[libertymcateer]

I think it is a bullshit indictment.

I'm a corporate lawyer who does a lot of cross borders work. I'm ethical - the lawyers I work with are ethical. The vast majority of lawyers are ethical.

If anything, the Panama Papers should be an object lesson that one firm or group of lawyers can be responsible for a huge proportion of activity in a given sector. Do you think, for a minute, that other firms have this astoundingly high rate of forming off-shore companies? I can assure you it is not the case.

Accordingly, to extrapolate that because one law firm in a central American country is (allegedly) corrupt that the entire profession is worth throwing out is just nonsense of the highest order. It's childish and counterproductively naive. How can you possibly hope to reform a system when you paint it with such a broad brush you are utterly blind to its reality?

The strong odds are that there was chicanery (quite possibly, a lot of it) at Mossack Fonseca. However, my money is on the fact that the substantial, if not overwhelming, majority of companies set up by the firm were for legal purposes and no laws were broken. If you want to argue that these laws themselves are problematic - sure, I am right there with you. Let's talk about reforming the laws in these small tax-haven nations and meaningful internal tax reform in major western economies that will prevent off-shoring from happening in the first place. Those are productive discussions - lets have them. That the Panama Papers may have furthered these discussions is also great.

But the idea that we should be castigating attorneys for taking advantage of legal loopholes that exist in their clients favor is utterly absurd. If you fail to take advantage of those loopholes you wind up getting sued for malpractice, plain and simple.

While I am deeply interested in the further releases of Panama Papers, and I fully support tax reform, a huge strengthening of whistleblower laws, and a whole bunch of other things that puts me, as a lawyer, closer to the 'pirate' end of the spectrum than then 'legal maximalist' side of the spectrum - I have to say, when I read the words of the purported, unverified "John Doe" - he seems to me to be catastrophically naive in his critique of the legal profession and he is all too happy to assign blame with a fire-hose while appearing totally uninterested in performing a surgical analysis of the pressure points where, if achievable reforms were made, real change could result.

Fundamentally, this screed is not a mature call to action. It is a "fuck you" to the system writ large by someone who appears to be more interested in burning things down than figuring out how to fix them.

I'll stand by and watch the flames - but I do not, nor should you, expect that it will be anything more than a campground fire. In order to get real reform achieved - guess what? - you need the buy in of the lawyers too - not just incidentally, but centrally. We write and enforce the laws. Calling us all assholes is not a great way to start that conversation.

[bdhe]

I agree that calling all lawyers unethical is a broad generalizing stroke that serves no purpose in garnering friends. I did think it might be interesting if you addressed this specific point:

> Mossack Fonseca did not work in a vacuum—despite repeated fines and documented regulatory violations, it found allies and clients at major law firms in virtually every nation. If the industry’s shattered economics were not already evidence enough, there is now no denying that lawyers can no longer be permitted to regulate one another. It simply doesn’t work. Those able to pay the most can always find a lawyer to serve their ends, whether that lawyer is at Mossack Fonseca or another firm of which we remain unaware.

And you said this.

> But the idea that we should be castigating attorneys for taking advantage of legal loopholes that exist in their clients favor is utterly absurd. If you fail to take advantage of those loopholes you wind up getting sued for malpractice, plain and simple.

I agree that castigating all attorneys is going to far, but this comes dangerously close to two fallacies; that because it's legal, it's moral (namely that you can divorce your moral responsibility because you're acting in the letter of the law) and that you were just "following orders." If the consequence of failing to take advantage of loopholes is lawsuits for malpractice then that indicates a problem in itself. As a corporate lawyer you have to put yourself as an ethical person first, a lawyer second.

> I have to say, when I read the words of the purported, unverified "John Doe" they seem to me to be catastrophically naive in its critique of the legal profession and is all too happy to assign the blame with a fire-hose while uninterested in performing a surgical analysis of the pressure points where, if achievable reforms were made, could result in actual change.

I think it would be tremendously useful if you inject some needed surgical analysis into this. Any reasonable view point from the other side should be welcome into such a debate.

[rayiner]

> I agree that castigating all attorneys is going to far, but this comes dangerously close to two fallacies; that because it's legal, it's moral (namely that you can divorce your moral responsibility because you're acting in the letter of the law) and that you were just "following orders." If the consequence of failing to take advantage of loopholes is lawsuits for malpractice then that indicates a problem in itself. As a corporate lawyer you have to put yourself as an ethical person first, a lawyer second.

"If it's legal it's moral" is fallacious in general, but not as applied to lawyers. Their role in the system is not to assert their independent moral judgment, but to represent their client while staying within the letter of the law and protecting the integrity of the process.

You've actually got the "following orders" hypothetical backward. A soldier should not follow an illegal order. But he is not empowered to pass moral judgment and ignore a legal one. Lawyers are the same way.

I just watched the People v. OJ Simpson. Here's a man who was clearly guilty of a heinous crime. Yet, his lawyers' job was not to pass moral judgment on him, but to represent him. It was their ethical obligation to try and exonerate their client by exploiting every shred of doubt so long as they did nothing to undermine the integrity of the process (lying to the Court, etc).

[bdhe]

> I just watched the People v. OJ Simpson. Here's a man who was clearly guilty of a heinous crime. Yet, his lawyers' job was not to pass moral judgment on him, but to represent him. It was their ethical obligation to try and exonerate their client by exploiting every shred of doubt so long as they did nothing to undermine the integrity of the process (lying to the Court, etc).

As a people, we've made the judgment on the tradeoff that we should like the criminal system to behave this way because it's better off to have a thousand guilty men go free than jail an innocent person.

I believe we have strayed a little off track if we apply a similar sentiment to something like corporate loopholes.

[rayiner]

> As a people, we've made the judgment on the tradeoff that we should like the criminal system to behave this way because it's better off to have a thousand guilty men go free than jail an innocent person.

Blackstone's original quote was 10 guilty men, not 1000, but I digress. The whole point of the legal profession is to serve as a buffer between public opinion and individuals. If we had taken a nationwide vote on OJ, the results wouldn't be "better to have a thousand guilty men go free" but rather "life in prison."

The same rationale applies in the business law context. Cupertino's mayor wants Apple to pay the city $100m: http://fortune.com/2016/05/05/cupertino-mayor-apple-abuses. Not because it's the law, but because public sentiment opposes the growth created by Apple's presence. Should Apple's lawyers advise them to pay more money because it's the "moral" thing to do? And how do we decide which companies to target for ad hoc moral judgment?

And how exactly do we hold lawyers accountable for "moral" rather than "legal" conduct? Do we punish the lawyer who files the complaint to foreclose on a building full of retirees and disabled veterans? What if the new construction on the site will house 10x as many people and create dozens of jobs? Who decides?

[nickpsecurity]

Exactly. I think it was a good tradeoff even if the system's workings could use some improvements. Bad things happen and people escape punishment for them all the time. We built the law to protect innocent from this in the first place. Better that we lean toward reducing rather than increasing wrongful convictions. Especially for anything with a death penalty.

[sievebrain]

The problem is that you can't define "loophole". It's a meaningless term.

What one man perceives as a loophole, another man perceives as the correct functioning of the law as designed. Ultimately trying to second guess the law is a bad idea and lawyers, in particular, should not be in the business of saying "this is legal, but you shouldn't do it because it violates my own personal ethics". Lawyers are supposed to advise on the law, not act as wannabe politicians.

[charlesdm]

Often these "loopholes" are there by design, i.e. through lobbying. Governments should make proper laws, and adjust where necessary.

[jsmthrowaway]

I don't know that I agree. Lawyers represent the interests of their client and sometimes apply the law to achieve it. Law is not machine code that operates a lawyer with no room for deviation; I would expect counsel to use discretion and ethics, and perhaps not use every law available to represent me in a way I do not prefer.

I don't think that's "politicking." I think that's jurisprudence. The law lets you do a lot but a lawyer has advice exceeding the law in many situations, and should advise you based upon your interests. I'm in a position to completely punish someone legally, for example, and the law is on my side; my attorney advised me of this but also illustrated some of the risks of doing so despite the legality. Another client might ride that lightning and be a dick, but she knows I'm not so she advised against doing it. That specific situation came down to just fairness and understanding me personally, not even ethics or law. Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but it sounds like that's second guessing to you and she shouldn't have done it, in your opinion.

I would expect nothing less of counsel I retain, and I appreciate it. That's why we hire lawyers. Not law robots.

[nilved]

Probably everyone finds their own behaviour ethical, or they wouldn't be doing it.

[voodootrucker]

Exactly, these problems are systemic. The people involved aren't going to come out and make logical points against themselves. There are some debates that open discussion and scientific reasoning don't apply to.

[steveeq1]

> I'm ethical - the lawyers I work with are ethical. The vast majority of lawyers are ethical.

Please don't confuse "ethical" with "not illegal".

[charlesdm]

I find this an interesting argument. Shouldn't it be the governments responsibility to make proper laws? If you want ethics to matter when it comes to tax law (something to do with paying a "fair share") then they should make laws that account for that.

[NoGravitas]

> But the idea that we should be castigating attorneys for taking advantage of legal loopholes that exist in their clients favor is utterly absurd. If you fail to take advantage of those loopholes you wind up getting sued for malpractice, plain and simple.

This seems worrisome to me. It looks like one of those cases where the system is set up so that we end up getting exactly what no one wants. Moloch[0] in other words. I don't have a solution (no one has a solution to Moloch), but it's worrisome.

[0]: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

[hackuser]

This sounds like the response of another industry, Wall Street, when it is called out for its corruption and incompetence. Anger and hyperbole aren't convincing, and in this case not intimindating (the real point of anger). They also undermine everything else you say.

[bronz]

Would you mind explaining what he meant when he said "[...] there is now no denying that lawyers can no longer be permitted to regulate one another." I don't know anything about the law so I don't understand how lawyers are regulating themselves.