Although this post could have been prompted by many things, the specific inciting incident for it is this news story out of Detroit involving the appalling treatment of a U.S. Citizen and Michigan lawyer named Amir Makled. The news article makes clear that this man was targeted by our government because it knew he was a lawyer who was willing to take on matters that the Trump Administration does not agree with.
A word of backstory on why this story hit me so hard today. For the last 8-9 days (until last night), I have been visiting my daughter in the Canary Islands. She is there because she is on a Fulbright Grant teaching English as a second language. Her experience has already been unfairly damaged by the Trump Administration because of its decision to freeze funding for the Fulbright program — putting the small amount she gets paid for her work at risk — and furloughing essentially all of the employees working for Fulbright to whom she could look for guidance about what is happening. But this post is not about her.
Because of the rapid descent of the United States into fascism, at times during that trip and particularly towards the end of the trip as our plane was descending back into this country, I spent a nonzero amount of time being worried about the possibility that I would be subjected to additional scrutiny upon trying to return into the United States through customs. I am openly and publicly speaking my mind about as many of the horrible things the Trump Administration is doing both in my professional capacity (here and elsewhere) and as a private citizen on social media. And, while I was abroad, the amicus brief on behalf of Perkins Coie and against a Trump Executive Order of which I was a proud participant was filed. To be clear, my anxiety about the possibility that demands would be made upon me to give access to my phone or iPad wasn’t driven by any sense that I am truly “important” enough to be targeted but merely that things have gone south so fast and so far in such a short time that there seemed to be an actual possibility. My trip through customs last night was entirely uneventful for me.
But what I worried about might happen to me, actually happened to Amir Makled. It would be easy to think that it did not because something about the kinds of work we do is different. The answer I cannot shake however is that the only difference is the color of our skin. And I hope that there will be a public reckoning for these kinds of actions against attorneys that do not deserve it, but I am much less confident of that than I was a month or so ago.
With respect to the amicus mentioned above, it is good news that there were more than 500 law firms that joined in that effort. But there are so many, many large firms that did not step up to the plate and are unwilling to publicly make clear that what is happening is wrong on so many levels. The fact that the number of giant law firms going full quisling has grown does not help emboldened lawyers to speak out to try to save the rule of law. Nor does it help that there are far too many bar associations who are showing cowardice rather than courage right now.
The American Bar Association thankfully has been consistently standing up for lawyers and the rule of law during 2025. The two other bar associations of which I am a member, the Tennessee Bar Association and the Memphis Bar Association have not. Today is not the day to talk more about that and what I am going to do personally in response, but I will talk more about that soon.
I’m also not done speaking out about Pam Bondi, but not today.
For today, the overriding sentiment is this: Whether it is this very individualized and very unwarranted attack on Mr. Makled, or it is the issuance of Executive Orders attacking giant law firms to shake them down and extort tens of millions of dollars of free legal services from them like a protection racket, or the broader full-scale attack on the role of courts and the rule of law, all of us must stand up, speak up, and demand that these actions stop. There is no legitimate excuse to know that all of this is wrong and to remain silent.