In the latest entry on the legal calendar marking the slow erosion of Rudy Giuliani’s professional standing, a Washington D.C. court has handed the former New York mayor and personal lawyer to Donald J. Trump a suspension of his D.C. law license, a move that might surprise those who were unaware he still had one.
The D.C. Court of Appeals issued the order on Tuesday, decisively hitting pause on Giuliani’s legal career in the nation’s capital, citing his “reckless” actions in support of Trump’s 2020 election challenge as more befitting of a courtroom drama than a courtroom record. While the suspension itself may sound dramatic, it was not entirely unexpected and in fact follows a similar decision by New York state in 2021, which also took a dim view of Giuliani’s creative reinterpretations of electoral law and factual accuracy.
In a move that might be best described as a professional courtesy to the obvious, the D.C. court’s decision is part of a wider disciplinary process which has been inching forward with all the urgency of a wearied tortoise, reviewing Giuliani’s conduct in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. At the heart of the matter is his enthusiastic role in peddling false claims about election fraud, an endeavor which involved more press conferences held in landscaping company parking lots than actual robust legal arguments.
Giuliani, true to recent form, responded to the suspension by continuing to maintain he did nothing wrong, a stance that by this point appears to be a professional reflex. His defense continues to lean heavily on the notion that he was simply advocating for his client, although most attorneys stop short of doing so with the aid of imaginary facts and four seasons of chaos.
The court found Giuliani’s efforts to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania to be “utterly lacking in factual basis” and characterized his behavior as a serious ethical breach. The suspension is preliminary, meaning he is not necessarily disbarred permanently, but considering the momentum of these disciplinary dominoes, the final result seems to be less a matter of “if” and more a matter of “how ceremonious the send-off.”
In the meantime, Giuliani joins the dwindling club of once-prominent lawyers who now find themselves litigating their reputations rather than cases, and whose court appearances are more likely to be as defendants than advocates.
Another bar Giuliani can’t get into these days, and this one doesn’t even serve drinks.