Today’s Rule of Law crisis stems from decades of the legal profession’s Bar Enforcement Authorities (BEAs) failing to enforce their Rules of Professional Conduct. BEAs in DC, VT, and virtually every other jurisdiction have literally never (not once) enforced their professed Honor Code (Rule 8.3). DC, VT, and others have also virtually never enforced Rule 3.1, which prohibits attorneys from making statements that lack a good faith basis.

By 1993, Yale Law Dean A. Kronman warned that “Every year produces … renewed doubts about the ability of the profession to police itself.”  In 2003 and in express response to public outcry from hundreds of attorneys’ silent complicity in the Enron scandal — the ABA and every state exponentially expanded attorneys’ duties to speak up. Disclosure mandates previously limited to future bodily harm were expanded to financial and even anticipated harm, yet BEAs brazenly ignore them.

RTL focuses on DC because of its heightened importance to democracy and its indisputable and ongoing violations by its BEAs themselves. It focuses on VT because VT’s own data show 8.3 and 3.1 alone are violated over 1,000 times per year, with no enforcement.

Stopping these brazen and otherwise obvious failures is critical to preserving our democracy. Following public outcry from just one non-enforcement scandal, California: (1) investigated and disclosed its BEAs’ “shocking … culture of unethical and unacceptable behavior;” (2) enacted an 8.3 that often requires dual reporting (to Courts and not just BEAs); and (3) appointed a Non-Attorney to Chair BEA oversight. Other states should follow.