#5 Remember Professional Ethics
From 20 Lessons on Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
#5 Remember Professional Ethics
– from 20 Lessons on Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Welcome, I am trying something new this week. Here is a link to an audio recording of this post. Please let me know what you think. EGL
Excerpt: When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule of law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants…
If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been very much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which you (know them).
Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional.
Atticus Finch and memorable characters created by Aaron Sorkin and John Grisham set improbable standards for most mere mortals to live up to, let alone lawyers.
In real life flesh and blood human beings in suits and robes act in deference to the Constitution rather than in reaction to pseudo-emergencies. If legal eagles from our local magistrates to Supreme Court judges are doing their jobs, they hold the line between the will of the few and the rights of the many.
Lately, media and legal experts have been sounding the alarm: the government is pushing the courts on which cases to take and even how to rule. The executive branch has apparently gone so far as to ignore court orders.
On May 1, 2025, thousands of lawyers marched in the streets, waving copies of the Constitution. It was a peaceful, non-partisan protest to defend the independence of the courts. These concerns are not limited to the big firms and the high profit legal battles. Even at a small-town “meet the candidates” night I went to last week, those running for judge agreed: politics has no place in the courtroom.
Judges deciding cases in federal courts seem to be facing attacks much closer to home. Threats to their extended family members have gone beyond words to include mailbox bombs.
So, what can regular folks do in this attack on justice?
Once again the Quaker way begins with stillness. Sometimes Quakers use queries to focus attention during silence or during discussion. For me, sitting in silence with queries on how the testimonies apply to this lesson led to some clear direction and to more questions.
Quaker Testimonies guide me toward:
Simplicity--Don’t believe everything I see or hear. If something seems too awful, too weird, or too good to be true, Google the topic for more information. Consider the source.
Peace making -- I will continue to seek clearness on how to go forward. That’s Quaker speech for, “I’m not inclined to make peace with people who trample the Constitution.” Expletives deleted. Sometimes I’m not a very good Friend.
Integrity—I like to think I live my principles, but how committed would I be in the face of government pressure to alter the way I do business? How could I stay committed to those principles if my family was facing threats of physical danger? How much negative publicity would I endure to stand firm for the constitutional rights of others? If I fail to stand firm, what will be lost?
Community-- Keep a sense of humor but be careful with the lawyer jokes. Visit the courtroom. I understand. I’d just as soon keep my distance, too, but we need to be familiar with this part of the system.
Equality--Know enough to recognize equal treatment under the law and appreciate it. Question what seems to be a lack of equality. Pursue justice.
Sustainability--More than any previous generation, we in the 21st century can apply lessons from history, spot patterns shaping the future, communicate across the world, and transport goods quickly. How can we best use these advantages to continue the creation of a thriving civilization?
Dear Readers,
If you’ve got some answers, please let us all know by clicking the speech balloon below.
If you found an idea here in “A Friend’s View” that you want to share, consider clicking on the circle of arrows at the bottom of the screen to repost it.
EGL, Seeker
Resources
20 Lessons on Tyranny: by Timothy Snyder / read by John Lithgow: Youtube
Lawyers Protest Trump Administration at Courthouses Nationwide—What to Know: Newsweek
In Suits and Ties, Lawyers Protest Trump’s Attacks on the Legal System: New York Times
Lawyers OATHS OF ADMISSION FOR ALL 50 STATES*: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.inbar.org/resource/resmgr/litigation/Oaths.pdf
28 U.S. Code § 453 - Oaths of justices and judges: Cornell Law School
As judges stymie Trump with nationwide orders, pressure builds on US Supreme Court: Reuters
National Law Day of Action: Action Network
What Does It Mean to Be a Lawyer in a Lawless Time?: 50501 on Substack
Defending the Judiciary: Duke Law Bolch Judicial Institute
Our Courts Colorado: Colorado Judicial Institute
Gov. Evers Releases Message to Wisconsinites Regarding Apparent Trump Administration Arrest Threats: Youtube
“Wait until you see what’s coming,” Homan: To Be Frank on Youtube
Trump is Hijacking the Most Important Law Enforcement Agency You've Never Heard Of: The Schiff Notes
Lawyer confronts ICE outside client’s home:
Finding spiritual light or even a glimmer of any spirit witnessing what's going on in the world is pretty challenging these days. It's for me between just focusing on creating art and watching independent news. Being scared because I am just a guest in this sh.t show as an immigrant, on the other hand as someone who also studied politics watching the stream of parallels to Germany under fascism. I never thought I would witness this especially not in the USA. Light for these critters, bugs like cocktail roaches? That's a hard one on me. I grew up in Germany with parents who were born under Hitler and both traumatized, I know exactly where this goes and I ask myself every single day several times if I can still stay here or better leave. Where's my personal way in this? I feel like my mouth is taped my hands are cuffed, not always but too often.
I am sure karma will work it out and this is some devilish interruption but it hurts too many people, and it kills too many people. I see a government glorifying genocide that's criminal, I look forward to the day where the court at The Haag will judge over Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and the Hamas leaders. The people of the world have to ask themselves how far they tolerate this.
Namath Elaine I like your text
Hi, Elaine.
So - I’m a civil servant, and I’m also, like any good 80s girl, a huge sucker for glamor. I had the rich boyfriend, the fancy times and fancy duds, the cute jobs in the halls of power. But my training is as a technocrat, an ordinary middle-class person doing the work of making America run, and that’s a much bigger dream than any fancy party is. I haven’t the temperament for leadership of that kind of work, so I’m not an Undersecretary of _____ or division leader or high-ranking FSO. Instead I work mostly at the level of rubber meeting road, where the funding meets the non-government-workers actually carrying out projects that administrations and Congresses and agencies and the non-government people have all decided are so worthwhile for the nation that we’ll peel off some dollars for it, and then recipients will jump through all kinds of hoops to use those dollars.
We do rely too heavily on those dollars now to make our economy go. It’s what we’ve turned to in many areas instead of figuring out what happens after a worldbeating industrial economy, and it’s why these cuts are going to do much more harm and bring much more pain than most people are reckoning. That said, it is good work and on the whole I find that far less money and effort is wasted this way than it is in the nominally private sector, precisely because our rules and ethics constrain us and direct us to consider the public weal.
The everyday work is mundane and the pay doesn’t quite make it to anemic. Today, for instance, I wrote up a meeting agenda and sent memos to graduate students about upcoming changes in procedures. But there’s really nothing mundane about it. Those students are tomorrow’s PhD scientists, and we need them, and they need to know how a large, complex operation should work without driving everyone in it crazy, and without each discipline going off into its hidey-hole and refusing to talk to the others because they don’t know how and it takes time and it’s hard. They need to know what it looks like when everyone in a hierarchy — and it is a hierarchy — is treated with care and respect. How to pick their eyes up from the immediate task and spot exciting themes that bury them in new questions. Every bit of what I do there teaches, or tries to teach, these things while also keeping firmly in mind the meaning and mission of the public dollars we’re using.
Similarly, when I’m working with private clients who wish to work with federal agencies, and they really just want what they think is free money, it is my job to teach them, over and over, firmly, what partnership with public agencies means. How it is noble, and how yes, they will get money, but they will get much more than that. And none of it will come free. Public work is work and you’re not meant to get rich doing it.
When I work with clients who are higher-placed in government or academia, I help them dream and sketch ambitious projects for, again, the common weal. These are indeed glamorous, and sometimes they come true. But in all cases they’ve involved public money emerging from public consensus. Often that consensus says: we want something sort of like ____ to happen — you figure it out. Dream big. So we do.
All of it is not only a privilege but so much more interesting and full of promise than anything a fancy shopping boulevard can offer. And if you’re aware of the importance of the work, and why the rules are what they are, and how the ethics took shape and why, you’re not very easily put off. It isn’t hard to decline gifts or threats. Does that make us an autocrat’s enemy? Sure. Most artists, intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, members of any profession could say the same. Most of us, like Canada, are not for sale. Not because we’re specially good, but because it’s so plainly a bad bargain.