The advocates
“Lawyers are a society of men bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose that white is black and black is white according as they are paid.”
-- Jonathan Swift, “Gulliver’s Travels” A disappointed litigant himself, Jonathan Swift in his 18th century book vented his ire against lawyers in “such enduring words borne out of a grave misconception of a lawyer’s true function.”
To which post-war British jurist Sir Norman Birkett retorted: “A lawyer does not profess to present his own point of view or his own beliefs to the Court. He is the mouthpiece of the client to say for him what he would wish to say for himself, were he able to do so with knowledge and understanding.”
Lawyers are routinely disparaged or lambasted for defending unpopular positions or representing notorious clients. Yet it was the great British advocate Thomas Erskine who said: If the lawyer refuses to defend a client’s cause because of what he may think of such cause, then he assumes the character of a judge; “nay, he assumes it before the hour of judgment, and in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of perhaps mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused…”
With less elegance but more bluntness, said 18th century British author Samuel “Dr. Johnson” in response to Sir William Forbes suggestion that a lawyer should never undertake a cause which he believes was an unjust cause: “Sir, a lawyer has no business with the justice or the injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless the client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly.”
My apologies for the string of quotes, but here’s more, as aptly verbalized by great minds of the past like Dr. Johnson: “The justice or the injustice of the cause is to be decided by the Judge. Consider, Sir, what is the purpose of the courts of justice. It is that every man shall have his cause fairly tried by men appointed to try causes.”
“A lawyer is not to usurp the functions of the jury or judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence, what shall be the result of legal argument. A lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himself, if he could.”
That makes the job of lawyers, of course, dangerous -for many if not most people do not understand what integrity means for a lawyer. It is an integrity borne out of honing a craft of establishing the facts upon the evidence and personal knowledge of witnesses, of skillfully asking questions which reveals before the court the truth that is relevant or necessary for the cause or the defense of his client.
Such that when the other side fails to do their job; when either the law enforcement agency, the prosecution or the judge succumbs to corruption or is beset by ineptitude or lack of strong institutional support; or when the entire judicial system itself is compromised and made fragile by presidential and congressional meddling or bullying -it is usually the lawyer-advocate representing unpopular causes or defending the notorious client who bears the brunt of public dissatisfaction with the justice system.
While no profession calls for higher standards of honor and uprightness than the law profession, said Birkett, “no other profession, perhaps, offers greater temptation to forsake them.” And many have failed to overcome such temptation. But then the system has a civilized remedy to deal with such miscreants of the noble profession, which basically points back to the community of the sovereign state.
Perhaps, the most important thing that supports the administration of justice in society is not the presence of men and women of honor and skill in the law profession -for there are still many of them in a society beset by impunity and injustice.
The true legitimacy of justice lies in the community’s will to uphold its collective moral sense and in summoning up the courage to be their own advocates against the abusive tendencies of temporal authorities, the wielders of power.