Rule of Law Clearinghouse

Recent months have seen unprecedented attacks on legal institutions and the rule of law. Many law schools already have and are creating important programs and initiatives focused explicitly on the rule of law. To support and encourage these efforts, AALS is establishing a Rule of Law Clearinghouse in partnership with the American Bar Association’s Task Force for American Democracy, co-chaired by former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig.

On this page, we offer scholarly articles, statements, podcasts, webinars, course syllabi, educational programs, centers and institutes, law school clinic activities, and more that focus specifically on challenges to the rule of law.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.

News Articles/Op-Eds

• Harold Koh, Fred Halhuber, and Inbar Pe’er, No, the President Cannot Enforce the Law-Firm Deals.
• Matthew Diller, Lawyers Must Not Stay Quiet in Face of Trump Attack on Firms.
• Kif Augustine-Adams, John Fee, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Lisa Grow, Carolina Núñez, Michalyn Steele and Lucy Williams, Why Everyone Should Care About the Constitution’s Separation of Powers.
• David Wilkins and Scott Cummings, Why American Lawyers Must Fight Democratic Backsliding.
• Erwin Chemerinsky, Trump is Targeting Law Firms and Academia: Why Don’t they Speak Up?
• David Cole and Amrit Singh, Trump’s Attacks on Law Firms are an Attack on Law Itself.
• Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurence Tribe, We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid.
• Blake D. Morant, Political Headwinds And The Rule Of Law.
• Harold Koh, Fred Halhuber, and Inbar Pe’er, No, The President Cannot Issues Bills of Attainder.
• Matthew Diller, Lower Courts are the Nation’s Battlefields to Defend the Rule of Law.
• Christine Charnosky, Law School Faculty, Leadership Express Going Concerns over Threats to Rule of Law.
• Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin, ‘We’re in the Midst of an Authoritarian Takeover’ Lee Bollinger on Trump, Columbia, and Why Capitulation Won’t Work. 
• Major Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Is independent, nonpartisan legal advice from military lawyers on the chopping block?
• Major Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Yes, the law of military orders matters, and here’s how

Statements/Resolutions

• Hari Osofsky, Message from the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Dean on Our Responsibilities to the Rule of Law and Higher Education, April 24, 2025.
• Columbia Law School Faculty Letter, April 22, 2025.
• New York University School of Law Faculty Letter, April 17, 2025.
• UC Berkeley Law Faculty Members, Berkeley Law faculty: The rule of law is under threat, April 8, 2025.
• The Washington University School of Law Faculty Letter, April 7, 2025.
• A Letter to the UC Davis School of Law Community, April 4, 2025.
• Yale Law School Faculty Members Letter, April 4, 2025.
• Heather Gerken, Message from the YLS Dean on the Rule of Law, April 4, 2025.
• Statement of University of Virginia Law Faculty, April 3, 2025.
• A Letter to Students of USC Gould School of Law, April 2, 2025.
• Stanford Law School Faculty Members Letter, March 31, 2025
• Letter From the Deans of American Law Schools, March 26, 2025.
• American Bar Association, Bar organizations’ statement in support of the rule of law, March 26, 2025.
• Standing Together in Support of Higher Education and the Legal Law Profession, March 25, 2025.
• Open Letter Condemning Dismantling of Rule-of-Law Norms, Big Law Associates, March 23, 2025.
• Nearly Two Dozen Leading Civil Rights Groups Condemn Trump Administration Memo Threatening Lawyers and Law Firms That Bring Suits Against the Federal Government, March 22, 2025.
• Democracy Forward, Democracy Forward Issues Statement Regarding President Trump’s Targeting of Lawyers and Legal Profession, March 22, 2025. 
• Federation of Law Societies of Canada, Statement on Threats to the Rule of Law, the Independence of the Bar and Judicial Independence in the United States, March 21, 2025. 
• A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia, March 20, 2025.
• The Federal Bar Association, Statement on an Independent Judiciary, March 19, 2025. 
• International Lawyers Associations, Recent Targeting of Legal Professionals by the US Government (Joint Statement), March 18, 2025.
• American Constitution Society, Let’s Stand Together to Defend the Rule of Law, March 18, 2025. 
• American College of Trial Lawyers, ACTL Opposes Government Retaliation Against Lawyers for Representing Clients, March 7, 2025.  
• The American Bar Association, The ABA Rejects Efforts to Undermine the Courts and the Legal Profession, March 3, 2025.
• Harvard Law School Faculty, A Letter to Harvard Law School Students, March 2025.
• Andrew Perlman, Statement to Suffolk Law Community
• AALS, Statement of the Association of American Law Schools on Executive Branch Compliance with Court Orders, February 27, 2025.  
• Statement of Law Professors and Law Teachers, We Are in a Constitutional Crisis, February 26, 2025.
• American College of Trial Lawyers, ACTL Condemns Elon Musk’s Call for an Immediate Wave of Judicial Impeachments, February 25, 2025.  
• Political Scientists’ Statement, Threats to the Basic Design of American Government and Democracy, February 22, 2025.
• ABA, ABA Condemns Remarks Questioning Legitimacy of Courts and Judicial Review, February 11, 2025.
• Statement of Law Professors and Law Teachers, We Are in a Constitutional Crisis, February 2025.
• Association of American Law Schools, Statement of AALS on Executive Branch Compliance with Court Orders, February 2025.
• Letter From the Deans of American Law Schools, June 18, 2024.

Amicus Briefs

• Perkins Coie v USDOJ
• Susman Godfrey v. Executive Office of the President

Podcasts/Webinars

• Matthew Diller, Bloomberg Law:  Trump’s Assault on the Rule of Law
• Big Ten Law Schools, Rule of Law in 2025
• Nick Allard, The President vs. the Legal System

Courses/Syllabi

• Senior U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller, LAWYERS AND THE RULE OF LAW

The course is divided into five units: background, historic challenges and responses, international examples, lawyer and judicial ethics issues, and synthesizing and reflecting. The course culminates in a project that is each student’s personal action plan for advancing the rule of law. Possible projects include: a social media campaign, a short film, an event for the community, learning experiences for K-12 students touring the Kennedy Learning Center, etc.

A syllabus is available upon request to [email protected].

• Michael Millemann, Jacob A. France Professor of Law, University of Maryland-Carey School of Law, Law and Social Change Seminar: The Lawyer’s Roles in Protecting Democracy and the Rule of Law

In this first year (second semester) elective, the focus is on how lawyers, working with many partners and in communities, can protect, are protecting, and are trying to protect democracy and the rule of law. An array of state and national democracy-protective leaders—lawyers and non-lawyers—have come into the classes to discuss the formidable challenges in their fields and what they are doing and planning to do to respond. Working largely in teams, the students take on democracy-protective projects and are writing major papers about them. Most of the topics are real-world projects referred to us by national and local advocacy organizations that advance democracy.

This course gives students regular opportunities for vicarious and some personal engagement in the efforts to preserve democracy and introduces them to the array of strategies—litigation (federal and state), legislation, rulemaking, community education, public education, etc.-that national and state leaders are using to protect the Rule of Law and Democracy. 

A syllabus is available upon request to: [email protected]