WASHINGTON – Justice Sonia Sotomayor urged attorneys on Thursday to actively engage in defending the nation’s legal system, as she spoke about the challenges faced by federal judges and President Donald Trump’s critiques of prominent law firms through executive orders.

“It is our duty to advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves and to defend seemingly lost causes,” she stated. “Right now, losing is not an option in the battles we are encountering. We need dedicated, skilled, and passionate lawyers to join and lead these efforts.”

Sotomayor did not specifically mention the president during her remarks at an event in Washington, D.C., organized by a segment of the American Bar Association, which has also faced criticism from Trump.

The liberal justice’s remarks come a day after conservative Chief Justice John Roberts defended judicial independence as necessary to “check the excesses of the Congress or the executive” at an appearance in Buffalo, New York.

Last week, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully condemned attacks on judges in her own speech. She did not mention Trump by name, but called the threats and harassment “an attack on democracy.”

The nation’s highest court is weighing a growing number of emergency appeals from the Trump administration as his sweeping conservative agenda faces pushback in lower courts.

The president and his allies have railed at judges who have blocked parts of Trump’s agenda, sometimes with highly personal attacks. Trump has also targeted elite law firms over work he disagrees with, leading some to fight back in court and others to strike deals with him.

The ABA has sued Trump over federal grant terminations and Trump has threatened the organization’s role in accrediting law schools over its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.