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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr
From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: "The client is always right" considered harmful
Message-ID: <2054@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Aug-83 23:44:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2054
Posted: Mon Aug 22 23:44:34 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Aug-83 01:29:28 EDT
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 23

A good reason for feeling less than sanguine about the legal profession
appears to be inherent in the adversarial system.  They work for their
clients, whether those clients act legally or not.  As I understand it,
lawyers are protected from being asked about crimes committed by their
clients, and this seems reasonable.  But it means that "winning the case"
takes precedence over the outcome for society, because that is the only
avenue of expression for the lawyer.  S/he CANNOT take the inside evidence
and judge the case; that's the jury's job.
  Thus information that may well demand a verdict of guilty is witheld
by lawyers, as a normal part of their job.  Worse, 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.
  I'd be delighted to hear of ethical codes that prevent lawyers from doing
such things, and instances where lawyers have been disbarred for such
activities.
  Most complaints about lawyers in this group seem to be that they act only
to generate business for themselves.  To summarize this article, there can
be a lot of anti-social activity when they simply do their job of defending
their clients, who come to them.