Lawyers are advocates of views popular and unpopular. Lawyers themselves hold views which are as varied as their personalities. The Bar cannot constitutionally force lawyers to think and act in a certain manner unless a lawyer s conduct actually interferes with the administration of justice. In other words, even a lawyer can be a bigot. Many of us wish no lawyer was, but it s a free country.
Lawyers have a duty of zealous representation to their clients, even clients who hold bigoted views.
Niggardly means stingy, miserly. The proposed changes to Rule 8.4 must be rejected as unconstitutional. I would be ashamed of my profession if its members consented to such a rule. To paraphrase Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court, a truth we hold to be self-evident is that a bar association that tells its members what they may say will soon dictate what they may think. Indeed, I can conceive of no imprisonment so complete, no subjugation so absolute, no debasement so abject as the enslavement of the mind.