Defending Democracy and the Rule of Law: A Conversation with former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger

When a person becomes a lawyer, they take an oath. The oath is often administered in a formal bar admission ceremony. Each year in Massachusetts, many such ceremonies take place at historic Faneuil Hall. The new lawyers and their families hear speeches from judges and bar leaders, and the oath they are required to recite dates back to colonial times. Through it, they pledge to “do no falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court”; not to participate in the pursuit of “any false, groundless or unlawful” claims; and to conduct themselves “in the office of an attorney with the courts according to the best of [their] knowledge and discretion,” faithful to the courts as well as to their clients. Most states’ attorney oaths also include a commitment to support that state’s constitution and the Constitution of the United States of America. 

These promises new attorneys make are lifelong commitments. They are promises to abide by the rule of law, and are vitally important to the strength of our democracy. And they are only the first, but also the most fundamental, of the professional duties lawyers assume in exchange for the privilege of practicing law. 

One person who takes the lawyer’s oath most seriously is Scott Harshbarger. Scott has practiced law in Massachusetts for more than 50 years. He has also held high office, including serving as the District Attorney for the largest county in the Commonwealth in the 1980s, and as the two-term Attorney General of Massachusetts in the 1990s.  

In 2019, Scott co-founded a nonprofit organization called Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and he continues to chair LDAD’s board. Among other activities, LDAD seeks to hold lawyers accountable when they violate their professional oaths in ways that threaten to undermine democracy and the rule of law. 

I recently spoke with Scott about his early influences, his decision to become a lawyer, and his career-long commitment to professionalism as reflected in the oath that lawyers take. Those topics are covered in the first portion of our conversation. At approximately the 56 minute mark, we turn to a discussion of the mission and work of LDAD. Throughout our entire conversation, I never tired of hearing Scott’s perspective of the role of the lawyer in defending our democracy and the work his organization is doing to protect the rule of law.  

The following episode is our complete conversation. I encourage you to listen to it in its entirety, even if you need to do it in more than one sitting, as Scott’s inspiring description of his early influences at the beginning of the episode helps to place his values and ideals into an illuminating historical context and demonstrates the roots of his commitment to the work of LDAD that he describes later. And please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and other contacts.

This link will take you to LDAD's website, which sheds a great deal of light on what LDAD is and the extraordinary work it has been doing: https://ldad.org/

If you have enjoyed the Higher Callings podcast, you might also enjoy Don's Substack Newsletter, Reflections of a Boston Lawyer, which you can find here: https://donaldfrederico.substack.com/