As we gather around tables this Thanksgiving, many of us will express gratitude to God for family, health, and prosperity. But this year, we encourage you to pause and give thanks for something we often overlook: the legal protections that allow lawyers to represent unpopular clients, challenge government actions, and speak truth to power.
Until now, it has been easy to take these protections for granted because we’ve never known life without them.
A Global Perspective
Around the world, lawyers face systematic attacks simply for doing their jobs. In Turkey, the elected leadership of the Istanbul Bar Association was forcibly removed by court order in March 2025, and dozens of lawyers have been arrested for representing detained protesters. In Belarus, at least 60 lawyers have been disbarred or suspended for defending human rights activists and political protesters. The Belarus Republican Bar Association, rather than protecting its members, has become a tool for government crackdown.
In the Philippines, the violence is even more direct. Between 2016 and 2023, dozens of lawyers, judges, and prosecutors were subjected to threats, harassment, and extrajudicial killings. A comprehensive international fact-finding mission documented a chilling pattern: lawyers are first subjected to surveillance, then "red-tagged" as communist or terrorist sympathizers, then subjected to politically motivated legal harassment, and finally assassinated in targeted killings. The report, titled "Black Robes, Red Targets," describes how legal professionals were murdered simply for representing victims of human rights violations or defending those accused of drug-related crimes.
In Iran, human rights lawyers like Nasrin Sotoudeh are arbitrarily detained on illegitimate security charges. In China, lawyers face the "709 crackdown" and systematic persecution for defending civil liberties. The Endangered Lawyers Data Coalition reports that across the globe, lawyers endure suspension and disbarment, threats to their lives and families, violence, arbitrary detention, wrongful prosecution, disappearances, and even death in retaliation for their work.
These aren't isolated incidents. They represent a global pattern. In many nations, authoritarian governments have learned that one of the most effective ways to consolidate power is to neutralize the legal profession—either through violence, intimidation, or co-opting bar associations to serve state interests rather than defend lawyers.
Closer to Home
This year has reminded us that even in America, the independence of the legal profession cannot be taken for granted. The United States was designated as the focus country for the 2026 International Day of the Endangered Lawyer— a troubling recognition.
Historically, our approach to our articles has been to limit our writing to legal issues, without weighing in on divisive partisan issues, but some things cannot be ignored and while our intention is not to be partisan, the plain truth is that beginning in February 2025, the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders targeting prominent law firms. These orders suspended security clearances for attorneys, restricted their access to federal buildings, directed agencies to terminate government contracts, and sought to punish the firms' clients. The administration targeted Perkins Coie, Covington & Burling, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey for representing clients in matters disfavored by the administration. The message was clear: represent clients or causes that the administration dislikes and face severe consequences.
Voluntary bar associations across the country united to defend our profession and filed suits to halt what can only be described as an unprecedented intimidation policy. More than 500 law firms signed an amicus brief warning that these actions threatened the survival of any law firm and would scare away clients.
The Guardians Stood Firm
But here's why we should be grateful this Thanksgiving: the courts did their job.
Four federal judges—appointed by presidents of both parties—examined the executive orders targeting law firms and unanimously struck them down as unconstitutional. Not one, not two, but four separate judges found these orders violated the First Amendment (free speech and association), the Fifth Amendment (due process), and the Sixth Amendment (right to counsel).
Judge Beryl Howell, examining the order against Perkins Coie, wrote that it represented "an unprecedented attack" on the foundational principles of American justice. She characterized it as "an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints" and declared it "unlawful, null and void in its entirety."
Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the executive order against Jenner & Block "seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn't like" and was clearly unconstitutional.
Judge Richard Leon, another Bush appointee, issued perhaps the most passionate defense of the legal profession when he struck down the order targeting WilmerHale. His 73-page opinion, punctuated with exclamation marks rarely seen in judicial writing, declared: "The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting. The Founding Fathers knew this!" He wrote that to rule otherwise "would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!"
Judge Loren AliKhan completed the sweep, striking down the order against Susman Godfrey and finding it "unconstitutional from beginning to end." She noted that "every court to have considered a challenge to one of these orders has found grave constitutional violations."
These weren't close calls. These weren't partisan decisions. These were judges across the ideological spectrum recognizing a fundamental threat to the rule of law and unanimously rejecting it.
Let’s Rejoice and be Thankful
In our prayers and moments of gratitude this Thanksgiving, we should celebrate and be thankful that we live in a country where the independence of lawyers is not just an abstract principle, it is a constitutional guarantee that judges will enforce, even against pressure from the executive branch.
We should be grateful that when lawyers are attacked for representing clients, our courts stand firm in defense of the profession.
We should be grateful that in America, lawyers are not red-tagged and assassinated like they are in the Philippines. They are not forcibly disbarred for defending protesters like they are in Belarus. They are not disappeared and tortured like they are in China. When our government oversteps, we have independent courts that will check that power.
In those countries, the judiciary cannot or will not protect lawyers. Here, it does and that's something worth being truly thankful for.
