Posted by wlansden |
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By James Bowden
Apologies to Shakespeare, but I’ve been thinking about this quote too frequently recently. First, it was because of an online video branding DOJ attorneys the “Al Qaeda 7.” Later it was because of an interview on the Daily Show with John Stewart on the same subject. Most recently, it was because of an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. More and more, it seems that Rule 1.2(b) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct counts for naught outside of the halls of law.
I’m no hero, but I share a profession with some. For many years the Nashville Public Defender was a man named Ross Alderman. Ross defended the good and the bad alike against charges ranging from petty crimes to capitol offenses - he did so as a zealous advocate and at great personal sacrifice. A motorcycle accident cut Ross’s career in public service short. Soon after his death I saw an attorney from the District Attorney’s office who had regularly opposed him in court toast his memory; she wept as she spoke. She didn’t weep alone.
The quote above is not a truism, as the legal profession’s detractors sometimes seem to think; it isn’t even a lawyer joke. Shakespeare’s character, Dick the Butcher, was instigating for revolution, anarchy, and tyranny led by a villain that would be dictator named Jack Cade when he spoke. The phrase is ironic; it stands for the necessity of lawyers in a free and just society, not the opposite.
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