[liquidify]

What? Representing criminals is not unethical or 'immoral'. Period. Protecting criminals legally is not unethical unless you are knowingly doing something illegal yourself.

I imagine that most layers are just doing their job and getting paid for it. Bringing morality into that equation makes no sense in a legal system that has little to nothing to do with morality.

[fshbbdssbbgdd]

Representing criminals is fine, but aiding them in committing future crimes isn’t. If you do that, you’re just part of a criminal conspiracy, and being a lawyer doesn’t give you an exception from moral culpability.

[xwolfi]

Doing their taxes okay, but representing them in court with the goal to free them is the purpose of the justice system...

[remus]

I think the GP meant 'aiding them in commiting future crimes' in the literal sense (e.g. helping launder money, abusing attorney privilege etc.) rather than implying that by defending them in court the lawyer would then be culpable.

[scintill76]

I haven't seen all of The Wire, but as to the character cited as an example, Wikipedia says, "[Maury] is corrupt and unscrupulous, willing to aid his clients in furtherance of their criminal activity." So he crosses your line, and I think that's what the GP post meant.

[spoonjim]

You don’t get to declare what is unethical by adding the sentence “Period.” after your claim. Ethics is a matter of opinion; I believe that knowingly aiding violent criminals is wrong; if you feel otherwise, that’s just like, your, opinion, man.

[MakersF]

They aren't criminal until the court system declares them criminal. The lawyer is defending them before they are declared criminals. That is what "presumption of innocence" means. Everyone has the right to be represented in court, even people that later on will be convicted. Otherwise we can just go back to use pitchforks and similar (and actually it's happening on social media, and it's not looking good)

[WalterBright]

Everyone is entitled (in the US) to due process and a lawyer to defend them. There is nothing unethical or immoral about it. It's a fundamental right.

[yawaworht1978]

It is a thin line, most of these groups are in contact with lawyer teams before they start the operations and the lawyers are in the know. These groups do risk assessment before going ahead.

[spoonjim]

Again, ethics are a matter of opinion, laws are a matter of fact. Yes, in the US you have the legal right to an attorney. Whether that attorney is behaving ethically depends on the attorney’s behavior and the person making the judgment on the ethics. You and I don’t have to have the same opinion on what’s ethical. We can each advocate for our own ideas of ethics to be codified into policy.

[fvold]

Lawyers, even in the United States, are bound by rules of conduct, and will stop being lawyers very quickly if the overstep the rules of ethical conduct.

The standards of ethics they are checked against are not yours or mine, they are the rules they agreed to. To pretend like ethics aren't a thing for lawyers is surprisingly uninformed for HN.

[WalterBright]

What happens when you are accused of a heinous crime, the evidence points at you, and yet you are innocent?

I bet you change your mind about the ethics of having a lawyer represent you.

[9wzYQbTYsAIc]

I’d highly recommend that you study formal ethics. Ethics is not built on a platform of opinions.

Unless you are the sort of person that claims that reality is just an opinion, too, in which case you should also study formal philosophy.

[ta135135135]

Which is good and fair. I think the example was Tony Soprano though and the (imaginary) lawyer in question knew full well the kind of shennanigans he was up to, these lawyers know they're defending murderers and people that ruin lives.

[rhaps0dy]

But that’s the point of lawyers. When they defend a guilty party, most of the time they know that the party is indeed guilty. They need to, to prepare a good defence.

[9wzYQbTYsAIc]

Rhetorically, yes he/she/they do get to do that.

Ethics is a matter of philosophy, which has a bit more going for it than just being composed of raw, uneducated opinion.

[worik]

Lawyers have a code of ethics. Written down and codified. Not a matter of opinion.

You are thinking of morals. That is a matter of opinion

[michaelmrose]

Your life as a human being can't have little to do with morality unless you are a sociopath. On the one hand we need someone to provide all accused with adequate representation to ensure we don't wrongly convict innocent men however at the mob boss level we are virtually always talking about trying to protect horrible people everyone knows are guilty from punishment.

A system that didn't need to hold a trial or give the mob boss a lawyer would be irredeemably immoral but one in which they go free is a shittier world. I don't envy anyone trying to remain moral while walking that line. I don't see how anyone who specialized in such clients could live with themselves.