2025 Marks A Turning Point For The United States of America. President Trump continues to move with breathtaking speed to alter the federal government and, perhaps, the societal landscape. The initiatives pressed by his administration through executive orders have affected many facets of American society including immigrants, the military, the federal workforce, trade and manufacturing, state and local governments, health, and higher education. The President’s sweeping orders confirm the truism that political shifts test the elasticity and resilience of American democracy.
Political change in America generally coincides with historical eras of the nation. Eras such as the Post- Revolutionary War’s “New Nation,“ the Civil War, Reconstruction and Industrialization, the Great Depression, and World War II, have documented political shifts that impacted America’s struggle to provide “liberty and justice for all.” Today, the Trump administration’s efforts to transform the federal government have become defining features of the current Post-Pandemic era.
Successful adaptation to political changes in America lies in the symbiotic relationship between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Ideally, these branches serve as mutual checks on their respective exercises of power, which constitutes the most critical feature of American democracy. Functionality of these three branches and the commensurate endurance of individual liberty center squarely on society’s universal respect for the rule of law.
Rule of law connotes a concept in which the citizenry accepts and obeys laws and legal rules and respects the authority of the judicial system that adjudicates these rules. Elements of this concept include: a. sovereignty, which signifies that the law alone must supersede all other modes of ruling power; b. equality, denoting that all who are bound by the law must enjoy, on an equal basis, the law’s protection and recourse; and c. fidelity, requiring all members of a community to obey the law and take responsibility for holding each other, especially governmental officials, accountable under the law. Fealty for the rule of law ensures solid membership in a truly functional democracy.
Those who respect the rule of law commensurately recognize that the lack of rights for some potentially imperils the established rights of others.
The rule of law has been the historical bedrock of American democracy. The signers of the Declaration of Independence viewed it as a fundamental precept of liberty. Laws were not to be arbitrary. Instead, they were to be objectively devised and applicable to everyone, thereby ensuring universal fairness, accountability, and societal stability. As former Chief Justice Michael A. Wolff of the Missouri Supreme Court stated, “We are a nation first and foremost of laws. Our identity as Americans has been forged by the rule of law and our common experience that faithfulness to the law guarantees liberty, equality of opportunity, and the functioning of civil society, even in the face of those who through ambition for power or wealth will seek to impose their will on the less powerful.”
While every citizen should respect the rule of law, lawyers have a particularly exalted responsibility in this regard.
A lawyer’s fidelity to the rule of law has been historically rooted in the legal profession. Law schools, state bar associations that license attorneys, and judicial authorities continually reinforce its salience and inculcate in legal practitioners an ethical obligation to uphold the law as “officers of the court.” Retired US. Judge J. Michael Luttig, an esteemed conservative jurist who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for 15 years, recently trumpeted this credo, observing that “lawyers are both uniquely responsible and obligated to stand up for the U.S. Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law.”
Despite its status as a critical construct of democracy, respect for the rule of law has seemingly diminished. Judge Luttig asserted as much in his address to the National Conference of Bar Presidents, citing such evidence as election denialism and the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the last several months, others have echoed Judge Luttig’s admonition, emphasizing that the tenuous nature of the rule of law should “concern all of us.”
If, as Judge Luttig stated, there has been a diminution of respect for the rule of law, the critical question is why? The answer lies in the public’s failure to understand the rule of law and its critical intersection with democracy.
Perhaps the seeming lessening of respect for the rule of law relates to a deemphasis of instruction in government and civics. In recent years secondary education has placed greater emphasis on STEM-related subjects. In some instances, this curricular redirection has been at the expense of such subjects as history, government, and ethics. A reduction of instruction in civics during the secondary years of education contributes to a troubling misunderstanding of democracy and how government should function.
A study reported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year documented that many respondents in the country lacked a basic understanding of civics. While two-thirds of Americans in the survey stated that they studied civics in high school, only 25% were confident in their ability to explain how our system of government works.
Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter provided a poignant warning about the public’s lack of knowledge of democracy and its underpinnings. In an interview before his official retirement in 2009, Justice Souter stated that “America’s pervasive civil ignorance” looms as the greatest threat to modern democracy.
If the rule of law is indeed in danger due to the public’s lack of education, then more continual education becomes the panacea. While secondary and higher educational institutions should address this need, the legal profession and legal education must assume the lion’s share of the educational burden. Judge Luttig, quoted above, advances this point, stating that “every institution of the legal profession, particularly law schools, Bar Association, other legal societies, must provide better guidance on how to sustain the rule of law and continually educate lawyers and the general public on its sales in a modern democracy.”
From entry into law school, admission to the bar, and throughout the course of practice, lawyers learn the salience of the rule of law and their obligation to advance it. Legal education has perennially emphasized the rule of law as a foundational pillar of the legal profession.
The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), which is a learned society of more than 175 law schools nationwide, has as one of its core values for membership dedication to instilling in law students the obligation to respect the rule of law. Moreover, numerous bar organizations, including state and national bar associations, offer programming that remind lawyers of their ethical duty to uphold the rule of law.
Despite the entrenched ethical norms of the legal profession, educational institutions at every level should devise strategies designed to improve the public’s understanding of government and its critical intersection with the rule of law. This assignment begins with secondary and higher educational institutions taking greater strides to enrich offerings civics instruction. Secondary educational institutions, in particular, could work with the Center for Civic Education, the mission of which includes promotion of “an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy.”
A lion’s share of the responsibility to inform the public of the workings of government and the justice system rests with lawyers. Given their ethical obligations to uphold and advance the rule of law, lawyers are uniquely situated to explain the key features of a functional democracy, an essential tenet of which is respect for the rule of law.
Opportunities for lawyers to educate the public on democracy and the rule of law are multifold. For example, many schools and institutions welcome lawyers to serve as guest lecturers in government and civics courses. Lawyers could also partner with organizations such as the American Bar Association, state bar associations, and the AALS, all of which work to enhance awareness of the rule of law as an indispensable element of democratic governance.
The headwinds of political change in the United States have prompted a deliberative focus on the possible fragility of democratic governance. If American democracy is to thrive, all citizens must recommit to the rule of law as an essential construct of a functional government. Educational institutions and members of the legal profession will hopefully become the vanguards of this recommitment. If successful, perhaps America will realize the founders’ societal goal to “establish unity, tranquility, and justice, and promote the general welfare of all.”