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by bdhe
3700 days ago
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> 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. |
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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?