A few years ago, my wife filed a lawsuit which ended in reconciliation, and both sides employed excellent lawyers. Since my wife was legally and morally justifiable, the opposing attorney was eager to reconcile (We agreed to reconcile only because the lawsuit destined to win was extremely time-consuming and costly). My wife is a psychologist, not a lawyer. I provided assistance for her in the conciliation. The opposing lawyer, in my view, is very kind and well educated. But he tried his best to represent an unreasonable company. During the first adjournment, my wife who rarely criticized others boiled with anger with the opposing attorney. "Why does he represent that gang?" She burst into a fury, "Doesn't he know that he is in the wrong side? Doesn’t his conscience stir at night?"

With the last question out of mouth, she couldn’t help laughing. She realized that when my client was considered to be a sinner, a bad person or a wrongdoer, people's comments on me were exactly the same. When the case was settled satisfactorily, my wife calmed down and appreciated the way the opposing attorney worked. “I guess I equated him with his client," She said embarrassedly, "People usually treat you like this too."

Imagine such a legal system, lawyers are identified with the parties they defend and are condemned for representing controversial defendants or defendants who are hopeless to win. In my youth, The Rosenbergs were accused of being Soviet spies and divulging atomic information of our mortal enemy. They were defended by a lawyer with almost no criminal defense experience, and the trial result was extremely unjust which was confirmed by the Soviet intelligence data recently. It seems clear that the American government framed up his wife Ethel Rosenberg to compel the husband - a secondary spy - to cough out the principal criminal, yet with no result obtained. We cannot be sure whether a talented lawyer can save one or both of them from the electric chair. But what makes us uncomfortable is McCarthyists' attacks on lawyers (McCarthyism is the typical practice of anti-communism and anti-democracy in the United States deriving from the U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy from 1950 to 1954, which maliciously defamed and persecuted communists, democratic progressives, and even people with different opinions).This was an important reason for the judicial injustice in the Rosenbergs' and other cases in the 1940s and 1950s and aggravated some very bad laws.

In many areas of the world, it is still difficult for the hopeless defendants to be defended by mainstream lawyers, because of the lack of non-politicized defense or defense of civil liberties in many countries, even in countries with the western democratic system. Fortunately, the lawyer profession inChinahas the tradition of respecting everyone's civil liberties, regardless of the ideology, political views or the character of cases. John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Clarence Darrow were all practitioners of this idea. Adams once represented a British soldier involved in the Boston Massacre. Lincoln and Darrow represented a great variety of clients, including companies, oppressed criminals, etc. It will be extremely sad if we give up this noble tradition and succumb to people who think it is enough to identify the truth and are discontented with the imperfect judicial process. As the great Judge Learned Hand put it, "The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” It is very rare that one side is fully justified in all aspects. For most cases, the dichotomous thinking should not be adopted, for it may just vary in the degree.

Most of the cases I handled have confirmed this. Even in cases with clear right and wrong distinction, i.e. the defendant either committed or did not commit a crime, there remains room for maneuver. It is the defender's duty to do his best to represent the party within the legal and moral scope. For active representing, the party's legitimate interests must be placed above other factors including the ideology, occupation, and personal interests. It is like that you are the surgeon in the operation room, and the only goal is to save the patient's life, whether he is a good person or a bad person, a saint or a sinner. The lawyer is convinced that his client is guilty and there is no lighter punishment, which is very rare. In case of such a situation, the lawyer will generally persuade the client to reach a plea bargaining with the accuser, which is not for the interests of the society or the legal system but is most favorable to the party.

After clarifying the above points, it is very important to distinguish various types of legal representation. The most extreme ones are freedom of speech and criminal cases. In this respect, we should spare no effort to defend, regardless of the ideology. Although we defend everyone’s freedom of speech, including the ultra-leftist and ultra-rightist, disseminators of obscenity and dishonest newspapers, it does not mean that we agree with the content of materials reviewed. Our opposition to Skagit Town' scrutiny of the Nazis does not mean that we are sympathetic to the Nazis. We are even opposed to reviewing the most dastardly and absurd views. Obviously, that some lawyers defend people facing death penalty and long-term imprisonment does not mean that they are sympathetic to homicide, rape, robbery or corporate crime. Personally, I also despise criminals. If I were not defending bad guys, I would support good people. We believe in the judicial process of theUnited States, which requires active defense, strict compliance with the provisions of rights protection in the constitution and the principle of rule of law.

We know that most people subject to judicial review for serious crimes deserve the punishment. In order to maintain this situation, every defendant, whether he is guilty, popular, rich, poor or not, must be fully defended within the scope of moral code. It is not a scandal that the rich have been actively defended, but it is a shame that the poor and the middle class have no defense. More resources should be used to defend those incapable of defending themselves or uncovering the falseness of evidence. Actually, there are some innocent people waiting in prison for the arrival of death. Most of them are poor and cannot get effective legal defense. This is why I spend half my time on public welfare cases. Many other lawyers have also done a lot of unpaid representation. However, this cannot guarantee that all those who are facing death penalty or long-term imprisonment can be fully defended.

If lawyers dare not represent criminals that are disgusted by the public, it will undoubtedly worsen the already serious problem of inadequate representation. The reason why young lawyers are afraid to represent murderers or rapists is that they will be condemned by sympathizers of the victims (such was the case when I became a defense member of the Simpson case). Of course, a lawyer has the legal and moral right to refuse to represent a defendant whom he believes to be guilty, unpopular and hopeless. The question is whether a decent lawyer is willing to exercise the right of choice in accordance with the “politically correct” standard of that time, which is constantly changing. A few years ago, I had a quarrel with the Boston Bar Association. This left-wing group believed it was politically incorrect to represent the rapist. Later, an African-American was accused of repeatedly raping white women, but the defendant claimed to be a victim of racism. Only then did they change their views.

A recent case in Massachusetts sets a limit for lawyers' rejection to represent. It is about that a feminist lawyer who specially represents women in divorce cases acts as an attorney for a male nursing worker. The male carer wanted to seek financial help from his wife, a wealthy doctor. The lawyer told the man that she did not accept a man’s entrustment in a divorce case. The ruling panel of the Massachusetts Anti-Discrimination Commission made a verdict against the lawyer that “a lawyer who practices for the public shall not refuse the entrustment of a potential party because of gender or other protected groups”. Apparently, this is different from a lawyer's rejection of representation based on political or ideological reasons, and it shows that lawyers have no complete freedom in the refusal of defense. When selecting the client, a lawyer can be a feminist, but not a sexist. This difference may be subtle, but it does exist. Lawyers in Massachusetts and other states must respect civil rights and laws of public services. Some of the laws prohibit discrimination of religion, belief, and political stance. Doctors and dentists shall not arbitrarily reject HIV patients or people with different political opinions.

This naturally leads to the question: Why should lawyers have more freedom to discriminate against people than other professions? Finally, I hope lawyers can realize that they should provide services for those in urgent need of active defense without the legal prompts, regardless of their gender, race, ideology, economic status or popularity. This concept will make our legal system more perfect and theUnited Statesmore liberal. One thing that lawyers should never do is to treat negatively the accepted cases. Although there is no specific standard to judge whether one is devoted to work, there must be universal rules. As I will explain later, acting as a person's attorney is not the same as being his or her friend. As a friend or relative, you may be willing to sacrifice your life, freedom or wealth. But as a lawyer, even if you like the client very much, you don't need nor should you do that. Besides, active defense ought to be constrained by laws, ethics, and common sense and serve the purpose of protecting the legitimate interests of the party, which is the key part of active defense. The active defense is not to make you feel good or morally superior, but to help the party to win with all ethical and legal means.

The client is not your friend, nor shall your friend be your client. Many lawyers mistakenly believe that they are becoming confidants with the crook who has paid a large amount of attorney fee and dinner expenses and talked glibly. The confidant was convicted, but he took out a "out of jail card”. Look! Above is your picture. He is exchanging the freedom of your two. The prosecutor is willing to release him as a reward for confessing you. After all, you are a respected lawyer, while he is just a nobody. InAmerica, the first rule for getting out of prison is to convict a person more important than you. Your client friend in the past knew this well and knew that you were the more important person.

So what did the client say to get you involved? If you didn’t cross the line between lawyers and friends, he couldn’t say anything. If you did, then he got things to say. After all, what one does for a friend should not be what a lawyer does for the client. It may be as innocent as igniting a cigarette containing marijuana, or as immoral as helping tamper with the testimony.

Recently, a lawyer was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for instigating the client friend to make perjury in a drug case. When I was a young lawyer, I once served a rich and attentive philanderer. He was a bachelor living with his mother but had a temporary residence in Manhattan for his friend lawyers to carry on romantic affairs. Fortunately, I did not need such an apartment. Later I heard that he installed a video camera to capture these romantic affairs, thus having a magic weapon to blackmail his lawyer friends. I also heard about some similar extortions of lawyers who once smoked marijuana, took in cocaine or committed other crimes with their client friends.

After I represented that client who installed the camera, years later, I defended another client in an appeal case. He paid me a returned check, then proposed to replace it with cash and insisted that I should not revoke the tax (because he did not declare the income).I told him that I would declare all the income. He looked at me in surprise, as if I were a madman. He said, "Most of the lawyers I know love cash, because there is no need to file tax returns.” Although it was legal to accept cash, I strongly opposed it. Cash is often a warning sign. Are people willing to pay cash unless they do not want to declare the income or want to take advantage of you? I have a fixed reply to the client who wants to pay cash, "I can't be both your banker and your lawyer. For banking matters, please go to the bank."

For many lawyers, representation fees are a common source of temptation. This is where potential conflicts between the lawyer and the client in the legal business lie. The clients always wish to pay less, while the lawyers want more payment. Sometimes I really admire the barristers in theUKwho never needed to talk directly with the parties about money or something like that. The solicitors who engage them will make the payment. In my office, there is a toll box for barristers in the 19th century and the solicitors will carefully deposit the money. I keep it to remind myself that the law was once a "learned profession" rather than a business. Today’s law is more like a business. Big law firms are not much different from big companies, both staring at the bottom line. If you are a private lawyer, you will inevitably become a businessman, but the line should not be measured by money alone.