Ethics in ServiceTaft, William H. (William Howard)
Philosophy
Ethics in Service
Taft, William H. (William Howard)
Legal ethics; Presidents -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
An understanding between the client and his representative that
remuneration is a proper incident to their relation insures a greater
confidence in the activity and devotion of his lawyer to his interest on
the part of the client and stimulates industry and sincere effort on
the part of the lawyer. It is far better that the employment on a
pecuniary basis should be understood by all men, by the courts and by
the parties, than that some secret arrangements should exist unknown to
the court and the opposing party. But it is said that to give to
counsel, skilled, learned and familiar with the arts of advocacy and the
preparation of cases, a pecuniary motive to make the worse appear the
better reason, necessarily leads him to an attempt to influence the
court against a just result. For since one or the other conclusion must
be unjust, one of the paid attorneys arguing the cause before the court
must be arguing for the unjust side and in favor of wrong. Hence, it is
claimed, the system of paid advocacy must in every case tend to an
effort on one side or the other to pervert justice and mislead the
judges into inequity and wrong.
It may be agreed that if there were not certain limitations upon the
means which counsel may take to maintain the justice of their clients'
cause, if they were justified in suborning witnesses, and coaching them
to testify to an unfounded state of facts, if they were permitted to
misstate the evidence after it has been adduced, if it were regarded as
proper for them to accept employment in the prosecution of a cause which
they knew to be brought only for a wrong purpose and without any just
foundation, or if in a civil cause they were retained to make a defence
which they were advised was false and wrong, then it might be that
advocacy under such freedom from limitation would not aid the judges in
avoiding wrong conclusions and unjust judgments. But there are
limitations upon the duty of counsel to their clients. There are also
limitations upon a lawyer's action which he cannot violate without a
breach of his duty to the court of which he is an officer and to the
public interest in the maintenance of the proper administration of
justice. We find, therefore, that the goal to be reached in reference to
the ethical duty of an attorney in the discharge of the functions
assigned to him by the law, is the reconciliation of his duty to his
client, with his duty to the court. To mark out this line in advance is
easier than to determine each special duty in a concrete way, yet
neither is free from difficulty and each requires a calm and clear
understanding of the function of counsel as an instrument in the
machinery of justice. This is the main object of legal ethics. It covers
other fields and is important in those fields, but no other is of such
primary importance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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