When the government acts to undermine lawyer independence and to restrict the public’s access to qualified counsel, how must lawyers ethically respond? Focusing on President Trump’s executive orders against major law firms and the resulting settlement agreements—in which firms pledged nearly one billion dollars in free legal services to the White House—this article situates these events within a long history of government intimidation of the bar. Based on new research, we argue that Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.6(b) was designed to prevent precisely this kind of intrusion, but it has long been misunderstood. Correcting erroneous perceptions of the rule that have gone unchallenged for over forty years, we demonstrate that Rule 5.6(b) was drafted broadly to safeguard professional autonomy and access to counsel, principles its drafters deemed “basic” to “the purpose of our profession.” We apply this guidance to the present moment, concluding the agreements reached between the White House and major law firms violate Rule 5.6(b)’s mandate, and we call on the ABA to revise the rule to make explicit lawyers’ non-negotiable duty to reject adverse government control over client acceptance and case selection.

Continue reading Not Everything is Negotiable: Reinforcing Model Rule 5.6(b) to Safeguard the Integrity of the Bar from Government Intrusion