Want to see a blowout election? Check out the results of the contest to lead the DC Bar Association if you want to know how our city’s lawyers are feeling about Trump and his associates.
Brad Bondi, a white collar defense litigator at a prestigious international firm—and the little brother of Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general—lost big time. He got 9 percent of the vote.
Diane Seltzer, an employment lawyer who has served on the board of the DC Bar for years, received 91 percent of votes. She’ll now become the organization’s president-elect, starting on July 1.
More than 38,000 of the district’s lawyers voted in this election— many more than usual and roughly five times the number from last year’s election.
If you’re not an attorney, you may have never considered the routine District of Columbia Bar Association election before. The unpaid president of the bar plays a mainly administrative role and cannot disbar or otherwise discipline lawyers.
For obvious reasons though, lawyers and laypeople alike paid a lot more attention to this contest. For one thing, the DC Bar can determine whether Department of Justice attorneys have violated professional norms.
During the race, Bondi accused Seltzer of unfairly politicizing the bar election by bringing up his associations with the Trump administration. Not only is his sister Trump’s attorney general and former defense lawyer, Brad also represented Tesla and has given tens of thousands to pro-Trump PACs. Trump nearly chose him to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Seltzer’s firm, meanwhile, specializes in discrimination matters, internal workplace investigations, policies and training, and mediation. She’s been volunteering on DC and Maryland bar associations for 30 years.
George Conway, the lawyer and GOP insider turned Trump critic, endorsed Seltzer in a social media video.
During their debate in May, Seltzer brought up her commitment to the rule of law in reference to the Trump administration’s targeting of major law firms. She said the DC Bar needs to “make sure that we maintain and uphold the rule of law, and that people feel they can practice law safely without worrying about executive orders, or without being targeted in any possible way by the government.”
Evidently, the lawyers of DC agreed.
