Goldstein and Henry Support Review of Eastman’s Case
Can a lawyer’s unsuccessful reading of an election statute become a reason to take away his license? Pennsylvania attorneys Jonathan S. Goldstein and Britain R. Henry approach John Eastman’s petition through their own experience: a member of Congress asked that they be disbarred for work they describe as routine disputes over ballot requirements.
Their brief, submitted on October 14, 2026, supports Supreme Court review in Eastman v. State Bar of California, No. 26-336. The two lawyers expressly say they do not share Eastman’s views of the 2020 election, do not defend his conduct, and take no position on whether the findings against him are correct. Their concern is the standard that will govern the next lawyer who advances a disputed legal argument. Read their interests and summary (pp. 1–6).
This guide follows the amici’s account and legal arguments. Supporting review, in their telling, is distinct from endorsing Eastman’s actions. For the underlying petition, see our earlier reader’s guide.
Who submitted the brief?
Goldstein and Henry are partners at Goldstein Law Partners in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Goldstein has practiced in the state since 2005; the brief identifies Ralph Nader as his first client and says he has subsequently represented Republican candidates and committees in most election cycles. He also lectures at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Henry represents candidates for local, state, and federal office and has litigated election matters in Pennsylvania courts. Goldstein serves as counsel of record.
The amici emphasize the limits of their own 2020 work. They say they never claimed the election was stolen, sought to set aside a state’s results, or advised that the Vice President could reject or delay counting electoral votes. They offer their experience to illustrate a problem that, they argue, extends beyond the allegations against Eastman. Read the statement of interest (pp. 1–3).
1. What happened to the lawyers after the 2020 election?
The brief describes work for Republican candidates and committees in the Montgomery and Bucks County canvasses. Pennsylvania’s Election Code directed absentee and mail voters to complete, date, and sign a declaration on the return envelope. In Bucks County, the campaign challenged 2,177 ballots; the largest category, 1,196, had envelopes missing a handwritten date or bearing only a partial date. In Montgomery County, the dispute concerned omitted addresses.
The amici say they alleged no fraud and sought enforcement of the statutory requirements. They contrast the few thousand disputed ballots with a statewide presidential margin exceeding 81,000 votes. In their account, the challenges could not change that statewide outcome. Read the description of their work (pp. 6–8).
On November 20, 2020, Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr., asked Pennsylvania’s Disciplinary Board to consider sanctions, including disbarment, against nine lawyers representing Trump’s presidential campaign. Goldstein and Henry were among them. According to the brief, Pascrell announced complaints against twenty-three lawyers in five states that day.
The amici argue that the Pennsylvania letter identified no particular filing, argument, false statement, or ruling involving either of them. They describe it as treating representation of an unpopular client as evidence of misconduct. They also stress that Pascrell used his congressional title: their concern is an elected official asking a licensing authority to punish the opposing party’s advocates. Read the complaint discussion (pp. 8–10).
The surrounding public pressure and the complaint’s outcome
The brief recounts a contemporaneous Lincoln Project campaign publicizing contact information for two other Pennsylvania lawyers. Their firm later sought to withdraw from a federal election case by agreement with its client. Goldstein and Henry report receiving their own stream of hostile calls, messages, and emails.
They also make a significant qualification: neither was contacted by disciplinary authorities, and neither has been disciplined. Their example is therefore not a wrongful disbarment. It illustrates their argument that a public accusation and the threat to a lawyer’s reputation can impose costs even without disciplinary action. Read the public-pressure discussion (pp. 10–11).
2. Why do they say the ballot-date argument was legitimate?
The amici acknowledge that they lost their 2020 challenges, including the address argument. Their point is that losing did not establish frivolousness. They cite both the Election Code’s wording and September 2020 guidance from Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Commonwealth directing county boards not to count envelopes whose declarations were not completed, dated, and signed.
The brief does not omit the contrary treatment of that guidance. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s lead opinion considered the Secretary’s directives potentially contradictory and rejected her authority to settle the statute’s meaning. Three justices regarded the dating instruction as directory. Four others considered it mandatory, although Justice Wecht would have enforced it only prospectively. The 2020 ballots were counted despite that disagreement. Read the divided 2020 decision (pp. 7–8) and the guidance discussion (pp. 11–12).
In Ball v. Chapman, the state Supreme Court ordered that undated or incorrectly dated envelopes not be counted in the 2022 election and explained its statutory holding in 2023. Goldstein and Henry use that development to show why a tribunal’s later judgment of reasonableness is an uncertain measure of earlier advocacy. They do not claim that every argument they made was vindicated, or that an argument must eventually prevail to deserve protection. Read the Ball discussion (p. 12).
The later cases did not end every dispute over the date rule
The brief distinguishes statutory interpretation from challenges to the requirement’s validity. It recounts litigation under the federal Civil Rights Act’s Materiality Provision, including the later vacatur of Migliori v. Cohen as moot and a subsequent Third Circuit decision rejecting that statutory theory.
It also acknowledges a different result in Eakin: the Third Circuit held the date requirement unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and affirmed an injunction against rejecting such ballots. The brief describes Supreme Court review requests concerning that ruling and a separate, pending state constitutional challenge. Those disputes qualify the account of later support for the amici’s statutory reading; the brief does not present the requirement as beyond constitutional challenge. Read the subsequent litigation (pp. 12–14).
The amici tie the example to Pennsylvania’s professional rules. Rule 1.2(b) separates representing a client from endorsing the client’s views, while Rule 3.1 permits good-faith arguments to change existing law. They argue that Pascrell’s complaint inverted those principles by treating the client’s identity as a reason to punish his lawyers. Read the professional-rules discussion (p. 14).
3. What standard do the amici want the Court to clarify?
The brief does not contend that an elected official violates the Constitution simply by filing a bar complaint. Rather, it argues that the danger depends on what the disciplinary tribunal requires before imposing punishment. An unsupported partisan complaint loses force if the tribunal demands proof of a knowing falsehood or a reckless disregard of falsity.
Goldstein and Henry object to what they describe as an alternative, objective test in California’s decision: culpability based either on knowingly false statements or on the absence of a reasonable factual or legal basis. The second alternative, they argue, can permit punishment without establishing what the lawyer actually knew or believed. A partisan complainant could then rely on disagreement with the opposing lawyer’s interpretation. Read the distinction between the complaint and the governing standard (pp. 15–17).
The brief relies on Chiles v. Salazar and NIFLA v. Becerra for the protection of professional speech. It distinguishes regulation of professional conduct that incidentally involves speech from direct punishment of a lawyer’s argument about a statute. It also distinguishes the court’s power to regulate filings and protect a pending trial from a disciplinary tribunal’s later assessment of public advocacy.
Drawing on United States v. Alvarez, Counterman v. Colorado, and New York Times v. Sullivan, the amici argue that subjective culpability helps protect legitimate expression from being chilled. Their proposed distinction is between knowing or reckless falsehood and a tribunal’s conclusion that a lawyer should have known better. Read the speech and culpability analysis (pp. 17–20).
What the brief leaves open about Eastman’s own conduct
The amici acknowledge that California also made findings of actual knowledge on several counts and invoked the exception for speech integral to criminal conduct. They take no position on those findings. Nor do they seek immunity for known falsehoods or to remove a court’s power to sanction frivolous filings before it.
Their argument is that an announced objective standard affects future lawyers whether or not that standard was necessary to decide Eastman’s case. They ask the Court to resolve the standard and leave the lower courts to determine whether his discipline survives under the correct rule. Read the express limits (p. 16), the alternative findings (p. 20), and the proposed approach (p. 23).
The brief closes by considering clients and voters. Pennsylvania election disputes operate on deadlines measured in days and often begin with incomplete information. The amici warn that threats to lawyers’ licenses can leave candidates without counsel and election rules without an advocate seeking their enforcement. They invoke NAACP v. Button, In re Primus, and Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez to connect independent representation with political expression and a functioning judiciary. Read the consequences for lawyers, candidates, and voters (pp. 21–23).
What do Goldstein and Henry ask the Court to do?
The conclusion asks the Supreme Court to grant review. The requested ruling would clarify when a state may discipline contested legal advocacy without requiring the Court to endorse Eastman’s theories. The amici stress that the principle must protect lawyers on both sides: a disciplinary standard used against one party’s advocates can later be used against the other’s. Read the final argument and conclusion (pp. 23–24).
Read the original document
The complete brief on the Supreme Court’s website contains 30 PDF pages. Printed page 1 is PDF page 7. Source links use the PDF viewer’s page count.
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This guide follows the arguments and descriptions of the proceedings in the brief. For the underlying petition, see our earlier reader’s guide.
A short glossary
Amici curiae: Nonparties submitting a brief to assist the Court.
Canvass: The official review and counting of election returns.
Subjective culpability: A standard concerned with what the speaker knew or consciously disregarded.
Certiorari: Supreme Court review of a lower court’s decision.