heard, for that is where the basic common principles of law come from.
Hearing that would be music to our ears. The principles of law, with their orderly structure, with their resonance with our sense of justice, are like music. When you read something like the California Bar Statement, or a judicial opinion that sets things straight, it can be like a story told in concepts that are like tones – sometimes darting, sometimes in stately procession. The California Bar has struck some fine notes and has issued a simple tune.
We should all sing along. To sing the song of the rule of law. It’s not as exciting as the call to battle, or the yearning for love. But sometimes it moves majestically, like Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition or Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, when it reflects our self-evident recognition of what is right, when it is in tune with our aspirations as individuals and as a people. Help spread the spirit of this song, arising in the West, and needing to be heard throughout the land.
[3] May 5, 2025, Barry Blitt.
[4] https://singingrevolution.com/about/history/, https://www.fpri.org/article/2016/10/singing-revolution-past-present/,
There is much to be done and the California State Bar helps show the way, as Harvard did when it spoke back to the power that happens to be illegitimately wielded right now. For America to again to be in the running to ever be great in the first place, we must help every state bar association, every Board of Bar Overseers, every attorney to follow this statement, just as every university must follow Harvard now for the American people and the world to breathe free again. Otherwise the grip will tighten.
The CA Bar statement reminding attorneys of their duties explains:
Recent actions of the current federal administration’s executive branch (the Administration) threaten these core principles. The Administration has taken actions against law firms, including through executive orders against certain law firms and negotiations that have resulted in agreements with others, based on those law firms’ representation of clients and positions unpopular with the Administration. Many of the representations criticized by the Administration are matters undertaken on a pro bono basis for indigent individuals, such as providing immigration legal services.
I must confess that there is a side of me that can – for a moment or more sometimes - lack the capacity to generate hope – and can’t dispel the specter of the threat that faces us. I allow that side of me to be heard, because we must always have the threat before us. This side of me says the statement can only encourage lawyers to do what’s right and to stand up for what’s right. That worrying part of me says, “will this be enough?” Trump’s people are still loving his “Fight, Fight, Fight!”
It makes me think about Estonia’s Singing Revolution. It is worth noting that Estonia lives under the dark threat of Russia, and how fragile is their liberty, as all of the old Soviet properties are, and as we here must now newly see ourselves. Part of the reason Estonia and the other two Baltic states have their liberty now is due to singing. It is not just a name, the Singing Revolution, but a real series of consequential historical events.[4]
If every group of attorneys, every organization, every state agency regulating attorneys, reminded themselves and the public of these things – made them clear and visible so that everyone can remember what this is all about – it would be something like that. It would be a chorus of voices. They would be saying the same thing. They would be voicing the harmony of agreement on basic principles. The voice of the people, not some group combatting others within the larger group, would be heard, for that is where the basic common principles of law come from.
Hearing that would be music to our ears. The principles of law, with their orderly structure, with their resonance with our sense of justice, are like music. When you read something like the California Bar Statement, or a judicial opinion that sets things straight, it can be like a story told in concepts that are like tones – sometimes darting, sometimes in stately procession. The California Bar has struck some fine notes and has issued a simple tune.
We should all sing along. To sing the song of the rule of law. It’s not as exciting as the call to battle, or the yearning for love. But sometimes it moves majestically, like Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition or Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, when it reflects our self-evident recognition of what is right, when it is in tune with our aspirations as individuals and as a people. Help spread the spirit of this song, arising in the West, and needing to be heard throughout the land.
[3] May 5, 2025, Barry Blitt.
[4] https://singingrevolution.com/about/history/, https://www.fpri.org/article/2016/10/singing-revolution-past-present/,
RSS Feed
