<p>So, let’s say you’re an attorney, working at a private law firm or a government agency. The partner/boss/client assigns you the next case that you need to work on, but you have strong political or ethical disagreements with the side that you’re being asked to support. What do you do? Is this a common situation for attorneys? Is it just the nature of the work that you need to support your client even if you don’t agree with them? I’m assuming that if you refuse to work on such cases you run the risk of being fired or at least severely reprimand.</p>
<p>“Is it just the nature of the work that you need to support your client even if you don’t agree with them?”</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>agree 100%. that is by its very nature what it means to be a lawyer.</p>
<p>a lawyer is a hired gun. clients’ interests come first, last and always.</p>
<p>even lawyers who work for public sector clients generally have their positions dictated for them by someone else in a policy making role.</p>
<p>now just to point out – if what your client wants to do is illegal, you should not become a party to that illegality – but of course if they are challenging the legality of the law involved you may assist them with that challenge. </p>
<p>you can try pointing out alternatives to them, but at the end of the day, the client is the one who decides. and as a junior associate your chances of pointing out such alternatives are not great.</p>
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<p>Well, I wouldn’t agree with the idea that what it “means to be a lawyer” is that you simply do everything your clients ask of you, no matter how offensive you find their objectives to be. Rules of professional conduct actually require lawyers to withdraw from representation in a few situations (e.g., where the client is using the lawyer’s services to commit criminal acts or fraud), and allow withdrawal in a host of other circumstances. A lawyer is not obligated exclusively to his or her client. The unwillingness to recognize this (especially where it would cost the lawyer money) has enabled many corporate scandals.</p>
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<p>You can withdraw from representing them if they want to do something “repugnant” or with which you “fundamentally disagree,” though this is not really relevant to a junior associate. Though I would have to imagine that if you expressed your objection to the partners, they would not try to force you to continue working on it. Depending on the objection, they may or may not be very upset. And it’s important to distinguish between simply “not liking” what a client wants to do and having some deep, fundamental objection to it.</p>
<p>the ethical canon is that a lawyer should represent a client diligently within the bounds of the law – i had already noted the exception for when illegality was involved. though, the tremendous norm to act in the clients interests does in fact make it very difficult for an attorney to determine when a line has been crossed that invokes that limited exception. (and the code of professional responsibility notes how difficult this can be.)</p>
<p>another ethical canon is that attorneys should exercise independent judgment on behalf of their clients. ethically – if your own views mean that you couldn’t diligently represent your clients best interests, you should remove yourself from representation.
but no one entering the field of law should think that this is something that is done lightly. and even then, the ethical consideration is focused on the need to make sure that the client is being properly represented, not on the lawyers’ right to their personal interests.</p>
<p>you can try to put yourself into a situation in which you think it likely that your clients’ positions will not offend you - by choosing the type of position you take – but you can’t always predict what will happen. </p>
<p>i knew people who went to work for government agencies thinking they would be representing a normative value they personally felt comfortable with. elections changed things, the agenda of the agency changed. they had to choose between looking for a new job or representing the new norm. </p>
<p>at some point in one’s career you may be able to refuse to take on a client that you find objectionable. the harder case still remains of an existing client who now wants to do something you find objectionable. </p>
<p>if one cannot see routinely accepting that it is one’s job to work in the best interests of one’s clients, regardless of what those interests may be, i really think one should seriously consider that law may not be the right field.</p>