Law in Contemporary Society

View   r3  >  r2  ...
WhatKindOfLawyerDoIWantToBe 3 - 13 Apr 2012 - Main.LizzieGomez
Line: 1 to 1
 A bad lawyer can achieve results under perfect conditions. A mediocre lawyer can triumph under good conditions. My kind of lawyer can realize justice under the worst conditions - conditions featuring judicial corruption such as the procedural magic Simpson describes in Regina v. Dudley and Stephens.

The manner in which the just court doctors the record to obtain a conviction is an example of naked, unbridled power. Although less visible in "democratic" countries such as ours, this example of corruption occurs frequently in other parts of the world.

Line: 22 to 22
 

--Main.JessicaWirth - 13 Apr 2012

Added:
>
>		(I think Jessica and I were writing this around the same thing, so apologies for some repeat points.) First, I'll say that I respect your hardline stance against the corruption you identify. But I disagree with your overall suggestion about the necessity of fighting corruption with corruption. The lawyer that you're essentially criticizing to a certain extent is Robinson because he understood corruption. And that's fine. Remember that Robinson used his inside knowledge on the judge to game the system. I don't think, though, that gaming the system is the same thing as your "bag of tricks" concept. The former does seem to be an inherent aspect of practicing criminal law (I think Robinson would agree with that point), but the latter I feel is more related to the idea that lawyers have to "spin" or "twist" words to overcome some unfair advantage. Based on our class discussion a few sessions ago, it's not necessary to resort to these strategies in order to win over a jury or judge. Legal creativity comes from the command and control of our words, not how much we stretch or twist their meaning. I think this was an powerful truth to understand because in practice corruption may not be manifested like in Robinson's drama. We generally won't face a corrupt judge or counterparts. But the other side may have more witnesses, or evidence, or maybe the facts are heavily weighed in their favor. In these more common scenarios, actors who play lawyers in drama may use a bag of tricks. Yet we use legal creativity -- and as I have explained those two things are not one in the same. But I concede the fact that it appears practicing criminal law is a different animal. And your complete adversion to strategies that would even the scale more -- like the one Robinson use -- perhaps just means criminal law isn't your calling.

--Main.LizzieGomez - 13 Apr 2012


Revision 3r3 - 13 Apr 2012 - 18:19:54 - LizzieGomez
Revision 2r2 - 13 Apr 2012 - 17:08:53 - JessicaWirth
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
Syndicate this site RSSATOM