BillB
Posts: 388
Joined: Aug. 2009
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| Quote (The whole truth @ June 26 2015,23:09) | | Quote (Learned Hand @ June 26 2015,13:50) | Please remember that a lawyer should never be criticized for representing a loathsome client. The price of having 300 million neighbors is a judicial system that's too complicated for most people to navigate on their own; most of the time, you can't get justice in court without legal representation. And without an arbiter of objective morality (oh, the irony) it's unsafe to disincentivize lawyers from representing bad people.
If the fact of representation is sacrosanct, though, the quality of it is fair game. And that letter is bonkers. It's like Barry's UD persona took over in real life, and he chose to scratch his fighting itch rather than serve his clients' interests.
Lawyers represent their clients. Picking a pointless fight with influential politicians doesn't seem to do anything but hurt the school he's supposedly representing. Picking (or exacerbating) a fight buys them trouble, focuses attention and criticism on them, and will make it more difficult for them to de-escalate later when it's time to go back about their business. It also aggrandizes Barry and lets him posture as a champion of the gay-hatin' little guy. In other words, the benefit is all Barry's and the cost is all the client's.
I used to work with a partner who was a vicious litigator. He took his clients hunting with him so they could literally see him with blood on his hands; he felt it set the right expectations. He's extremely talented--the kind of guy whose results earned a multimillion dollar book of business even in the great recession, despite his abrasive personality. I recall a case that had become pretty ugly, with a lot of ill-will on both sides among both clients and counsel. After we won a significant motion, one that embarrassed the other side in court a little bit, the local business press came around looking for a quote. He flatly refused to talk to them. He would have /loved/ to sling mud at the other side and rub their face in the issue, but I doubt he stopped to think about that for more than a second. It wasn't in the client's best interests, and that's what a good lawyer is there to serve.
Now having said all that, we don't know what the client in this case wants. It's possible they said, "Barry, write us a letter that makes us look like intemperate raging assholes!" And it's possible he responded, "Gentlemen, I recommend against it--it's uncharitable and unwise, and hardly the kind of behavior that would endear us to Christ and his saints. But if you demand it of me, I will sacrifice my gentler nature to your greater temporal authority." But I think what probably happened is a few intemperate and short-sighted people got together and egged each other on, with predictable results. |
"Please remember that a lawyer should never be criticized for representing a loathsome client."
Well, no one can force a lawyer to represent a loathsome client in a civil case, and even an 'appointed' lawyer in a criminal case can get out of it if they really want to. And no one can force anyone to become a lawyer in the first place.
Aren't you curious about why arrington, out of all the lawyers available, is the lawyer in this particular case (regarding the gay student at a charter school)? |
I'm very glad that there are lawyers out there who will practice law without prejudice, particuarly these days where trial by media often occurs before trial by jury has even begun.
Not too long ago a significant majority of people might have regarded a gay client as 'loathsome' because of their sexuality. Some of them would have also condemned any lawyer representing such a person for not refusing to represent such a loathsome client.
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