Summary
Bradley Bondi, brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Alicia Long, deputy to Ed Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, are running for president and treasurer of the D.C. Bar.
This raises concerns they could weaken disciplinary efforts against attorneys tied to the Trump administration. The D.C. Bar, with 120,000 lawyer members, is influential in nominating professionals for the body that investigates lawyer misconduct.
Pro-Trump officials could undermine crucial lawyer ethics guidance and enforcement, especially amid a very tense relationship between the Trump administration and bar associations.
Disciplinary actions and ethical complaints have already targeted notable Trump-linked lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani and Jeffrey Clark.
Each state manages its own bar rolls, enrollment in which licenses attorneys to practice law in that state.
DC, not being a state, also has its own bar roll.
Virtually all state bars rolls are managed exclusively by the Supreme Court of that state.
You have to be licensed in a state to practice before a federal court, and then you can apply for enrollment in each federal court circuit.
The ABA is a bar association, which is essentially a lobbying group, not a licensing authority. Each state also has its own association, and usually many associations. State association, county associations, young lawyers, black lawyers, Asian and Pacific islander, also many more associations by practice area, such as trial lawyers association or elder law association.
The thing like 48 state participate in that you’re talking about is the administration of the multistste bar exam (MBE), which is a 200 question multiple choice test used by the bar examining committee of the state bar to decide who can join the rolls.
So your post is almost entirely incorrect.
The significance of the DC bar is that enrollment therein authorizes people to practice in DC, which generally includes all influential lobbying firms and all lawyers that practice at or before most federal administrative agencies since they are headquartered in DC. Further, it’s the local membership most commonly used to apply for membership in the bar of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the most influential court in the US after SCOTUS because it hears virtually all regulatory appeals, i.e., appeals taken from the adjudicatory decisions of federal agencies. This includes all patent and copyright appeals and all NLRB appeals, to name a couple of the important ones. Membership in the DC bar is also used to apply to practice before the FISA court, which is pretty influential.