<p>I enjoy reading about law and policies. However, I do not always agree with them. Can I still be a lawyer without morality issues? What kind of lawyer should I be? I'm pretty radical.</p>
<p>studying the law and theorizing about what it should be is nice, but the harsh reality is that when you become a lawyer, you work for a client – whether your clients are individuals, corporations, not-for profits, or gov’t agencies (in house or in a law firm or in private practice). </p>
<p>clients pay you to tell them what the law is and to then represent their interests with the utmost diligence – meaning your own views and personal opinions cannot interfere with your ability to represent your client. sometimes a client will pay you to try to “make new law” – ie to convince a court or agency that a law or regulation means something no one has previously said it meant, or that the law or regulation is illegal (unconstitutional or in violation of some higher law) – but don’t think that this means that lawyers routinely get to challenge underlying legal policies – it is just a matter of convincing the court or agency what legal policy should be applied. </p>
<p>to put it simply – your work is dictated by your clients’ needs. so before you decide to become a lawyer – ask yourself what type of clients you can imagine actually working for. if you can’t think of any, you have your answer. if the clients you imagine form an extremely narrow nitch (eg. a not for profit committed to the type of legal reform you personally endorse), think about the likelihood of actually getting such a job – as well as the enormous cost to attend law school and your ability to repay any loans doing the type of work you envision doing.</p>
<p>There are always morality issues but:</p>
<ul>
<li>legal aid for the poor</li>
<li>public defender </li>
<li>class action lawsuits</li>
<li>public interest law</li>
<li>government service</li>
</ul>
<p>These are a tiny number of the lives lawyers can choose.</p>
<p>The answer to your title is: No. Attorneys do, however, need to understand and respect the law, even if you don’t agree with it all.</p>
<p>I agree with poster number 2… whatever his name is unbelievieheuhwhjkwe. </p>
<p>Its a business or service just like any other. Priority number 1 is doing what is best for the client. With that out of the way, then a person can focus on other needs.</p>
<p>I agree with unbelievablem. Law is a client service industry, and as a lawyer, you will have to serve the needs of your clients to the very best of your ability, regardless of your own personal views.</p>
<p>if you wish to change something, you must first accept that it is the way it currently is.</p>
<p>if you want to be a lawyer, then yes, you do have to make peace with authority.</p>
<p>I think the biggest disservice to law was that of Roe v. Wade how they individuated with the client to make the law fit their ideological predisposition on abortion and other issues. This is called cause-lawerying, to establish a greater goal in the legal realm.</p>
<p>um, cause-lawyering didn’t exactly begin with Roe v. Wade.</p>
<p>For example, Brown v. Board of Ed. was supported by the NAACP legal defense fund. And many lawsuits were brought not just to bring specific relief for individual clients, but for their precedential value. To give an example on the other side of the political spectrum, Heller v. DC wasn’t just about one guy who wanted to have a gun–it was supported by people from many states who anticipated a specific reading of the 2nd amendment that would impact gun laws throughout the US.</p>
<p>If you re-read what I wrote, I didn’t use the word “begun.” I said it was a huge example of it, and how they used the law to change abortion rights and reach a greater goal within the private sphere.</p>
<p>I think most lawyers find that they are able to represent most clients without too many moral conflicts. There are multiple sides to every issue, and you will usually find that your client has reasonable claims, even if it’s a big corporation, or a criminal defendant, or whatever it might be. You do have to have some faith in and respect for the legal system in general, of course.</p>
<p>Abortion wasn’t exactly the political hot potato when Roe v. Wade was decided that it is today. It certainly wasn’t a defining difference between liberals and conservatives in those days. As governor of California, Reagan signed the into law the act eliminating most of the legal restrictions on abortions. Jack Kilpatrick, the conservative on the “Point Counterpoint” feature on 60 Minutes, was pro-choice. Joseph Kraft wrote a column describing Roe v. Wade as “a conservative ruling from a conservative court.”</p>
<p>
Many, including my liberal constitutional law professor, would argue that it was precisely because of Roe v. Wade that it became a political hot potato.</p>
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<p>Exactly. When laws are passed by majority votes of the population, the minority usually accepts the result. When the Supreme Court passes a law but pretends it is merely interpreting the Constitution, as was done in Roe v. Wade, people recognize that the Court is serving as the tyranny of the minority. It’s not the Supreme Court’s role to legislate.</p>
<p>To answer the OP’s question. The mark of a good lawyer is the ability to represent his or her client without regarding to one’s own personal opinion of the law or the client. I knew a black attorney who represented a member of the KKK who was burning a cross on his own property.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s exactly true. it is called judicial activism. judges apply their own ideological predispositions to the law to conform it to the constitution. roe v. wade was cause lawyering at its finest.</p>
<p>I’m not one for the absurdly reductive debate regarding “judicial activism” or “legislating from the bench”, but I did just want to throw in my two cents.</p>
<p>Federal courts are designed to determine the constitutionality of laws. Obviously, this means that some laws that were passed by a majority legislature will be overturned. This, in effect, changes the law. Is that legislating from the bench? Perhaps. But if so, then we have to accept the idea that legislating from the bench is part of the job description. </p>
<p>Critics will say that judges overstep their bounds when they base their decisions off of personal agenda rather than sound constitutional thinking. Point granted. But I think it’s also unrealistic to say a judge can completely divorce personal beliefs from her understanding of the constitution. This isn’t to say one can or should use personal opinion to haphazardly reinterpret constitutional meaning. But the two are obviously connected. One’s worldview and philosophy will always have an impact on how he sees the spirit of the law (if not the letter of the law).</p>
<p>Finally, I always do have to wonder how foaming-in-the-mouth opponents of judicial activism respond to the example of Brown v. Board of Education. This was clearly an example of a court ruling overturning many decades of law and practice. A practice widely accepted by the majority. So does this constitute judicial activism? And if so, does that mean the decision was wrong?</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I would say I lean closer to the right than the left on the judiciary, and I absolutely abhor Roe v. Wade. That being said, I think it’s unrealistic to say a judge is either a “constructionist” or an “activist”. There are many shades of gray in between.</p>
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<p>These are separate ideas. Judicial activism is (allegedly) using the bench to write laws that the Constitution doesn’t actually say but which a judge thinks it ought to. Cause lawyering, as you seem to be using the term, is using one representative case to try to determine broader law.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with cause lawyering, and in fact it’s a necessary extension of a common law system. As stacy was mentioning above, it’s a widely used tool on both sides of the political spectrum.</p>
<p>It’s not the job of the Supreme Court or any other court to legislate, but the Constitution is often a terse, vague document, and courts have to make judgment calls with little guidance from the Constitution itself. What’s “cruel and unusual punishment”? What constitutes unreasonable search and seizure? What’s “excessive” bail? What are “Arms” as the term is used in the Second Amendment? Black powder rifles, or intercontinental ballistic missles? Something in between?</p>
<p>There’s no explicit right to privacy in the Constitution, but isn’t there such a right implied in the “unreasonable search and seizure” clause, or in the prohibition on quartering soldiers in private homes in peacetime?</p>
<p>Courts are one of the arenas where these matters are decided. People who have an interest in how these questions are decided hire lawyers to argue their cases for them. I understand that there are controversies about whether courts decide cases correctly, but find it puzzling that it should be controversial that lawyers should argue in favor of their clients’ positions. </p>
<p>It’s obvious in retrospect that Roe v. Wade has been the subject of continuing controversy. Griswald v. Connecticut, which found that state prohibitions on the use of birth control, has been far less controversial. I think Warren Burger andHarry Blackmun, both Nixon appointees who voted with the majority in Roe, would have been surprised in 1973 by the continuing controversy that Roe has engendered.</p>
<p>sorry but this is way off topic: how did you manage to have over 8,000 posts? i am amazed</p>
<p>Lawyers need to know, understand and obey the law. They don’t need to respect it. They don’t need to agree with it. They don’t need to like it. Their job is to tell their clients what the law is and what action is in their best interests (within the bounds of the law), to the best of their knowledge and ability, then carry out and/or help their client carry out said action.</p>