Today’s Rule of Law crisis likely results first-and-foremost from decades of neglect and even Ethics Rules violations by the legal profession’s supposed police, its Bar Enforcement Authorities. BEAs in DC, VT and almost every other jurisdiction have literally never enforced the profession’s Honor Code (Rule 8.3), and some states, such as VT, have literally never enforced the requirement that attorney not make statements lacking good faith basis (Rule 3.1). How can the profession claim to have an Honor Code if it is never enforced, it how is justice obtained if lawyers can start, escalate and/or prolong disputes with no good faith basis?

1993 and 2003 warnings ignored: Yale Law School Dean A. Kronman warned in 1993 that “Every year produces … renewed doubts about the ability of the profession to police itself,” and the ABA, in 2003 as express result of public outcry from “Enron scandal,” exponentially expanded attorneys’ duties to speak up in the face of crimes and fraud. Disclosure mandates previously limited to future bodily harm were expanded to harm that is financial and has already occurred. Yet BEAs have effectively erased the expansions by simply ignoring them, sometimes to the point of dismissals that themselves lack any good faith basis yet are concealed from the public and often not appealable to Courts.

DC, VT, & CA. RTL focuses on DC because of its heightened importance to democracy; VT because it has never enforced 8.3 or 3.1 and its BEAs’ enforcement-avoiding decisions are kept secret even from Courts; and CA because, following a scandal similar to VT’s of 2023, took three steps that RTL advocates for all jurisdictions: (1) it investigated its BEAs and publicly disclosed its findings of a “shocking … culture of unethical and unacceptable behavior;” (2) it enacted a uniquely strong uniquely strong 8.3; and (3) it appointed a non-Attorney to Chair the Bar’s oversight Board.

BEAs’ misconduct begs the age-old question, “Who Will Watch The Watchers?” and confronting their misconduct is critical to our returning to law and preserving its democracy.