When congressional Republicans attacked attorneys for representing Guantanamo detainees, for example, the entire profession rallied around them. The American Civil Liberties Union noted that John Adams took pride in representing British soldiers accused of taking part in the Boston Massacre, calling it "one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered to my country."
But that's not how the new associates saw Boies's choice to represent Weinstein. They thought there were certain people you just did not represent—people so hateful and reprehensible that helping them made you complicit. The partners, the old-timers—pretty much everyone over 50—found this unbelievable. That wasn't the law as they had known it. That wasn't America.
"The idea that guilty people shouldn't get lawyers attacks the legal system at its root," Andrew Koppelman, a prominent liberal scholar of constitutional law at Northwestern University, said. "People will ask: 'How can you represent someone who's guilty?' The answer is that a society where accused people don't get a defense as a matter of course is a society you don't want to live in. It's a totalitarian nightmare."
But that's not how the new associates saw Boies's choice to represent Weinstein. They thought there were certain people you just did not represent—people so hateful and reprehensible that helping them made you complicit. The partners, the old-timers—pretty much everyone over 50—found this unbelievable. That wasn't the law as they had known it. That wasn't America.
"The idea that guilty people shouldn't get lawyers attacks the legal system at its root," Andrew Koppelman, a prominent liberal scholar of constitutional law at Northwestern University, said. "People will ask: 'How can you represent someone who's guilty?' The answer is that a society where accused people don't get a defense as a matter of course is a society you don't want to live in. It's a totalitarian nightmare."
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