Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking to hundreds of lawyers at an American Bar Association event on Thursday night, urged the legal profession to toughen up.
“If you’re not used to fighting, and losing battles, then don’t become a lawyer,” she said. “Our job is to stand up for people who can’t do it themselves.”
“Right now,” she added, “we can’t lose the battles we are facing.”
Justice Sotomayor spoke in general terms, but her remarks came against the backdrop of immense stress on lawyers and the legal system from the Trump administration. That tension included a string of executive orders from President Trump retaliating against prominent law firms, stripping their lawyers of security clearances, barring them from entering federal buildings and discouraging federal officials from interacting with the firms.
She was once a summer associate at one of those firms, Paul Weiss, which led the way in striking a deal with the administration, prompting criticism that it had sacrificed its principles to protect its bottom line. Many other leading firms followed suit.
Justice Sotomayor indicated that she had a different conception of what lawyers ought to do.
“We need trained and passionate and committed lawyers to fight this fight,” she said. “For me, being here with you is an act of solidarity.”
Justice Sotomayor’s remarks came in a charged setting, at an awards ceremony at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Trump has been critical of the Smithsonian generally for what he called its adoption of “a divisive, race-centered ideology” and its promotion of “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
Mr. Trump has also singled out the museum, criticizing a graphic posted on its website in 2020 about “whiteness and white culture” that he said had “proclaimed that ‘hard work,’ individualism’ and ‘the nuclear family’ are aspects of ‘white culture.’”
Critiques like that are part of the Trump administration’s more general attack on diversity, equity and inclusion. In her remarks, Justice Sotomayor took a different view.
“Diversity is important for its own sake,” she said, “because it inspires everyone to believe that it is possible for them to be in a position to help others.”
Justice Sotomayor was interviewed along with J. Michelle Childs, a federal appeals court judge in Washington who was among the candidates President Joseph R. Biden Jr. considered for the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement in 2022 of Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
Mr. Biden, who had pledged to nominate a Black woman, ultimately picked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who had sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Mr. Biden then elevated Judge Childs, who was a federal trial judge in South Carolina, to the D.C. Circuit.
Accepting an award on Thursday, Judge Childs appeared to address the Trump administration’s attacks on the courts.
“We’re not trying to be activist judges,” she said. “We’re just trying to uphold the Constitution.”
Justice Sotomayor, 70, the first Latina member of the court, was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. Her remarks came amid growing tensions between Mr. Trump and the federal judiciary, whose members have blocked his initiatives in many areas, notably immigration. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump complained about some of those rulings on social media.
“Our Court System is not letting me do the job I was Elected to do,” he wrote. “Activist judges must let the Trump Administration deport murderers, and other criminals who have come into our Country illegally, WITHOUT DELAY!!!”
In recent days, two other members of the Supreme Court have stressed the importance of judicial independence. On Wednesday, at a judicial conference in Buffalo, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. echoed a statement he issued in March after Mr. Trump called for the impeachment of judges who had ruled against him.
“Impeachment is not how you register disagreement with a decision,” the chief justice said on Wednesday.
Last week, at a judicial conference in Puerto Rico, Justice Jackson criticized what she said were “relentless attacks” on judges, along with an environment of harassment that “ultimately risks undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
