Lawyer advising client engaged in expensive litigation: The goal should be to get out of the swamp, not to kill all the alligators.

Dishonest media-alligators undermined President Trump’s first Presidency with bogus charges of Russian collusion. Corrupt deep state-alligators fabricated allegations to defeat his re-election in 2020. Partisan prosecutor-alligators in New York and Georgia brought bogus charges in trying to derail his election last year.

Overreaching judge-alligators in some of the federal district courts now seek to undermine his national security policies – an area that the Constitution largely reserves to the President. 

It’s a testament to Trump’s courage and stamina – and to the nation’s structure and people – that he has fought and mostly beaten the alligators over the last ten years. In his spare time, he got himself elected President twice and survived two assassin-alligators.

He’s been up to his elbows in alligators. I understand why he’s going after them now. I probably would, too.

It’s also important to note, in fairness to Trump, that we didn’t elect him to get us out of the swamp; we elected him to drain it. Draining the swamp is inevitably hard on the alligators who feed there.

But here’s the issue. Not all of Trump’s targets today are alligators and not all are even in the swamp. 

Such as Big Law.

I don’t expect you to feel sorry for girly men and manly girls pulling down seven-figures to say res ipsa loquitur. And it’s a fact that Big Law (which I’ll define as the several dozen American law firms with over 1,000 lawyers) is a mostly liberal crowd. That is evident from their political contributions which are largely to Democrats, and from their pro bono activities which are mostly for liberal causes.

But you could say the same thing about nuns. (Not the seven-figures part.)

In my practice, seldom did I see Big Law behaving like a political institution. In fact, the firms that comprise Big Law are rivals which rarely act concertedly or even cooperatively. Rather, they make a good living by fighting with one another on behalf of their opposing clients.

Those clients are notably moderate, since the executive ranks of the Fortune 500 include very few radicals. In their choice of lawyers to represent them in their next billion-dollar merger or bet-the-company antitrust case, they aren’t exactly looking for Che Guevara.

As for individual lawyers, the recipe for success in Big Law has nothing to do with political leanings. The recipe is: do great work, have great clients, and bill great hours. (I had at least one of those ingredients when I was in Big Law, and wound up doing OK.)

Big Law is simply not an alligator, and, even if it is, it’s not in the D.C. swamp (with the possible exception of the firm that was involved in the Steele Dossier, an involvement from which the firm has distanced itself after the departure of a key lawyer).

Even if Big Law firms are indeed Democrat institutions, notwithstanding what I’ve pointed out above, being a Democrat merely makes a person hypocritical, socialistic, loathsome, and halitotic. It doesn’t make them a criminal.

So, is it appropriate to bring the enormity of the U.S. Government to bear on private enterprises like Big Law for the sin of choosing one political doctrine over another?

If so, then why limit it to Big Law? Why not have the government go after Big Business for their political leanings? Why not go after Big Billionaires for theirs? Why not go after Big You and Big Me for ours?

Why not go after Big Nuns?

Before you moan “damned straight!” consider the fact that someday there will be another Democrat President, someday there will be another Democrat Congress, and someday there will be another Democrat Supreme Court.

If America is to continue, it will be as a nation of predictable laws and sound principles, not a series of regimes exacting revenge on their predecessor regimes.

That said, I can hardly wait for Trump and Musk to bring down the teachers’ unions.

Glenn K. Beaton practiced law in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.