From February 19–March 6, 2026, Bright Line Watch and the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law conducted their first joint survey of legal experts — federal judges, lawyers, and law pro­fes­sors — alongside Bright Line Watch’s frequent surveys of political sci­en­tists and the public.

The results provide the most detailed picture to date of experts’ assess­ment of the state of the U.S. legal system during Trump’s second term. The federal judges, elite lawyers, and academics in our sample perceive a sig­nif­i­cant erosion of the rule of law since Trump returned to office, including politi­cized law enforce­ment, a dys­func­tion­al sep­a­ra­tion of powers, and executive-branch overreach. Legal experts generally view the erosion of the rule of law as more severe than the public currently perceives it to be.