Lawyers Have a Responsibility to the Law

The judicial system is a central component for the balance and harmony of a democratic society. Without a proper alignment of checks and balances between laws and governance, there's likelihood for chaos and eventual disorder. Lawyers have gotten a bad reputation over time for their willingness to acquiesce to mendacity, instead of achieving a higher moral ground. The essential truth is that lawyers act within the laws that are written, and the veracity of their arguments can only be challenged by what the laws dictate. As criminals and judges define the parameters necessary for good case procedure, courts have a simple obligation to recognize the laws, be they international, federal, or state, and apply them. Every good client can appreciate the seeming malleability of laws and accept their defense as needed on a singular basis. To be guilty, or culpable in the case of civil law, is to understand the hard truth of justice. Indeed, by design, justice is blind to legal subjectivity.

As the saying implies, to the victor go the spoils. Such is the case with justice.

With each specific case, there's always an opportunity to interpret the law in a way that justifies, no pun intended, the merit of a particular defense or prosecutorial motion. In some cases, the majority of public opinion might question the veracity of a specific defense, but the defendant in question will certainly not challenge their defense for their capacity to tell the truth if it means their innocence and freedom. With cases that have received excessive media attention, like the O.J. Simpson murder trial of the 90s, the public formulates opinions based on assumptive evidence, not legally defined parameters. The fact is it truly doesn't matter, in a democratic society, what the public believes, unless the public is a member of the trial jury. The defendant faces a trial of his or her peers based on the best possible methods of objective reasoning. In other words, just like the trial judge, the reasoning behind an eventual verdict should only carry the weight of a jury and its impression of the evidence presented. Pre-trial jurists can be excused from jury duty as a means to shape the court of public opinion. The jury is offered evidence, the judge determines what can be presented as said evidence, and the lawyers argue the merit of their cases based upon this evidence. Evidence doesn't necessarily mean truth, as the words are not mutually exclusive or complementary. What becomes evidence is a an acutely defined but loosely interpreted field of various sources that either indicate innocence or guilt, depending on which side of the court one sits.

In law school, students are provided with myriad sources for understanding the difference between case law and judicial veracity. The determination of an individual lawyer is such that any law can be shaped, guided, directed, and personified to apply to a given case, as long as the presiding judge accepts the argument and agrees to its merit.