That Shakespeare Quote About Lawyers

Here’s a list:

• Paul Weiss

• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

• Willkie Farr & Gallagher

• Milbank LLP

• Latham and Watkins

• Simpson Thatcher

• Kirkland and Ellis

• A&O Shearman

• Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft

These are all national law firms who, as of this writing, have capitulated to Donald Trump.

In some cases, they capitulated before they, themselves, were even threatened.

They had clients who needed access to government buildings.

They had assets to protect.

They had mansions to live in.

I am keeping a list of law firms who are fighting and law firms who are venal.

This is the list of big firms I know of who are fighting:

• Jenner and Block

• Perkins Coie

• WilmerHale

• Covington & Burling

• Keker, Van Nest & Peters

• Munger, Tolles & Olsen

• Susman Godfrey

Former Attorney General Eric Holder, in an appearance on Rachel Maddow last week, castigated his colleagues who “are showing themselves to be cowards.

“The profession should have stuck together and rejected all of these executive orders and sue,” Holder said. “If we had all stuck together, these facially invalid, clearly unconstitutional orders would have had no impact on the profession.”

A former Attorney General of the United States talked about solidarity as the only way to win.

He said it without irony in a world in which Trump and Putin have so successfully divided people in western countries.

And he said it without irony in a world in which a Supreme Court has, in the last couple of decades, invalidated laws or changed norms with decisions like Citizens United and Heller, which glorify the individual over the group.

As long as those individuals are rich white men who give political donations, or white men who own guns.

I agree with Holder that every law firm has to stand together for the rule of law.

And I love that there is a man who is giving us a vision of what America could look like.

But I’m also not surprised that so many law firms have caved.

We don’t have a legal system that fights anymore. If they ever did.

We have a legal system that hedges.

The Hedge

Brooke Shoemaker had a still birth in 2017. Two months later, she was arrested for causing the death of her fetus by taking meth.

One of the things we learned in the podcast American Dreams: Reproductive Justice, which I produced in 2023, is that there is no conclusive evidence that drug use harms a fetus. Even those “crack babies” who were a (racist) staple of evening newscasts in the 1990s became healthy children and adults.

Yet, Alabama, where Shoemaker lived, had interpreted an anti-drug law to define a women’s womb as a meth lab.

When Shoemaker was charged, she was so outraged by the interpretation of this law that criminalizes women’s bodies that she fought it.

That, according to Amy Yurkinan, who wrote about this for AL.com, was a huge mistake. Even though the medical examiner said he couldn’t say if her drug use had contributed to the still birth, and research has shown that smoking has a higher risk of harming a fetus than meth use, Yurkinan told me that “drug use is so stigmatized during pregnancy, that a jury in Alabama… a very conservative place… there is still a high likelihood that they would convict.”

Shoemaker got 18 years.

Think about this. Our legal system is so broken that a woman who had no clear evidence against her would have been better off not fighting. She would have been better off admitting guilt and taking a plea.

She was punished for standing up for herself.

According to NOLO legal encyclopedia, only 2-3 percent of cases go to trial. And almost all of the plea deals admit some form of guilt.

If you are a white woman who just suffered a medical tragedy, a Mexican teen who happened to be standing at the wrong place at the wrong time, a Black woman stopped by police for a phantom traffic violation, the calculation is that you will likely be convicted if you fight. So you hedge your bets and take a plea deal. Even though that would require you to admit that you’re guilty when you’re not.

And we wonder why so many Americans feel disrespected; why they are certain the system is rigged against them.

Even attorneys who want to fight know the odds are better if they don’t. They know, ultimately, that they are just cogs in a machine. And so they give their clients the Hobson’s Choice.

I think attorneys have gotten used to the Hobson’s Choice. “It’s just the way things work,” they shrug.

Share your thoughts

And Worship Me Their Lord

It is in Act IV, Scene II of Henry VI, Part II when Jack Cade stands up and declares, “I fear neither sword nor fire.”

Cade can be described as a populist. He was rousing angry London merchants who were outraged at the murder of the Duke of Gloucester, Henry VI’s uncle who was the Lord Protector of the crown worn by his nephew - who was an infant when he became king.

The mob is angry at the injustices perpetrated in the name of the (weak) king. And the murder of Gloucester, their “man of the people,” emphasized to them how little power Henry had, even as a man of 20.

Not only does Cade want to overthrow Henry, but he wants to usher in - GASP - socialism. Or what sounds a lot like socialism in this speech:

Be brave then, for your captain is brave and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny. The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And when I am king, as king I will be… [approving roars from the crowd] there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord.

It’s that last line that has always made me pause. The first part of the line, “apparel them all in one livery that they may agree” evokes The Giver, which makes me wonder if Lois Lowry was somehow answering Jack Cade.

The last part of the line, the “worship me their lord” is even more telling.

It’s that line that gives rise to a lot of discussion about the meaning of the next line, from one of Cade’s men, Dick, who has been whispering asides to another friend throughout the scene.

First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

If you ignore the “worship me their lord,” you can make an argument that Dick is referring to the men of law who are loyal to the crown and to the other powers that be, who put down the merchant class that is clambering for equality.

In this reading, the lawyers are the bad guys, who make and wield laws as weapons against the common people.

But that last clause hints at dictatorial tendencies. It hints at “I am the only one who can fix this.”

In that reading, the lawyers are the good guys, upholding the law to stave off dictatorial rule.

So, Which One Is It?

Henry VI is not one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. There are lots of plot holes, and little character development.

We know from history that Henry VI was a weak king. Mostly because he was a kind person, and didn’t want to fight wars. He wanted to make things better for his people. As did Gloucester.

But they were, quite literally, stuck in the midst of the 100 Years War.

Both readings of the meaning of “let’s kill all the lawyers,” are at play today in Trump’s America. In the America before Trump even took power.

We most definitely have a legal system that is weaponized against people who are not at the top of the social hierarchy. There are some lawyers, and people like Brooke Shoemaker, who fight back. There are many who would like to, but don’t want to harm their clients. There are many who simply play the game as its given to them and don’t worry much about actual justice.

The list at the top of this piece represents the 21st century equivalent of the lawyers seen as serving the king and his court. It assumes that Dick wants Cade to succeed, not that he sees him as a fool.

The second list represents the 21st century version of the other reading to Dick’s “let’s kill all the lawyers” line. It shows us he sees Cade as a would-be dictator, and knows the lawyers - the rule of law - will stand in the way of such a man gaining power. Or abusing that power should he accidentally attain it.

I like that second interpretation. But I fear that the reason Trump is even in office is because the common people long ago gave up on the idea that the rule of law - that fairness and justice - applied to them.

I checked in with my friend David Rice, who, with his wife Alison Vesely, ran First Folio Theatre outside of Chicago. David agrees with the “rule of law” interpretation of Dick’s line.

David is a hopeful man.

He also reminded me that we are talking about how a play written about 430 years ago applies to today’s world.

“The brilliance of Shakespeare is that you can take just about anything he ever wrote and find a way to interpret it to mean exactly what you want it to mean. Because he writes real characters, real people. And those folks are complex.”

We live in a complex world. Let’s make it easier for the lawyers on the second list to succeed.

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