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Employment attorney Diane Seltzer has won a closely watched contest to lead the D.C. Bar Association, defeating securities lawyer Brad Bondi in a race with record turnout.
Seltzer tallied more than 90 percent of the electronic vote with “no issues or irregularities” in the voting system, D.C. Bar CEO Bob Spagnoletti said in a press call Monday.
More than 38,000 people voted in the race, more than five times as many voters in a typical election, he said.
“Member engagement in this election was, to say the least, extraordinary,” Spagnoletti said.
The race became a microcosm for the clashes and pressures on the American legal system this year, in part because one of the two top candidates is the younger brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
This year, the Justice Department has fired prosecutors who once investigated President Trump and the White House has targeted law firms with punitive executive orders in part because of the lawyers they hired and the clients they represent.
“WE DID IT!!!!!!” Seltzer posted on the site LinkedIn.
Seltzer made the rule of law a key focus of her campaign to lead the bar, which plays no role in attorney discipline matters.
“We’re literally afraid of terrible consequences just for doing our jobs,” she said at a candidate forum in May. “My priority is making sure that the rule of law is upheld, that we feel that we are safe to do our jobs and that we can go forward every day representing the clients we choose.”
Brad Bondi is a prominent lawyer who has represented billionaire Elon Musk and the Trump Media & Technology Group, among other large corporate clients.
He said he wanted to keep the bar group nonpartisan — and separate from the sound and fury of national politics.
In a statement, Bondi said he had hoped the race would focus on free training programs for lawyers and more pro bono work.
“Instead, I am disgusted by how rabid partisans lurched this election into the political gutter, turning a professional campaign into baseless attacks, identity politics, and partisan recrimination,” Bondi said. “Never before has a D.C. Bar election been leveraged along partisan lines in this way, an explicit call for members to vote based not on what’s best for the institution but according to their political affiliations.”
