The Utah State Bar raises alarm about threats and physical attacks on lawyers  

Hundreds of Utah attorneys say they’ve been threatened during their careers, with more than 50 reporting they’ve been physically assaulted. 

The numbers come from a survey recently released by the Utah State Bar, which regulates the practice of law in the state. Among the troubling insights: the threats are motivating some lawyers to leave the job, judges are also targets of intimidation, and women in the profession received threats of a sexual nature more often than men.

In responding to the survey, lawyers described several examples of alarming behavior. One disclosed being on the “hit list” of someone arrested with guns, while others said they’d had their car brake lines cut, been punched, were assaulted in the courtroom, received death threats and had a “Molotov-type” bottle fly through the front window of their law office. 

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Attorney Stephen Kelson, who conducted the review, said that while in law school, he wasn’t taught how to deal with that sort of behavior. 

“Then suddenly you’re in the practice and you’re receiving threats,” Kelson said. “That has an effect upon the mental health of the attorneys.”

There’s greater fallout affecting the fairness and function of the legal system overall, Kelson said, if attorneys can’t focus on their work because they’re worried about their safety. 

He told Utah News Dispatch that some participants said they’re glad they’re retiring soon because they’re getting more threats than before, while another reported telling college students to choose a different career than law. 

“Having them recommend to potentially very good future attorneys, ‘don’t do this’ — that’s not a benefit to the legal system,” Kelson said. 

Utah State Bar President Kim Cordova attributes the findings to changing cultural norms.  

“People, I think, feel more entitled, or they’re more freely able to say things that are inappropriate and think that it’s OK as an expression,” Cordova said.  

She noted the public’s understanding of legal issues is shaped more and more by short clips that may show a partial or inaccurate picture of what really happened. She’s encouraging people to consider that before reaching a conclusion or sharing posts online. 

When it comes to threats of sexual assault toward female attorneys, Cordova said she sees them as indicative of misogyny in society.

“I think that’s a reflection of the culture over all,” Cordova said. 

The report coincides with declining trust in the legal profession as it remains a focus of the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has targeted big law firms with executive orders seeking to ban attorneys who previously investigated him from entering certain buildings or winning federal contracts.  

In Utah, new state laws are reshaping the judiciary after a series of court decisions that derailed lawmakers’ agenda on issues like redistricting and abortion. The measures create a new system to handle constitutional challenges and expand the Utah Supreme Court from five justices to seven.

Judges in the state, not just lawyers, are the targets of vitriol. Citing data from the state court system, the review noted the courts recorded 117 threats from 2023 to 2025. 

In a lawsuit deciding the boundaries of Utah’s congressional districts for the November midterm elections, a judge who rejected the Legislature’s proposed map last year later received threats, the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts confirmed. 

In the survey conducted earlier this year, 1,593 attorneys — roughly 12% of the organization’s Utah members — responded, with 703 reporting threats or violence connected to their legal work, including 58 physical assaults. 

The highest rates of threats or violence were reported by those practicing in family law, followed by areas of criminal prosecution and criminal defense — areas where clients stand to lose property, the ability to see and spend time with family members, or their liberty, if they face time behind bars. Sometimes the behavior came from within the profession, including opposing counsel.

More lawyers participated than in a similar survey in 2006, but the percentage of those reporting assaults remained roughly the same — around 45%. 

Kelson said he hopes the findings will encourage attorneys to talk about threats and to take them seriously, even if they’ve become accustomed to them. The results are being used to inform a safety training program the Bar is developing for attorneys and judges. 

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