Labor Department Cuts Ties With ABA and It’s About Time Someone Said It

When Lawyers Stop Being Neutral

The Department of Labor just did something that should’ve happened years ago. They cut ties with the American Bar Association. Not quietly, either. Solicitor Jonathan Berry sent an email Monday telling hundreds of DOL attorneys to stop using taxpayer money for ABA events and to quit dropping their government titles at these gatherings like they’re handing out business cards at a cocktail party.

You know what’s refreshing? The bluntness. Berry didn’t dance around it. He called the ABA “strategically equivocal” about its ideology, which is lawyer speak for saying they talk out of both sides of their mouth. They claim neutrality when it suits them, then turn around and push radical positions when they think nobody’s watching.

Except people are watching now.

The thing about professional associations is they’re supposed to serve their members, not lecture them. The ABA used to be the gold standard for legal professionals. It was where serious attorneys went to stay sharp, network, and maintain standards. But somewhere along the way, it became just another activist organization wearing a respectable suit.

This matters because these aren’t just any lawyers. These are federal attorneys working for you and me. When they show up at ABA events with their government credentials, it sends a message. It says the United States government endorses whatever the ABA is selling. And what they’re selling lately looks a lot like progressive activism wrapped in legalese.

Playing Both Sides Gets You Nowhere

Berry’s email cuts through the fog. The ABA holds itself out as non-ideological when it wants credibility, then pivots to “decidedly radical ideological positions” when it wants influence. That’s not neutrality. That’s calculation.

Think about it. Would you trust a referee who says he’s impartial but keeps betting on one team? The ABA rates judicial nominees, weighs in on policy, and positions itself as the voice of the legal profession. But if that voice consistently leans one direction, it’s not representing the profession anymore. It’s representing a faction.

This isn’t the first shot fired, either. The Justice Department already told the ABA it won’t comply with their ratings for judicial nominees anymore. That’s significant. For decades, an ABA rating could make or break a nomination. Now the executive branch is saying those ratings are worthless because the scale’s been rigged.

The pattern’s clear. Conservative nominees get scrutinized like they’re applying for nuclear codes. Progressive nominees glide through with “well qualified” stamps like it’s a rubber stamp factory. Eventually, people notice. Eventually, they stop pretending the emperor has clothes.

Why This Matters Beyond Lawyers

Here’s where it gets bigger than just one professional group. The ABA situation is a microcosm of what’s happened to institutions across America. Organizations that were supposed to be neutral arbiters became partisan players. Medical associations, teachers unions, even scientific bodies started picking sides and wondering why half the country stopped trusting them.

Limited government means government shouldn’t be propping up private organizations that engage in political activism. It’s that simple. When federal employees show up at ABA events on the taxpayer dime, lending their official titles to the proceedings, that’s the government putting its thumb on the scale. That’s not what we signed up for.

Berry’s directive restores a boundary that should’ve never been crossed. Federal attorneys can still be ABA members on their own time with their own money. They just can’t use government resources to boost an organization that’s abandoned any pretense of neutrality. That’s not punishment. That’s common sense.

The broader principle here touches everything conservatives have been saying about institutional capture. When organizations that claim to represent everyone start representing only one viewpoint, they lose legitimacy. When government keeps treating them like they’re still neutral, government becomes complicit in the deception.

What Happens Next

Other agencies should follow Labor’s lead. If the ABA wants to be an activist group, fine. That’s their right. But they don’t get to have it both ways. They don’t get to wrap themselves in the prestige of being the legal profession’s voice while using that platform for partisan purposes.

The legal profession needs genuine standards and genuine debate. It needs organizations that actually represent the full spectrum of legal thought, not just the faculty lounge at elite law schools. Maybe this shake-up forces the ABA to choose what it wants to be. Maybe it creates space for alternative organizations that actually practice the neutrality the ABA only preaches.

Either way, the Trump administration just reminded everyone that taxpayers shouldn’t fund activism, even when it comes with a law degree. That’s a principle worth defending, and it’s about time someone in government had the spine to say it out loud.

American Conservatives