Five decades ago, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered remarks that sound like they were written in the early 2020s:
[O]ur profession has recently suffered greatly because a score of lawyers has been convicted or indicted for felonious conduct in the performance of their official duties in the highest reaches of our national government. . . . Their alleged criminal offenses pertain to serious violations of our system of justice and to the performance of basic functions of government. The inner sanctum of the White House has been tarnished, and the end of the debacle is not yet in sight.[1]
Warren, of course, was describing the aftermath of the Watergate scandal where government lawyers were suspended, disbarred, and even sentenced with prison time for their misconduct.[2] But similar sentiments have been expressed about the lawyers who attempted to overturn the valid election results in the 2020 presidential election, several of whom have been indicted and sanctioned—including loss of their license to practice law—though none have been imprisoned, at least not yet.[3] Lawyers filed more than sixty lawsuits, and all but one was tossed out by the courts over lack of any fact-based evidence.[4]
Other aspects of Chief Justice Warren’s speech echo modern concerns about legal ethics. The purpose of his talk ostensibly was to commemorate what he called “a happy occasion”—the dedication of the Branch Knox Miller Memorial Law Building at Loyola Law School in New Orleans on April 27, 1974. He certainly picked a somber topic for the celebratory moment, choosing to push back against proposals from Congress and the American Bar Association (“ABA”) to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.[5] At the time, Warren had been retired from the bench for several years,[6] which is perhaps why he felt free to speak so bluntly about the state of the legal profession.
The title of his speech, “A Response to Recent Proposals to Dilute the Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court,”[7] also sounds straight from the 2020 news cycle. Indeed, in 2024 alone, members of Congress filed articles of impeachment against two Supreme Court Justices[8] and proposed legislation to heighten financial disclosures[9] as well as reduce the Court’s jurisdiction.[10] Former President Joe Biden called for term limits among other reforms after announcing he would not seek a second term himself.[11] This latest criticism of the Court stemmed from investigative reporting that revealed undisclosed gifts to Justices from billionaires, among other concerns about bias and improper influences.[12]