In the scheme of things, Ken White is more accommodating of the social justice side of the political spectrum than I am. It may be because he’s been repeatedly targeted by alt-right nutjobs, or that he’s less concerned about the harm done by the untenable political left than ignorant right. And he’s allowed to be anywhere on the spectrum he wants.
Not that it matters a lot when one’s a lawyer.
Yeah you’ll have to forgive my personality trait of judging you for accepting nazi money
As it turned out, it had nothing to do with Ken “accepting nazi money,” but Ken being friends with, and sharing a platform with, Marc Randazza, who was the lawyer accepting nazi money. So we have guilt by association on top of guilt by representation. The only thing surprising about this is that Ken found it less usual from the “nominal left” than the right. My experience has been different, and it’s concerned me that this has become a constant refrain from the left since before the “punch a Nazi” days.
In subsequent comments, people sought to defend the fact that attorneys represent unpopular and unlikable clients without squarely facing the “low hanging fruit” aspect of the argument. Sure, some are innocent, but not all, probably not most. Sure, everyone deserves constitutional rights, but that doesn’t explain why a lawyer chose to defend that horrible person rather than let the horrible person find another lawyer who was more attuned to his views. And then there’s the money answer: money.
For a while now, some of the more vocal public defender voices have promoted a particularly nasty view that they have no choice in whom they defend, and thus enjoy the virtue of purity of duty. They must defend, and therefore cannot be tainted by their clients as they have no choice. They are constrained to suffer clients they despise, so they are not only immune from criticism for their client’s views or crime, but are martyrs to the cause.
In contrast, private lawyers are dirty. They work for filthy, disgusting money. They have a choice and, if their client is hated, they could have passed. If they didn’t, they are responsible for their client’s views and crime. They chose to be their lawyer. Even worse, they chose to be paid money to be their lawyer, the dirtiest, least virtuous reason possible.
This view isn’t merely one parroted by the non-lawyer left, but too often by public defenders as well. Granted, their purpose is to overcome decades of being considered third-rate lawyers, “public pretenders” as client’s often call them. But they do so by denigrating their next door neighbors or “best friends,” private criminal defense lawyers. There has long been a tension between PDs and the private bar, but it has similarly been understood that we live and work together, for better or worse. And we share a common adversary, the prosecution.
After disclosures of public defenders admitting they were incapable of providing competent representation, there was a push to elevate their profile and the perception that they were a bunch of underpaid, incompetent warm bodies. Unfortunately, some chose to do so at the expense of the private bar. Their weapon was that private lawyers chose to “associate” with despicable people for money.
Whether they actually believe this nonsense or merely use it to pander to the unduly passionate isn’t clear. What is clear is that the message is being absorbed by the woke, that private lawyers who represent awful people for money are, by extension, as awful as their clients. And as reflected in the bizarre accusation hurled at Ken, lawyers who are friends or associated with lawyers who represent awful people are, by double extension, similarly tainted.
Years ago, we sought to explain that this wasn’t the way lawyers approached their duties. When baby lawyers went all squishy about what we do, confused about how they could achieve whatever flavor of “justice” they felt in their hearts, we responded severely.
The mind is a fascinating organ, allowing us to play all sorts of nasty, ugly games with ourselves to permit us to believe what we want to believe, that we are serving some higher calling while still doing our job. Criminal defense lawyers hold all sorts of political and philosophical views, spanning the same spectrum as anyone else. But when we enter the well, we’re just criminal defense lawyers. We leave our personal world outside the courtroom, and inside we defend our clients, whether saint or sinner.
Lawyers represent clients. Criminal defense lawyers defend. First Amendment lawyers like Randazza represent clients’ free speech rights. What we never do is question whether there is some affiliation between the client in need of representation and the lawyer who provides it.
But we’re now beyond this question, even though it’s been resolved by many in the worst possible way. In the minds of the insipid, only a nazi sympathizer would willingly choose to represent a nazi. And if representing one is “literally horrible,” representing more than one, even if you similarly represent clients deemed acceptable by the woke, is conclusive proof that you’re one of them.
If shaming lawyers for representing unacceptable clients isn’t bad enough, however, we’ve now come to the point where being associated, no less friendly, with lawyers who represent the hated is itself cause for shaming. Randazza is awful for defending bad people? That makes Ken awful for being friends with Randazza, for having any association with Randazza. Shame on you, Ken, for not merely not representing awful people, but for being friends with lawyers who represent awful people.
Guess what? I’m friends with Randazza too. I’m friends with Ken White. I’m friends with Mark Bennett and Mike Cernovich. I have spent my career defending people who have done horrible things. I was paid for my services, and often paid very well. I have no regrets for doing this, or for whom I call friend.
Unlike Ken, however, I see this attitude and approach from the left as a far greater threat to what we do than from the right, as the right has never thought well of those of us who defend the accused, while the left understood that someone needed to stand next to the most despised in society. This has changed, and it’s now extending beyond just the job we do but with our associating with others who do the job as well.
It’s not that we ever expected to win a popularity contest for doing the nasty work of the legal system, but I’ll be damned if anyone, if Ken White, is to be shamed by the left for being a private lawyer and being friends with other private lawyers who don’t represent their approved clients.
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If you start out with a truck, that only leaves Mama, and trains, and prison, and being drunk, so right of the bat, it’s 20% easier to keep in the genre.
You went an done it:
Mr. McCloudy and Mr Skink….we need to hang out at the Hotel lounge, with some Guitars and decent Scotch, one of these days….maybe even let Scott bring his little Ludwig rock-a-billy kit….:-)
Diminish my Ludwigs all you want. Chicks still dig drummers more.
If I were younger I would post one of those Shia Leboeuf slow-clapping gifs, but I’m old, so I’ll just say “bravo.”
The Arch City Defenders (a non-profit group of lawyers in St Louis focused on social justice) put up a sad and stupid post up about local activists getting angry at a small municipality hiring a well respected lawyer who just happened to defend Darren Wilson and another police officer involved in a shooting.
Your article hits this rather troubling phenomenon on it’s head. Justice for only the most vulnerable in the victim hierarchy, but not just for all.
I think criticising lawyers for representing bad guys is wrong, and I think criticising a lawyer for representing a lawyer who represents bad guys is incoherent.
But I read the article about Randazza that just came out, and the main takeaway I got from it was not that he represents unsavoury people, it was that he’s acted in incredibly unethical ways, to many different people, for years. Before I’d read the article, I categorized him in my mind as similar to you and Ken- a lawyer willing to represent anyone, even if they were a sociopath, because we all have rights. But after reading the article, frankly, he himself sounds like a sociopath to me.
Soliciting bribes, keeping fees that should have gone to his employer, lying to judges- it all sounds really unethical and shitty. You can of course be friends with whoever you like- but as you’ve said above that you’re friends with him, I’m curious- do you believe that he’s done these unethical things? Would it affect your friendship with someone if you came to believe that they had scammed a third party out of large sums of money, or if you came to believe that they were a sociopath?
I don’t think we should automatically cut ties with anyone who’s done something wrong- I read a reddit AMA with a guy who had pleaded guilty to possession of child porn, but who had turned around his life and gone to law school and was now trying to get admitted to the bar (I think I might have even found out about him from your twitter). And it was an incredible example of a person who did something horrible who had, I felt, really sincerely reformed. And one thing he made clear was that after his arrest, the support from the family and friends who did stick by him was crucial to his rehabilitation. This is unambiguously a good thing. But part of his rehab was admitting to himself what he had done wrong, and taking responsibility, and having people in his life who held him accountable. And I feel the ethical way to be a friend to someone like that would be to not let them pretend they hadn’t done anything wrong.
With Randazza, as his friend, and as a lawyer who would understand the ethical issues raised by the article (some of which he admitted to the Nevada Bar Association), does the article raise any concerns that you would want to talk to him about? Would you have no qualms about having him as a future contributor to this blog, even if he maintained publicly that he hadn’t acted inappropriately at all with his former clients?
This just begs for a witty reply from SHG.
Fuck, what did I do with that list of SHGisms I’ve been collecting for several years?
I know it was a combination of #37 and #5…….. or was it #17?
37)I assume there’s a worthy point being made here, but I frankly have no clue what it is.
and the always popular:
I bet they love you at Reddit
Damn hard drive.
Ok, let me try again, hopefully with a clearer point.
Judging lawyers for representing shitty clients is wrong. Judging lawyers for associating with other lawyers who represent shitty clients is even more wrong.
But is it not reasonable to judge a lawyer if they host (and are friends with) a fellow lawyer who is an unethical scumbag? Not because of the clients he takes on, but because he lies to those clients and to courts, and cheats people out of money that should not be his?
If Jason Van Dyke suddenly became capable of rhapsodic legal prose, I would still criticise Ken or Scott if they hosted him as a fellow blogger. Not because he has represented the proud boys, but because he is a human shitstain. And the article about Randazza makes him seem equally scummy (if less violent).
Perhaps Marc Randazza is nothing like Van Dyke, and whatever he did, it has nothing to do with his representation of Alex Jones. The HuffPo piece was a gratuitous smear, and you casually believed it.
And you might notice that this post wasn’t about the article, but the aftermath of the article by people who believe whatever confirms their bias.
Ok, your post about Excelsior puts it in a much different light. I apologize to you and Marc.
Very well said, sir.
If I were an editor collecting your writings for a book of essays, I would put this piece alongside your Dec. 14, 2018 post titled “The Mob Didn’t Hate Judge McDaniel.” Both posts effectively describe the short path from despising the alleged “sinner” to despising the person standing next to the despised.
I don’t see a colleague as being “better” than me just because he or she chooses to associate with despicable people for less money.
I was at a dinner and asked “how can you represent someone you think is guilty of rape.”. I’m still a baby lawyer(6+) and I mostly do civil litigation errr ambulance chancing, so it just doesn’t taste right to talk about lofty constitutional principles. So I said what I have been saying for awhile now: I was paid, and would rather help someone else get paid or get out of trouble, then represent a fucking insurance company.
Insurance companies need lawyers too. You don’t have to work for them, but there’s nothing wrong with a lawyer who does.
The other problem with their argument is they of course believe they’ll never be the ones accused and they’ll never be on the “wrong” side of public opinion who will say “they are evil and nobody should represent them.” Because they are perfect, pure, and just. They just know it and know it’ll never change..
Most people don’t understand principle. They only understand teams.
Wow. I never knew the ACLU was a Nazi-sympathising organization.
PD here.
I have this hazy memory of SHG previously indicating he didn’t take cases where there were allegations of sex crimes against children, and I know he’s previously indicated he didn’t represent snitches.
[/Gertruding] It’s absolutely wrong to claim an attorney has done something scummy or sleazy by representing a client zealously and in an ethical manner. It’s completely absurd to suggest being friends or friendly with an attorney who has represented a client zealously and in an ethical manner creates degrees of sleaze. [/End]
However, it does seem fair to point out that an attorney has refused certain classes of clients for non-monetary reasons, but not others.
That’s correct, but not because I don’t think they deserve a defense or that lawyers who defend them are in any way “morally” culpable for doing so. My reason is just the I find the evidence so repugnant that I don’t think I can provide the zealous representation they deserve. But if no one else would take the case, I would, because someone has to.