The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1875-09-16
The Duty of a Lawyer to his Client.

The precise nature Of a lawyers duty
toward his client involves question of
supreme interest to all civilized society,
and of especial significance to the tax
payers Of this city at the present time,
when our courts present the curious spec
tacle of convicted and acknowledged
thief attempting to escape the penalties
due to his offences by an appeal to the
tcchnicalitics of an outraged law. In
connection with this subject one or two
extracts from an address delivered by
Charles S. May at the commencement OF
the Law Department of the University
of Michigan will be read with interest
and perhaps with profit, In the course
of his argument Mr.. May asks the ques-
ton whether lawyer knowing his client
to be guilty ought to exert himself to the
uttcrmost, using superior powers and
Skill to obtain a verdict of acquittal, the
same as though he knew him to be inno-
cent. He answers the question as fol-
lows:
81 protest against such doctrine as a
wrong to society and slander upon the
law. l insist that the first duty of the
lawyer is to society and the law, and that
his duty to his client is always subordi-
nate to this higher duty. All this is in
volved in his lawyers oath. lie is first
of all sworn to uphold the Constitution
of the State. Upon this rests the whole
civil fabric of society. Next he is to be
true to the court. The court represents
and stands for the sanctity and majesty
of the law itself. 1t is the interpreter
and vindicator of the law Last, he is
to be true to his client. But he cannot
be true to his client in any just sense
while he is false to society and the law.
That is not the kind of truth he is to
keep with his client. His oath presup-
poses no conflict between his clients in
terest and the interests of the State. He
is not sworn, therefore, to help guilty
man, whom he knows to be guilty, to es-
cape at the expense of law and justice"
He then continues:
THE indiscriminate and ovcr-zealous
defence of criminals without thought or
care as to their guilt; the unreasonable
theories; the unscrupulous tactics the
browbeating of witnesses the reckless
assertions and the bold afectations of
truth and innocence these are things
which have brought criminal advocacy
into disreputc with the people; which
have kept so many able, selt-respecting
lawyers from this department of practice,
and made the very term criminal lawyer
signify want of character and honor;
have almost made, indeed, the adjective
stand for designation of the kind of
lawyer rather than the kind of practice.
"No, the highest public duty is always
to the State, and nothing must conflict
with that. The lawyer should never for
get that he is citizen. He should never
lend himself or hire himself to any SER
vice which will harm or hurt society.
His noble profession does not require
him to do this. 1t does not demand that
he be the unscrupulous alder and helper
of ruffians and lawbrcakers, nor a mere
unthinking human machine of advocacy.
1t has other and higher commands for
him; other and noblcr work for him to
do"
1t would be we'll for society if all law
ycrs would act up to principles so conso-
nant with the spirit Of law and with JUS
tice, as these.-N Y. Post.