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This is a misrepresentation of how lawyers manipulate facts. Lawyers take a serious professional risk of sanction from the court and/or disbarment if they make

This is a misrepresentation of how lawyers manipulate facts. Lawyers take a serious professional risk of sanction from the court and/or disbarment if they make material misstatements of fact. Unlike journalists, the facts are also carefully examined by the opposing side (if they are doing their job) and there is a more open exchange of documents/evidence than in any other context. If an attorney lies in a court filing, they can be sanctioned, they could be held liable for malpractice / other civil liabilities, be criminally liable, fined, lose their job, or even lose their career. If a journalist misstates a fact that harms someone else or ruins their reputation, they add a little thingy in italics a few months later saying "oops lol guess we wuz wrong." Occasionally serial fabulists lose their reputations and careers, but generally do not suffer criminal or civil liability for their mistakes. The two professions are not terribly comparable in that respect. The moral expectations a lawyer is under are also not the same as those of a normal person in the American system. In the American system, even if you are defending a pedophile cannibal, part of your role is to ensure the integrity of the system by providing said reprehensible person the best possible defense without lying about the facts. This ensures the good reputation of the court and, in criminal cases, builds public faith in the integrity of the prosecution. That is the ideal, even if the reality does not always live up to it. Clients make tons of decisions in either civil or criminal cases while being advised by counsel. A lawyer cannot ethically take an action without the express approval of their client. True, clients are not generally in the driver's seat, but attorneys are limited to advising the client and only acting with the express consent of said client at every step in any kind of process. Should journalists be held to similarly high ethical standards? That was what the professional journalistic organizations once aspired to, but they have slipped a great deal over the decades.

staticman2 6y ago
I don't agree with what you wrote about attorneys. An attorney can make up whatever b.s. they want as long as it isn't a provable lie. Was their client caught on camera committing a crime? Just spin some b.s. about that person on screen being someone else. Did their client rape someone? Just make up some b.s. about the woman being a slut who concented. The attorney wasn't there, you can't prove they are lying when they spin b.s. so they are being "ethical". The idea that highly paid elite attorneys are doing a public service while going to heroic efforts to try to mislead a judge and jury as to whether their super wealthy clients are guilty is the sort of b.s. these elite attorneys invent that can't be shown to be a lie. (Of course prosecutors can behave badly as well). In theory you are correct an attorney can be disciplined, in practice they are not expected to serve the truth. They can even be disbarred for violating the confidentiality of what the client says to them. That's right, their job in some cases is to literally help insure nobody ever knows the truth of the client's bad deeds. Beyond that I've read about attorneys being allowed to act against their client's wishes "for their own good", so unless you can show a case of an attorney being disciplined for not letting the client set litigation strategy I have to assume you are confused.
- Veen 6y ago
  > Was their client caught on camera committing a crime? Just spin some b.s. about that person on screen being someone else. That only works if it could plausibly be someone else. The defence's job is to introduce reasonable doubt, not prove that their client didn't do what they are accused of. It's the court's job to establish whether there is any merit to those claims.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    I believe some are confused by dramatized court proceedings, and slanted / opinionated news, thinking actual courts are drama, or behave this way.
- mountainb 6y ago
  Lying about a clearly provable fact is not generally how attorneys misrepresent reality. When you have an inconvenient fact and you are not obligated to disclose it, you can paint an alternative picture with the facts that you have disclosed. There are many specific rules that also limit what an attorney can say once you have actual knowledge that your client has committed a crime. You have more flexibility in civil matters but not to the point to which you can lie and escape liability for it. There are many contexts in which you may be obligated to disclose exculpatory evidence in either civil or criminal cases. This really limits how much you can actually lie because of the discipline and transparency that are imposed by the open exchange of evidence. So, right, you bring up the painting the rape victim as a slut defense. The way that you do that effectively is not by libeling the victim or inventing things out of whole cloth. You do it by creating the possibility for reasonable doubt in the jury by describing objective facts about the behavior of the alleged victim e.g. "On the night of the alleged incident, she posted "I'm gonna get laid tonight, hell yeah!" on Facebook. She texted the defendant "I'm really horny... u down?" not long afterwards. Do either of those facts mean that the rape did not occur? No, it could have still occurred. The defendant could still be guilty. But your job is to establish reasonable doubt in the jury, and if there are good facts for your side, you go with that. If the prosecution brings up better evidence like security footage, the defense is screwed, but you could still use the 'good facts' on your side to try to bargain down the charges. So, attorneys misrepresent the truth not by lying but by constructing narratives that favor their side using the best evidence that supports that narrative. Attorneys don't lie if they can avoid it, but they can deceive with the truth! Confidentiality, yes, that's how the system works. Here's a compilation of successful disbarments over client abuses compiled by a plaintiff firm that specializes in getting other attorneys disbarred: https://attorneygrievances.com/recent-court-cases/disbarments https://attorneygrievances.com/recent-court-cases/disbarment... Almost all of these issues are related to dishonoring the wishes of clients or just acting irresponsibly. There are other compilations from any state bar. It's also frequently a topic of news articles in attorney periodicals about attorney sanctions and disbarment, especially because the stories are often funny and colorful such as attorneys being sanctioned for encouraging a witness to be rude or attorneys sanctioned for sassing judges.

staticman2 6y ago

I don't agree with what you wrote about attorneys. An attorney can make up whatever b.s. they want as long as it isn't a provable lie. Was their client caught on camera committing a crime? Just spin some b.s. about that person on screen being someone else. Did their client rape someone? Just make up some b.s. about the woman being a slut who concented. The attorney wasn't there, you can't prove they are lying when they spin b.s. so they are being "ethical". The idea that highly paid elite attorneys are doing a public service while going to heroic efforts to try to mislead a judge and jury as to whether their super wealthy clients are guilty is the sort of b.s. these elite attorneys invent that can't be shown to be a lie. (Of course prosecutors can behave badly as well). In theory you are correct an attorney can be disciplined, in practice they are not expected to serve the truth. They can even be disbarred for violating the confidentiality of what the client says to them. That's right, their job in some cases is to literally help insure nobody ever knows the truth of the client's bad deeds. Beyond that I've read about attorneys being allowed to act against their client's wishes "for their own good", so unless you can show a case of an attorney being disciplined for not letting the client set litigation strategy I have to assume you are confused.

Veen 6y ago
> Was their client caught on camera committing a crime? Just spin some b.s. about that person on screen being someone else. That only works if it could plausibly be someone else. The defence's job is to introduce reasonable doubt, not prove that their client didn't do what they are accused of. It's the court's job to establish whether there is any merit to those claims.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  I believe some are confused by dramatized court proceedings, and slanted / opinionated news, thinking actual courts are drama, or behave this way.
mountainb 6y ago
Lying about a clearly provable fact is not generally how attorneys misrepresent reality. When you have an inconvenient fact and you are not obligated to disclose it, you can paint an alternative picture with the facts that you have disclosed. There are many specific rules that also limit what an attorney can say once you have actual knowledge that your client has committed a crime. You have more flexibility in civil matters but not to the point to which you can lie and escape liability for it. There are many contexts in which you may be obligated to disclose exculpatory evidence in either civil or criminal cases. This really limits how much you can actually lie because of the discipline and transparency that are imposed by the open exchange of evidence. So, right, you bring up the painting the rape victim as a slut defense. The way that you do that effectively is not by libeling the victim or inventing things out of whole cloth. You do it by creating the possibility for reasonable doubt in the jury by describing objective facts about the behavior of the alleged victim e.g. "On the night of the alleged incident, she posted "I'm gonna get laid tonight, hell yeah!" on Facebook. She texted the defendant "I'm really horny... u down?" not long afterwards. Do either of those facts mean that the rape did not occur? No, it could have still occurred. The defendant could still be guilty. But your job is to establish reasonable doubt in the jury, and if there are good facts for your side, you go with that. If the prosecution brings up better evidence like security footage, the defense is screwed, but you could still use the 'good facts' on your side to try to bargain down the charges. So, attorneys misrepresent the truth not by lying but by constructing narratives that favor their side using the best evidence that supports that narrative. Attorneys don't lie if they can avoid it, but they can deceive with the truth! Confidentiality, yes, that's how the system works. Here's a compilation of successful disbarments over client abuses compiled by a plaintiff firm that specializes in getting other attorneys disbarred: https://attorneygrievances.com/recent-court-cases/disbarments https://attorneygrievances.com/recent-court-cases/disbarment... Almost all of these issues are related to dishonoring the wishes of clients or just acting irresponsibly. There are other compilations from any state bar. It's also frequently a topic of news articles in attorney periodicals about attorney sanctions and disbarment, especially because the stories are often funny and colorful such as attorneys being sanctioned for encouraging a witness to be rude or attorneys sanctioned for sassing judges.