SHARKS GOTTA SWIM, BATS GOTTA FLY: California Restricts Free Speech.

California’s far-left Supreme Court has ordered restrictions on the speech and expressive conduct of California’s lawyers “at all times,” including during their unrelated business activities, political endeavors and personal lives.

Just before Christmas, the even more radical California State Bar imperiously advised the state’s 200,000 lawyers “Read it, declare it, mean it.” That ominous warning introduced the California Supreme Court’s Orwellian Rule 9.7 which requires every lawyer to attest that: “As an officer of the court, I will strive to conduct myself at all times with dignity, courtesy and integrity.” The license of any lawyer who fails or refuses to acquiesce will be invalidated, and any lawyer who violates the oath is subject to “appropriate fees and penalties” to be set by the Bar.

For a nanosecond, that’s an appealing concept. But, under the First Amendment, no instrumentality of government may condition an individual’s livelihood on complying with its view of “dignity” or “courtesy,” in their political or personal endeavors. Invalidating the licenses of non-compliant lawyers also violates procedural due process under the Fifth and 14th Amendments. Tying the oath to meaningless pap about a lawyer being an “officer of the court” exposes the premeditated overreach.

As a threshold problem, even in traditional usage, “strive,” “dignity” and “courtesy” are so vague that no lawyer could know what is required, violating substantive due process.

What a mess.