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From: ka@spanky.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Twisting the legal system
Message-ID: <462@spanky.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Aug-83 00:38:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: spanky.462
Posted: Mon Aug 29 00:38:55 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 01:25:08 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, N. J.
Lines: 34

It seems that a	lot of people out there	have expressed the view
that the law cannot function effectively if it works as	it is
intended to.  For example, advocating the elimination of the
exclusionary rule implies that the system needs	illegally
obtained evidence to work well.	 Especially common is the notion
that it	is harmful for people to know what the law is.	A typical
comment:
	It appears that	this "the client is always to be
	defended" attitude may cause some lawyers to counsel
	their corporate	clients	in circumventing or even breaking
	the law, to the	clear detriment	of society.  An	example
	of this	would be a lawyer reviewing court settlements in
	auto accident cases to come up with an expected	cost
	figure of defective brakes to compare to the cost of
	recalling the cars involved.

It seems to me that if you are opposed to the effects of a law
you should come	right out and advocate changing	the law.  If you
want illegally collected evidence to be	introduced in court, you
should advocate	the modification or repeal of the fourth
amendment; otherwise where would you be	if policemen stopped
violating the fourth amendment?	 Similarly, if you think that our
system will not	work if	people know what the laws are, you should
advocate changing the laws rather than blaming lawyers for
explaining the law.  If	you really do want a system in which it
is impossible to find out what the law is, there is still no
reason to limit	the legal advice a lawyer can give to a	client.
Far better to have the legislature pass	the laws you feel should
be kept	secret in a closed session and deliver them secretly to
judges.	 After all, it wouldn't	be fair	if lawyers could find out
what the secret	laws were and obey them	while the rest of us were
trotting off to	jail for breaking laws that we didn't know
existed.
					Kenneth	Almquist