Lawyers Defending American Democracy - LDAD

05/26/2026

🎉 🇺🇸 Join us for a 250th USA Anniversary Community Project 🎉🇺🇸

We are so excited to partner with to host this free event in celebration of the spirit of democracy!

WHEN: May 30th (12 PM - 5 PM) & May 31st (12 PM - 4 PM)  
*First come, first served while supplies last!

The American Revolution began with ordinary people like YOU, transforming frustrations into action. Let’s honor those core commitments that have evolved over time:

🌟 Government by Consent: Power comes from the PEOPLE - VOTE!

🌟 Rule of Law: No one stands above the law.

🌟 Liberty & Rights: We are all created equal.

🌟 Civic Engagement: Be active, informed & engaged! 

🌟 Checks on Power: A system designed to prevent concentration of authority.

Collectively, we will create a stunning display of what it means to be part of our democracy, revealed in Ellicott City by July 4th. Make your voice heard and join us in !

💌 DM or email at {[email protected]} to let us know if/when you’ll join. This will help ensure we have enough supplies.

05/21/2026

out in shock about the severity of crimes committed by our government officials, it should be heeded. Judicial decisions should not be swept under the rug or characterized as "weaponizing justice" to erase accountability after the fact.

🚨 Yet, that is exactly what is happening in America today as the DOJ runs a GRIFT SHOP, pardoning and paying out friends of the President.

One example is Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to Trump who pleaded guilty in a 2018 prosecution to lying to the FBI. Despite the guilty plea and Judge Sullivan's scathing on-the-record rebuke of Flynn's behavior (quoted above), the charges against him were dismissed and he was pardoned by Trump. Flynn then turned around and sued the government, with the DOJ agreeing to pay him a $1.25 million settlement in April.

Sadly, Flynn's story is not unique. The Administration continues to misuse the justice system and to turn convicted criminals into wronged heroes before our eyes.

The new DOJ $1.776 billion dollar epitomizes this trend as it's wholly designed to reward the President's allies and loyalists. Beyond being an egregious use of taxpayer money, the Fund represents how this administration is rewriting history, undoing judicial decision-making and ignoring the fully-reasoned words of judges.

👉 Read our Action Alert and join us in speaking out to stop taxpayer-funded and the erosion of the rule of law!

05/15/2026

✨   means silence is not an option. Defending our democracy is a call to action to speak out for the principles and values that make us who we are as a country! ✨

⚡ LDAD volunteer and lawyer James Speyer regularly publishes opinion pieces, using his voice in his community and beyond to try to wake people up to how bad our current reality is. His recent  article, "The death of dignity in leadership" draws attention to the horrendous impact that this President's undignified behavior is having on our entire society and on American democracy.

⚡ In discussing the many examples of this behavior and it's impacts, Speyer asks us to question not only whether we have ever seen such disrespect for the office of the presidency before, but if we can "actually imagine any human being with the slightest sense of decorum or decency acting this way". The answer from Speyer, and hopefully all of us, is no.

✨ We hope you will be alarmed by "the dignity deficit" that the article describes-- alarmed enough to start to take note of its impacts on your own life and to speak to your friends, neighbors and whoever will listen, about the need to restore basic human decency to government. Thank you Jamie for leading the charge!

✊ Volunteer w/ LDAD to raise urgency and inspire others to take action in response to the real-time erosion of our democracy!

05/12/2026

Our work continues to bring together distinguished scholars from around the country with our volunteer lawyers to address critical rule of law and due process issues.

⚖️ We filed our latest brief in the United States in support of a petition for certiorari filed by Merit Systems Protection Board chair Cathy Harris. Ms. Harris was summarily terminated by President Trump, notwithstanding a statutory provision stating that Board members “may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

🚨 If the is deemed an executive agency whose principal officers may be removed without cause, the President would be able to inject partisan influence into the adjudication of claims by federal employees, *depriving them of basic due process rights.* The legal issues raised have important and potentially ominous impacts on the future of independent agencies.

👏 LDAD Board member and Georgetown Law Professor Mitt Regan coordinated work on the brief. Key drafters included Georgetown Law Center Professor Victoria Nourse, University of Minnesota Law School Professor Nick Bednar, and LDAD volunteer lawyer Lynn Armentrout. We are so grateful for their efforts!

05/08/2026

The Department of Justice has become an appalling grift store and this should concern every American taxpayer 😡

When the DoJ becomes a possible vehicle for settlement payouts to the President, his family, and his friends, it is an affront to hardworking taxpayers. We have lost the in this country when we can no longer trust the DoJ to act on the public’s behalf, instead of at the personal direction or whim of the President.

As , we have a responsibility to speak out against this misuse of the justice system. LDAD's executive director Lauren Stiller Rikleen did just that in her article for , The Justice Department’s Appalling Grift Store. 

As part of , we will soon be issuing an Action Alert on this topic to encourage our growing community of volunteers to speak out in response to this appalling abuse of taxpayer dollars and government power.

Please join us! We cannot let these violations go by unnoticed. Democracy dies in the dark.

05/07/2026

Our Executive Director, Lauren Stiller Rikleen, speaks out in The Contrarian about the appalling "Grift Store" being run by the Department of Justice.

She argues that recent and potential upcoming with the administration’s friends & supporters undermine the DOJ's integrity and responsibility to seek for violating the law.

Furthermore, these actions represent "a stunning breach" of taxpayer's trust— "trust that is based on an expectation that the government will use those funds to perform essential functions on behalf of the public."

Please read and share broadly with your networks to help LDAD in & to amplify these messages of grave concern for our democracy.

Settlements with the president's friends and the possibility of payouts to him are an affront to every taxpayer.

05/06/2026

Join LDAD on May 12, 2026, for a conversation with Judge David Tatel, author of "Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice."

⚖️ The discussion with LDAD Board member Gary Simson will range across Judge Tatel's personal story of resilience and his concerns about the current state of the judiciary.

Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Time: 4:00 pm ET
Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8w5ACBtgSSmI8xkH16CxCQ

05/05/2026

⭐ Our State Leads for the initiative in Texas, Michael Curry and Jacob Rolls, never miss the chance to be in defense of American democracy. And was no exception. ⭐

🔊In their opinion piece, "Law Day reminder: We are a government of laws, not of men", Curry and Rolls urged all Americans to take on the "shared responsibility...to sustain our democracy by upholding the rule of law — not only through conviction, but through public engagement."

⭐ While acknowledging that the rule of law is an abstract concept to many, Curry and Rolls lay out how integral it is to the rights and freedoms we all rely on and discuss how "its violation has real-life consequences."

🔊 Urging us all to speak up for the rule of law as "the force that brings order to our society", the piece identifies small steps anyone can take to bolster the rule of law by "countering threats to our democracy, including unnecessary restrictions on voting rights and the spread of disinformation that undermines trust in our institutions and even in the existence of truth itself."

⭐ Join Jacob, Michael and our other amazing volunteers in ! It feels good to fight for our constitutional rights and freedoms & every voice matters.

05/01/2026

THE IDEA THAT NO PERSON IS ABOVE THE LAW IS WHAT ENSURES WE ARE ALL FREE TO BUILD OUR OWN FUTURES.

On May 1st, we celebrate : reaffirming our unwavering commitment to protect the rule of law and encouraging people to recognize why upholding it matters to their everyday lives.

2026’s theme of “The Rule of Law and the American Dream” could not be more relevant, both to the challenges we face as Americans and to LDAD’s Meeting the Moment initiative.

At its heart, the is the simple but profound principle that no one is above the law. It provides the invisible infrastructure that allows the to exist. Without a fair, stable, and predictable legal system, the "pursuit of happiness", promised to all of us, becomes a privilege for the few. It’s the rule of law that ensures merit and hard work determine success.

This year has proven that the rule of law and our democracy are not self-executing; they both require a vigilant legal community and an engaged public to be sustained — which is exactly why LDAD started .

Celebrate by registering to volunteer with us and joining our collective action in defense of the rule of law and the American Dream!

04/29/2026

Please read and share our LinkedIn post on yesterday's indictment of the former FBI Director, James Comey.

This second effort at criminal charges against Comey is a blatant abuse of power that undercuts the integrity of the justice system and reinforces the fact that the DOJ represents only one person.

We must keep these stories alive and not allow the blatant abuse of power by our government to be normalized simply by its frequency.

Join us in and speaking out against these threats to our democracy and the rule of law!

Seashells. Can the fragility of the rule of law and the abuse of the justice system be any more symbolic than a political indictment over a picture of seashells on the shore? The nation's most powerful law enforcement agency no longer protects any of us. Rather, it serves one man only. Nothing will....