The People v. The Bench and Bar

What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? I think we all know the punchline, but the uncomfortable truth is that most people outside the profession find it genuinely funny, and that should concern every one of us.

TSA agents bark orders about liquids and shoes with rigid hostility. To the agent it is routine; to the traveler who may be flying for the first time, it is a high-anxiety gauntlet. The same goes for the DMV clerk who snaps at a customer for not booking an appointment, never mind that the person has not set foot in a DMV office for years and had no idea they needed to.

The legal profession suffers the same fatigue, only the stakes are higher. Officers of the court are entrusted with a position of real importance: to aid in the administration of justice. On the other hand, non-legal professionals who find themselves in our courtrooms are almost always there because something has gone terribly wrong in their lives (including being called for jury service).

In 2024, Gallup found that only 28% of Americans rated judges' honesty and ethical standards as "high" or "very high." For lawyers, that number drops even further to 17%, with nearly half saying "average," and a third saying "low/very low." It's easy to chuckle at, but these numbers represent a tragic erosion of confidence in the system that underpins a functioning society.

The headline-grabbing betrayals are the ones people remember. Tom Girardi, whose work inspired the film Erin Brockovich, was convicted of stealing $15 million from clients. Michael Avenatti was convicted of trying to extort Nike, and in a separate case, ordered to pay millions in restitution after embezzling settlement funds from clients. Rudy Giuliani, once "America's Mayor," was disbarred in 2024 for making false statements in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The 2022 Depp v. Heard trial was livestreamed to millions and reduced to reaction videos and TikTok compilations, conditioning the public to view the courtroom as entertainment rather than an institution. Closer to home, the California State Bar charged a founding partner of the Downtown LA Law Group with several counts of unauthorized practice of law across multiple states this March, even as the firm faces parallel investigations from the State Bar, the Los Angeles County District Attorney, and the County Counsel into allegations that it paid people to file fabricated sex abuse claims as part of Los Angeles County's $4 billion AB 218 settlement.

The everyday damage is quieter but just as corrosive. People form their opinions of entire institutions from single encounters, and the legal profession is no different. Most people will never cross paths with a Tom Girardi. But they might sit in a courtroom and watch a judge berate a new attorney for having their hands in their pockets. They might see a viral clip of Harris County, Texas Judge Nathan Milliron scolding a courthouse IT worker who had just tried to fix his computer. They might read that Los Angeles Judge Susan Bryant-Deason was publicly admonished in May for telling a prospective juror to "learn English" and another that they were "not doing anything in our society." They might learn that Los Angeles Judge Thomas J. Griego was publicly admonished twice by the Commission on Judicial Performance for mistreating litigants, especially self-represented ones. They might learn that the Commission on Judicial Performance filed formal proceedings against Los Angeles Judge Robert S. Draper across seven counts, including racially charged remarks and inappropriate conduct toward female colleagues. Those are the moments that turn the joke about lawyers at the bottom of the ocean from a punchline into a belief.

When the profession's image is this damaged, it is no surprise that prospective jurors treat jury selection as a plague to be avoided at all costs. Anyone who has sat through voir dire knows the routine: the scheduling conflicts, the claimed hardships, the poorly concealed desperation to be literally anywhere else. The Sixth and Seventh Amendments guarantee the right to a jury trial, but that guarantee means little when the citizens called to fulfill it have already checked out, avoiding the box entirely or sitting in it with contempt for everyone in the room.

So what do we do about it? The antidote is not charity galas or press releases. It is the daily, unglamorous work of behaving as though the public's trust matters, because it does. It is judges treating every person in their courtroom with dignity, whether they return the favor or not. It is lawyers refusing to look the other way when a colleague crosses a line. It is bar orgs enforcing standards with teeth.

It is the late Judge Frank Caprio, whose patience and compassion gained billions of views online. It is retired Los Angeles Judge Craig Mitchell, who founded the Skid Row Running Club to help the community get clean, find work and rebuild their lives. It is the Food from the Bar campaign, where firms like Minyard Morris, neutrals like Judicate West and bar orgs like the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association joined to raise a record $172,000 last year for a county where hundreds of thousands go hungry. It is groups like the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers' Charities, which runs its Great Tryke Giveaway of adaptive bikes for children with disabilities.

Trust is not rebuilt in grand gestures. It is rebuilt in the thousands of small decisions that few see, made by lawyers and judges who remember that the system only works if people believe it is fair.

The public is watching, and it is tired of scandals. It is time to give the People something better to see.