THE
GOOD LAWYER
It is possible to
be honest in one aspect of one’s life, but
not another. Even the most honest
lawyer might cheat like a bandit at
poker. Or, if scrupulously honest in her
card games, perhaps take more than her share
of “mulligans” on golf courses. Cognitive
psychologist, and bestselling author, Dan
Ariely contends that we’re all prone to a
little dishonesty from time to time. In his
book, The (Honest) Truth About
Dishonesty, Ariely argues that most
people are dishonest—but only to the point
at which they can still reconcile their
dishonesty with their self-image of
themselves as a basically honest person.
Precisely where that point is will vary from
person to person.
Being a consistent truth-teller is not only
difficult for good lawyers, but quite likely
impossible. No lawyer tells the whole truth.
It can’t be done, and no lawyer wants to try
anyway. Lawyers select from a universe of
facts those facts that advance their causes
and omit those that don’t. The adversary
system is built on the assumption, not
always correct, that each side will find and
present the facts that best make their
respective cases, and from the resulting
clash of facts, and from the conflicting
interpretations of the law that each side
supplies, some semblance of the truth will
emerge and some form of justice be done.
It’s a nice theory, one that calls to mind
Winston Churchill’s quip about democracy
being the worst system of government except
for all the others.
While Justice Department lawyers, for
example, generally can present the truth as
they see it, other lawyers don’t have that
same luxury. If traversing morally ambiguous
terrain is not your thing, don’t become a
criminal defense attorney. For the criminal
defense attorney, shading the truth is part
of the job description. When cross-examining
a prosecution witness, a defense attorney
will often know that the witness in direct
examination has told the truth, or something
very close to it. The witness really did see
the defendant enter the convenience store,
or the witness really did discover the
defendant’s blood at the crime scene. Does
anyone of a certain age believe that O. J.
Simpson’s “Dream Team” doubted for a minute
whether the bloody glove offered into
evidence by the prosecution—the glove “that
did not fit”—was worn by their client on the
night of the double murder? On
cross-examination, defense attorneys will do
whatever they can—within the limits of
professional ethics and sometimes outside
them—to convey the mistaken impression that
a witness didn’t see what she saw, or didn’t
really find the damning evidence he thought
he did. Yale law professor Stephen L.
Carter, in his book Integrity notes
that a defense lawyer “can do nothing else”
than attempt to “fool the jury into
disbelieving a truthful witness,” which is
“nothing but an expedient lie.” The threat
of misleading jurors is sometimes the only
leverage a lawyer has....
Seeking Quality in the
Practice of Law
by DOUGLAS O. LINDER and
NANCY LEVIT (Oxford
University
Press, 2013)
The Good
Lawyer
About
The Good Lawyer
Preface
Introductory
Note
The
Good Lawyer is Empathetic
The
Good Lawyer Has a Passion for Justice
The
Good Lawyer Values Others in the Legal
Community
The
Good Lawyer Uses Both Intuition and
Deliberative Thinking
The
Good Lawyer Thinks realistically About the
Future
The
Good Lawyer Serves the True Interests of
Clients
The
Good Lawyer Has Ample Willpower
The
Good Lawyer is Persuasive
Seeking
Quality
Quotes
Random
Facts
The
Happy Lawyer
Excerpt from Chapter 1:
The Good Lawyer Is Courageous