Since Janus v. AFSCME was decided in 2018, workers across the country have exercised their newfound freedom to no longer subsidize union speech against their will. But although Janus liberated unionized government employees from compelled dues, other professionals have not yet won a similar freedom. A particularly stark example is the legal profession; lawyers nationwide remain forced to pay membership dues to ideologically dominated state bar associations in order to practice law.

The disconnect between Janus and the legal profession stems from two Supreme Court precedents that weren’t explicitly overruled by Janus: Lathrop v. Donohue (1961) and Keller v. State Bar of California (1990). Lathrop held that lawyers may be mandated to join a bar association that solely regulates the legal profession and improves the quality of legal services, while Keller clarified that lawyers’ mandatory dues could not be used to fund activities of an ideological nature that are non-germane to regulating the legal profession and improving the quality of legal services.

Several recent lawsuits have highlighted the need, in the aftermath of Janus, to re-evaluate the constitutionality of compelling lawyers to sacrifice their freedoms of association and speech to work in the legal profession. Last week, the Fifth Circuit took up that task when it decided McDonald v. Longley.

The Fifth Circuit addressed issues left unresolved by Keller: whether a lawyer could be forced to join a bar association that engages in non-germane activities (e.g. activities that advocate change to a state’s substantive law) and whether the compelled subsidization of those non-germane activities is unconstitutional. In Texas, the bar association has used its fees to lobby to amend the Texas Constitution’s definition of marriage, to propose substantive changes to Texas family law, and to fund the Texas Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission, which lobbies for changing Texas law to be more beneficial toward certain socioeconomic classes.

While these goals may be laudable to some and disagreeable to others, the Texas bar association overstepped its constitutional bounds by delving into issues that neither regulated the legal profession nor improved the quality of legal services in the state. Providing a glimmer of hope to lawyers across the country and a win for the free speech rights of Texas lawyers, the Fifth Circuit handed down the first decision from a federal court to invalidate mandatory bar membership and dues on the basis of a First Amendment violation.

On the heels of the Fifth Circuit’s decision, a lawsuit challenging the compelled funding of Oregon’s state bar association awaits potential review at the Supreme Court. As explained in Cato’s amicus brief, Crowe v. Oregon State Bar presents an opportunity for the Supreme Court to lay to rest the notion that a person may be forced to fund, and therefore implicitly endorse, speech or activities with which she may vehemently disagree.

Stepping back from nuanced arguments over First Amendment standards, these cases give the country an opportunity to reflect on the values underpinning our Constitution. At a time when ideological divisions grow more divisive, lawyers should be the first to stand up and denounce the forced subsidization of politically charged messages that do little, if anything, to assist in regulating the legal profession. Our bandwidth for debate over important public issues diminishes the more we feel forced into bankrolling positions we disagree with.

There is no doubt that these suits will continue to emerge as more lawyers recognize the necessity of taking a stand for associational and free speech rights. Janus was an important first step toward providing the public proper First Amendment protections in the workplace, and Crowe would continue the Supreme Court’s positive trend of affirming that workers should not be forced to choose between losing their livelihood or submitting to another person’s ideological speech.