No Self-Respecting Lawyer Should Touch Trump's Election-Fraud Claims - The Atlantic

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Bradley P. Moss
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.⁦@thekoreanvegan⁩ and I drop the hammer.

No Self-Respecting Lawyer Should Touch Trump’s Election-Fraud Claims - The Atlantic

No Self-Respecting Lawyer Should Touch Trump’s Election-Fraud Claims
President Trump may not have to worry about keeping a job after January 20, 2021, but the attorneys doing his bidding at the moment certainly do.
theatlantic.com

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/trumps-lawyers-election/617064/

Every year, incoming first-year law students are told a simple truth: You can sue anyone at any time for anything, anywhere.

That does not mean you will win. And it does not mean doing so is always consistent with a lawyer’s ethical and professional obligations. Some of the lawyers at the firms handling the litigation work for President Donald Trump’s campaign or related Republican Party organizations are now raising concerns internally about the legitimacy and purpose of the legal claims they are currently being asked to advance. These concerns have merit: Lawyers have ongoing obligations to adhere to the ethical requirements of the state bars through which they are licensed, as well as the relevant rules of the court(s) before which they are practicing. Trump may not have to worry about keeping a job after January 20, 2021, but the lawyers doing his bidding at the moment certainly do.

The wave of quixotic lawsuits flying out of Trump’s legal team is stretching the boundaries of anything remotely resembling a coherent and evidence-based approach to litigation. In the mere eight days since Election Day, the Trump campaign has filed at least 10 different lawsuits in at least five different states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada). Some of these are run-of-the-mill lawsuits fighting over minor issues, but several directly allege fraud, and a few include documentation claiming to prove the existence of that fraud.

To date, not a single one of these lawsuits alleging fraud has gone anywhere. One lawsuit relied on what the court politely suggested was “vague hearsay.” Another suggested that the use of Sharpies on ballots had made those ballots invalid. That lawsuit was dropped before the court could even rule on it. A third claimed election officials were not properly ensuring mail-in ballots that arrived after a state-mandated deadline were being excluded from the ballot tabulation. A state court judge threw that lawsuit out after finding there was “no evidence” indicating the allegations were correct.

Other allegations claim that individuals who are deceased or no longer living in the relevant state nonetheless voted in the 2020 election. Even cursory investigative reporting into these claims has found that the former is largely due to clerical errors with respect to birth dates, and the latter is due in no small part to military personnel lawfully claiming residency in a state distinct from that in which they are currently stationed under military orders.

The coup de grace is a recently filed lawsuit seeking to throw out the entirety of the mail-in-ballot count in Pennsylvania, dubiously claiming with little to no evidence that verification safeguards were insufficiently applied to mail-in ballots and that the entire system was ultimately unconstitutional. Virtually every objective legal analyst has deemed that lawsuit to be dead on arrival. And that is a good indication that any lawyer worth his or her salt should have stayed far, far away from it.

*snip*

[SheltieLover]

1. I could not agree more!

They are attacking the very system upon which our country and their careers is built!

[Miguelito Loveless]

2. What I find amusing is that any of these law firms

actually believe they will get paid.

[BainsBane]

10. No kidding

So why are they doing it?

[Dawson Leery]

3. Jones Day is proof that anyone can get a law degree.

[SunSeeker]

7. A truly disgusting firm that is all about the money.

They require their associate attorneys bill 2,000 hours a year. But they expect something closer to 2,400. To give you an idea how ridiculous that is, if you worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week 52 weeks a year, never taking a sick day off or holidays, that would only be 8×5×52=2,080. The only way this can be accomplished, without killing yourself, is by inflating time spent on tasks (i.e. defrauding the client). They are among the worst of the worst, although they like to hold themselves out as a "blue chip" law firm. They lure young lawyers from top law schools with high salaries ($180k+ right out of law school) then work them to death. There is a ton of turnover, as young lawyers realize they are working in a soul-crushing sweatshop that will destroy their ethics and humanity. The ones who stay invariably are the ones fine with fraudulent billing and selling their soul.

[Dawson Leery]

9. I did not know this.

[StarfishSaver]

11. And that's just BILLABLE hours

It doesn't count the hours associates are expected to spend doing other firm business such as client development, administrative matters, firm meetings, pro bono work and, yes, billing (which takes time). Those things add at least a couple of hours to every day.

Big firm life is brutal.

[SunSeeker]

13. Yup.

That's why it is literally impossible to bill 2,400 hours per year without committing fraud.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. Jones Day denied any involvement.

[SunSeeker]

4. K & R & Retweeted!

[gulliver]

5. They're using the court system to reify their cracked claims.

They do it with investigations too. There's nothing the Trumpies won't abuse. They make something out of nothing by suing or investigating. Just another standard dirty trick.

[Bev54]

6. have you seen his lawyers at work?

I am currently watching my second case (on Youtube), this one in MI, if you watch them you will understand he has the bottom of the barrel of lawyers.

[kacekwl]

8. That's why Rudy is perfect

for trumps legal team leader.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

12. Lawyers Can Be SANCTIONED For Filing Frivolous Claims

Anything from monetary fines to suspensions of their law licenses. That's why I'm surprised more of his attorneys haven't refused to indulge his wild fantasies. If you can't even make a "colorable claim," then you're at risk for getting sanctioned.

Plus, you just KNOW that there's no way they're being paid for their work. So I don't think you'll see these legal challenges continue much longer.

[DFW]

15. Is this supposed to imply that there is a paucity of lawyers who are not self-respecting?

Besides out Anglo-American tradition that everyone deserves the right to legal representation, the notion that all lawyers are self-respecting is about as valid as the notion that all dictators are benevolent.