I do not think you can really work for people you find repugnant. There are people who could not bring themselves to be a prosecutor or criminal defense attorney based on what those roles are. Someone who says, “I fundamentally detest people who are factually guilty of crimes, how can I be a good criminal defense attorney?” should simply not be criminal defense attorneys.
I don’t know why it’s different for someone who thinks big companies are evil to ask how they can nevertheless represent them and sleep at night. You either are alright with zealously representing corporate clients on matters you may personally disagree with them on or that may cause net negative outcomes, or you aren’t. If you aren’t that kind of person, imo don’t try to be. You can make a good living doing other types of law. Maybe not biglaw money, but a fine living.
But doesn’t this sort of set up boundary issues? If you’re working to further your clients’ interests because they align with your own morals, what happens when they do something you don’t agree with?
Whereas if you take the perspective “my job is to do what the evil money machine wants and not ask a whole lot of questions,” then you might be better able to compartmentalize. When the client inevitably does something evil (or, hell, when they do something stupid), it’s no skin off your back because you weren’t relying on them to be morally acceptable to begin with.
I’m not sure I understand. My comment contemplates clients doing things you don’t agree with morally. That is likely to be the case with any legal job at some level. You need to be able to accept the level of disagreement that exists in your field or job. Someone else on this thread said they couldn’t stomach labor and employment biglaw work but were fine with other areas. That’s one type of approach. You have to find one that squares with your moral compass, which itself might evolve over time.
If someone says that all biglaw practice is evil through and through but works in a big firm anyway, imo they either are being performative or they aren’t a moral person.
The simpler answer: there’s a difference between wanting a client to get a fair shake from the justice system and wanting a client to escape all accountability for their actions.
Sure you can want various things other than the best possible result for your client in the sense that you believe that would be the best moral or policy outcome, but unless you are fighting to get them the best result (or going along with their choice to do something else), you are not being a zealous advocate. I don’t actually know what the difference between the two options you list would be in practice, but thinking a suboptimal outcome for your client would be “fairer” than an optimal outcome shouldn’t change your representation in any way, imo.
Whether you can stomach fighting for the best outcome for a client or class of clients will depend on lots of things. I personally would not keep a job where I would not be at least satisfied with getting the best result for my client, and if doing so left me with a moral unease, I would change jobs or fields.
It means zealously advocating for the best possible outcome without compromising on your principles, i.e., being honest and litigating/negotiating/advising in good faith. Sometimes behaving unethically could get your client a better outcome. But that’s professionally unacceptable.
If your principles are following the applicable law and the rules of professional conduct, then yes. If they are “I could probably get my client an extra $2 million, but it would be fairer not to and the client hasn’t agreed to take the smaller number,” then no.
Your quality of representation or the strategy you employ should not change based on whether if you were an outsider you would want your client to “win” or not (or win or lose by a certain amount).
You’re an attorney. What you want doesn’t matter. If you are uncomfortable being paid to get people more than is fair, you have picked the wrong profession.
What the attorney wants doesn’t matter when it comes to being a zealous advocate. But it does matter *for the attorney* when they’re justifying to themselves why they do what they do.
I think the distinction is most apparent in the criminal defense context. If I have a client that I know is a despicable criminal, but I believe he has had some sort of due process right violated during trial, I’m not defending him because I think he’s innocent. I’m defending him because he, like everyone, still deserves zealous advocacy and just treatment.
So you want to have it both ways? Make huge amounts of money that are only possible because of corporate clients, yet remain “pure?” What about the fact that the firm you work for — even if you are somehow able to cherry pick which clients are worthy — is only profitable because of the corporate mix? This is something you should have considered before grabbing the BigLaw brass ring. I did.
Nothing I said requires picking and choosing, because everyone deserves zealous advocacy and just treatment in our legal system. That’s the entire basis for the adversarial model.
I think if you’ve stayed within the ethical bounds of our profession and acted in good faith while safeguarding your client’s interests to the best of your abilities, but the outcome is “unfair” or “unjust,” then it is not your fault. It is the system’s fault.
Sure, if you can compartmentalize and profit happily from that, this is the job for you! If you will feel bad profiting from it, it isn’t a great job. Seems like OP will feel bad and should find something else.
Is it compartmentalization? I think it’s realistic. Lawyers do not decide outcomes. Their advocacy, combined with the facts and the law, are the inputs to the legal system. The outputs/outcomes are the verdicts and the opinions — neither of which are decided by regular lawyers.
My point is that a client’s actions or reputation may also change over time, and if you already have it in your mind “I can handle this because the client is morally good!” then you might be disappointed when you read the paper one day and find out they’ve done something that you think is evil.
Think of it like this—if you were ok representing Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes in 2014 because you saw them as morally good clients doing morally good work, you might have been disappointed when things came to light. So if your representation was contingent on you not thinking they’re evil, how effective of an advocate are you going to be?
Whereas if you thought they were evil the whole time and were still fine representing them, then the fallout probably had less of an impact on your representation—you weren’t relying on their continued morality. You were just doing work for the evil client, and them being more evil isn’t going to change it
I don’t think the individual client is the appropriate reference level. If you find yourself in a situation where a client turns into someone you can no longer represent for whatever reason, you can withdraw (or maybe attempt to withdraw).
I am talking about on the level of the industry or practice area. If you truly detest all or nearly all clients in an area, I do not think you will be able to represent them well, and I don’t think you would want to represent them. I don’t mean “X made a mistake,” “X wants to achieve a goal I think is bad,” or even “X is clearly guilty/responsible/liable for something serious.” I mean “the oil industry and everyone who works in it is rotten to the core and irredeemably repugnant.” How can you ever with a clear conscience represent ANYONE in that field?
Your example of someone happily representing clients knowing they are evil might be a thing. But I think people who are taking biglaw jobs with that kind of attitude are either exaggerating how evil they believe their clients/industry are or are just not good people. Evil is a strong word. I would not participate in something I thought was evil; nor do I think many others would. We may disagree about what is evil or abhorrent, but “my clients are evil which makes it easy to not give a shit about what they do” is not a great model for a career or life.
>If you find yourself in a situation where a client turns into someone you can no longer represent for whatever reason, you can withdraw (or maybe attempt to withdraw).
This is the pitfall I was talking about when your representation relies on the client’s morality. You’ll have to stop representation if/when you realize the client is evil because your representation was contingent on them being morally good. I don’t think I have to go into the chilling effect/candidness reasons why I think this would be a bad system at large. I think clients should feel comfortable telling their lawyers whenever they do evil things.
>“my clients are evil which makes it easy to not give a shit about what they do” is not a great model for a career or life.
“I can sleep at night, but only because my clients are good. If they do something evil, I’ll have to stop representation” is a worse model I think.
I think we can agree that some clients are evil. Maybe we disagree on who they are, but at least some clients are evil. I still think they deserve zealous representation. To me, that’s as fundamental as saying they deserve oxygen, so there’s no cognitive dissonance. I’m not the arbiter of all that’s good in the world. I’m a paper pusher who they hired to do specific things.
You may be right about this, but to the extent you are trying to characterize and respond to the views I have shared here, I do not think you have done so.
To me, and I went from class act defense, to regulating an industry people don’t love, to working for one of those industries…so I’ve been on all sides…my job is to represent my client and follow the law.
When I did class action defense, I made sure my client got a fair shake. The class rep was appropriate. The class was fairly defined. The elements of the violation were established to the degree required. The damages, if any, were ascertainable and definite. The settlement amount was as low as the other attorney would allow. And that was on them to fight me on. They had their own obligations to their client.
When I was a regulator, I did the reverse.
And now that I’m in house, I pull from both areas of my experience to stay under the radar of each and be aggressive with either when it doesn’t work.
It’s…not that hard. You don’t have to drink the Kool-aid, although you DO have to believe in your *analysis of the fact and law*. You DO have to have some hard conversations with your clients. THAT is a bad fact. THAT is not a reg violation. That WOULD be one so you can’t do it.
My tact is to not be a hard ass and explain my reasoning and offer alternatives. So that when I do have to lay down some hard truths and say “fuck off, I’m not putting my name on that,” partners and clients understand it’s a hard like for me and them.
The very few times I’ve had an issue, we’ve either not done it, or I’d write it and refuse to put my name on the memo or pleading. The partner/attorney in charge can have their name and bar number on it. Only after paying outside counsel to bless it on some technicality.
It’s just never been an issue. It’s a job. I took an oath to do my job. If a doctor can perform life saving medical care on a mass shooter or someone with white supremacist tattoos on them, I can write a goddamn motion.
Our job is not that deep. We are lawyers. And most of us are not changing the world. We’re not the Supreme Court. We’re 1 of 100,000 Big Law lawyers in a single country.
> what happens when they do something you don’t agree with?
I really hope you took an ethics class, the MPRE and are familiar with your bar rules and that this question isn’t serious
I think that is quite a naive and inexperienced viewpoint for someone to have about working as a criminal lawyer.
Whether or not you find a client repugnant is mostly irrelevant. The question is whether you have the professionalism to act appropriately for the client. You ought to be able to set aside your personal issues and do your job. If you can't, the world of legal practice is largely closed to you. Even clients not accused of heinous crimes can be unbearable, infuriating and disgusting. There are many situations in which you will need to set aside personal distaste to act.
I don’t think anything I wrote is inconsistent with this. I am not talking about individual clients, but the types of clients you get as a certain type of lawyer. OP essentially asked “how should I be a biglaw lawyer if I think all my clients are evil?” My opinion is that that is tantamount to something thinking “criminals are scum, how do I become a criminal defense attorney?” In my view you shouldn’t.
“Repugnant” is a strong word, and to me there is a difference between personally not liking someone or what they did/are doing and finding them repugnant.
You're operating out of a lot of assumptions here.
There are plenty of ways to make a "decent living" - if this job is morally reprehensible to you, it is very simple to not do it.
We all make choices in life. Make the choices that you can feel good about. Nothing is worth doing just for money.
I found a practice group that I connected with, enjoyed, and don't feel my clients are evil - greedy and obnoxious are things that most people are guilty of at some point or other.
I could not work in labor/employment in biglaw. I find it morally objectionable so I did not pursue it. You can do the same if you find big law as a whole to be problematic.
Precisely this. The choice is OP’s to make, seems strange to be unable to accept the basic tenets that are the foundation for high end legal work and his high salary. The joke about wiping tears away with dollar bills isn’t supposed to include *real* crying lol, why do this work if you disagree with it when so many other options for well-qualified lawyers are available? Clearly the moral quandary can’t be that big if OP signed on the dotted line for $225k+ a year
If you have an objection to a particular client, then just tell management you don’t want to be staffed on that client anymore. They will likely accommodate this request.
But if your definition of repugnant and evil is so broad that it includes all possible clients, the problem is most likely with you and not biglaw.
Agreed. Most firms are large enough that they can accommodate these requests without too much fuss, as long as you’re not asking to be taken off every third case you get assigned too. Just make sure to raise it ASAP.
I’ve said no to multiple deals based on the clients. One that was morally objectionable for the product they sold and one that was known for excessive cost cutting, aka firing people after acquisitions. The latter several times.
Go do a different job. I wouldn’t have worked on the Sackler cases, or represent wealthy individuals trying to minimize their tax liability, or a bunch of other things. But I do general run of the mill corporate work for large companies and occasionally investment banks and while I find individual clients incredibly obnoxious and dense all the time, I don’t think the act of representing them is particularly morally objectionable.
If you have a problem with capitalism or the art of making money via transactions/the art of conserving or gaining money via litigation, go do a different job. It’s honestly appalling to me that someone would insist “I have NO OTHER CHOICE than to make mid 6 figures doing something I DETEST because I need to MAKE A LIVING” and then look down on people who don’t find what they do particularly wrong.
You 100%, absolutely do not, *need* to work in biglaw to make a living. We make more money than anyone would possibly need. If you feel strongly that what you are doing is morally objectionable, and yet you do it anyway, I think you’re probably just a pretty bad and greedy person that is willing to sacrifice your principles to make a lot of money. Maybe that’s why you hate your greedy clients so much, lots of projection…
I do as much pro bono work as I can and donate to charities and other worthy causes. A few years ago, the CEO of a client that really, really sucked was running for office, so I maxed out donations to their opponent. That made me feel better.
I used my wife’s name. I don’t think it was actually against the firm’s rules, but I liked the partner I was working with and appreciated that it might’ve put him in a bad spot if it somehow came out.
My clients aren’t detestable! If you despise someone and feel you can’t be a good advocate for their interests, don’t represent them.
If you truly believe that every corporate client, from Apple to REI to GM, is deplorable…. biglaw isn’t for you.
At the firm I was at before joining biglaw I represented a company that bought underwater mortgages and foreclosed on them (most often without having any equity) to try to force settlements and payment plans. They did a lot of the negotiating in house, probably way more aggressively than anyone they could hire would be willing to, but we’d handle the foreclosures and would fight lien strips in bankruptcy. It was pretty scummy stuff, but at the end of the day they were just enforcing their contractual rights. If I wasn’t doing the work someone with even less of a moral compass would have been their counsel and I don’t think the borrowers would have been any better off.
Being closed minded to certain interest’s perspectives isn’t being closed minded.
“Guys, you’re being hypocritical. I really think we need to give Bull Connor a fair shake on this. Have you even considered his perspective? And you call yourselves open minded!”
>Being closed minded . . . isn’t being closed minded.
It's definitely being closed-minded in at least one respect (and the one that matters most here).
The answer to OP may be that there's nuance involved. And cutting off responsive opinions because of *other* beliefs of commenters is odd.
They have lobbied for decades to deliberately mislead the public about climate change. [Just one example.](https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/new-joint-bicameral-staff-report-reveals-big-oils-campaign-of-climate-denial-disinformation-and-doublespeak/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%2520evidence%2520uncovered%2520by%2520Oversight,is%2520now%2520a%2520civilizational%2520emergency)
I mean, now that we all know the awful truth … it turns out that nobody gives a crap and we’re all still using the same amount of oil anyway. It’s pretty obvious now that they’re just giving us what we want, right?
How bout we start with the fact that they spend millions suppressing evidence of the harm their companies are doing to the planet while promoting their own pseudo-science saying how great the world would be if your toaster ran on gasoline
I don’t think any oil company denies the harm to the environment (any more) but ultimately, it’s a necessary evil. You want them to produce less oil but that’ll jack the price of oil up. You want them to produce more oil but that’ll fck up the environment. What do you want exactly?
Out of big pharma, big tobacco, and big oil, I’d give it to big pharma for being the worst.
For half a century they absolutely denied harm to the environment that they knew was happening. Come on. No one is saying out current society doesn’t need oil to function, but let’s not pretend oil companies aren’t just as bad as Purdue pharma was with opioids or big tobacco with smoking.
There are levels to this. There aren’t actually many clients who are genuinely bad people. And most firms don’t represent the genuine bad actors much. Like 99% of big firms won’t have anything to do with Donald Trump or whatever. And it’s usually easy to separate a giant company from the shithead that founded it. Lots of fine people work at Blackstone, even though Steve Schwarzman is a sack of shit.
I think I had one client as a senior associate where I turned down working for them because I couldn’t bring myself to do work for them. The head of my group was fine with it. If I’d been a junior, it would’ve been much easier just to separate myself from the client because what you do is so far removed from seeing the impact. It’s like the difference between officiating a shithead’s wedding and delivering silverware to their reception.
Personally, I try to think not to think about these large corporations as massive evil entities and more as a morally gray hodgepodge of different human beings, each of which is being serviced in some different way. For example, lets say you have a corporation that focuses on the logging industry. On one hand they are contributing to deforestation and have some generally accepted massive moral and ecological downsides. On the other hand, this company employs thousands of people and enables these folks to have stable careers, families, homes, etc. The wood the company generates then goes to building more homes, bridges, whatever. Sure the corporation may itself have negative externalities, but it also has positive ones.
People like to pretend the world is black and white but it just is not that simple. Some companies are downright greedy, some companies are obnoxious, some clients just downright suck. But that doesn't mean that their employees are awful. That doesn't mean they don't provide a service to the world that has positive effects either. I may disagree with the way certain companies function and engage with society but you can not ignore that these same companies are so powerful because they have provided something that society has deemed to be valuable.
So at the end of the day, even if you are representing the most problematic of clients, those clients STILL provide some good. I like to focus on that good.
I don't consider myself particularly conservative or pro-business and I don't really find biglaw clients morally repugnant. they're just corporations who don't want to lose money. i understand why someone who is more far left or communist would find the actions of corporations morally repugnant, but if that is true you really shouldn't work for them. I would never want to encourage someone to abandon their deeply held morals.
There is also an additional truth here which is if someone truly feels like they are advancing the interests of and facilitating a "downright evil" entity, that, in itself, is morally repugnant. It reflects poorly on someone to instead of following their moral compass to toss it aside.
Work for them, then outside your work lobby and contribute to things that can refute their heinous being. e.g. defense contractor? Vote against the people they want you to vote for. Contribute to organizations fighting against them.
Bruh, you need to rethink your job.
I do criminal defense work as a Public Defender. My clients are often folks who have messed up. What works for me is that I find the alternative (our criminal punishment system) repugnant. I believe even my "bad clients" deserve the least amount of interaction with our system as possible.
Good question. Some people find the law to be a way to use loopholes and power/access to further any immoral act. It happens all day .
Others fight hard to do the right thing and believe the laws are to be applied to everyone. They use the law and the Constitution to prove their arguments
I definitely am the latter.
The only problematic clients I see are the fake asylum frauds, culture war issues from the Left, plus some ESG zealots. Fortunately most of those are pro bono and can be avoided.
I deal by being a transactional attorney and reconciling the fact that I help move money around instead of my litigation colleagues who *actively* make things worse (yes, yes, I know… but you gotta admit “class action defense” sounds pretty bad lol)
Also, I realized that most of the time there’s an inverse relationship between money and morals. Sucks but c’est la vie. If I felt bad enough I could quit, right? No one is forcing us to do anything
Why is class action defense bad? Lots of class actions are BS and just aim at moving money from corporations to lawyers. This just goes to show that lots of things that sound bad might not be as bad in reality (and vice versa).
Well yeah. That is literally my point. We all live in different shades of gray. What we’re talking about is perception. If I tell a non lawyer that I do structured finance their reaction is instant boredom. If I say class action defense it’s much easier for them to think I work to help J&J and nestle or big pharma trying to keep rights to life saving medicine or something (which, to be fair, all use biglaw litigators)
Not many “good guys” can pay our rates. The difference is when the “bad guys” come to me they want a result most people don’t understand or care about. When the “bad guys” go to the litigators, well they either want a result people don’t understand or care about OR they want a result people do understand and definitely care about. Even if it’s the same client.
None of this is absolute, but i do hold that it’s merited. Generally we all know we are one and the same. I just choose not to believe that. Otherwise every client would be repugnant in some fashion and I’d have to follow some subjective definition of “morality” over money
There were biglaw attorneys for Chevron who worked to put an opposing lawyer in prison after he helped secure a huge judgment against them. That seems a little bit evil. Google Steven Donziger if you want to learn more
He is being held in criminal contempt because he refused to turn over evidence after he lost the RICO suit after a US court found that he committed fraud and bribery. An international court also found the same underlying facts of bribery and fraud.
Chevron may be a bad guy for other reasons, but this guy is a bad guy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrauss/2018/09/16/justice-delayed-but-not-denied-corrupt-ecuadorean-process-fails-in-international-arbitration/
Among other things:
> Unlawful conduct from the plaintiffs’ legal team included: the bribing of Messrs Reyes and Pinto (falsely portrayed as “independent experts”); the blackmailing of (then presiding) Judge Yánez; the corrupt collusion with Mr Cabrera (court-appointed environmental expert); the ‘ghostwriting’ of Mr Cabrera’s Report; the bribes paid to former Judge Guerra for drafting orders for (then presiding) Judge Zambrano; the inappropriate private meetings with several judges of the Lago Agrio Court, the collusive and extortionary criminal proceedings against Mr Veiga and Dr Pérez (TexPet’s lawyers) and the covert plan for ‘ghostwriting’ the Lago Agrio Judgment.
I always find the Donziger stuff insane! I kept hearing about him so did a deep dive once and it turns out he is just a massive lying scumbag that broke a ton of laws, did NOTHING for the people actually affected by the environmental issues (which Chevron didn’t cause) and yet is somehow canonized by morons without a brain? Really startling stuff
I get evil clients. I'm sure there are third-world child labor exploiters and environmental rapists. My question was about industries. Obviously, there are evil industries (sex trafficking, drug trafficking, greeting cards). But are there any evil industries represented by BigLaw?
Fair point on tobacco. Had not thought about that. But then where do you put booze? Both are harmful. Can't agree on oil and gas being inherently evil.
You suck it up, 95% of biglaw clients are repugnant. And to be honest their law firms aren’t exactly clean either lol, their interests are aligned and guess where you work.
I do not think you can really work for people you find repugnant. There are people who could not bring themselves to be a prosecutor or criminal defense attorney based on what those roles are. Someone who says, “I fundamentally detest people who are factually guilty of crimes, how can I be a good criminal defense attorney?” should simply not be criminal defense attorneys. I don’t know why it’s different for someone who thinks big companies are evil to ask how they can nevertheless represent them and sleep at night. You either are alright with zealously representing corporate clients on matters you may personally disagree with them on or that may cause net negative outcomes, or you aren’t. If you aren’t that kind of person, imo don’t try to be. You can make a good living doing other types of law. Maybe not biglaw money, but a fine living.
But doesn’t this sort of set up boundary issues? If you’re working to further your clients’ interests because they align with your own morals, what happens when they do something you don’t agree with? Whereas if you take the perspective “my job is to do what the evil money machine wants and not ask a whole lot of questions,” then you might be better able to compartmentalize. When the client inevitably does something evil (or, hell, when they do something stupid), it’s no skin off your back because you weren’t relying on them to be morally acceptable to begin with.
I’m not sure I understand. My comment contemplates clients doing things you don’t agree with morally. That is likely to be the case with any legal job at some level. You need to be able to accept the level of disagreement that exists in your field or job. Someone else on this thread said they couldn’t stomach labor and employment biglaw work but were fine with other areas. That’s one type of approach. You have to find one that squares with your moral compass, which itself might evolve over time. If someone says that all biglaw practice is evil through and through but works in a big firm anyway, imo they either are being performative or they aren’t a moral person.
The simpler answer: there’s a difference between wanting a client to get a fair shake from the justice system and wanting a client to escape all accountability for their actions.
Sure you can want various things other than the best possible result for your client in the sense that you believe that would be the best moral or policy outcome, but unless you are fighting to get them the best result (or going along with their choice to do something else), you are not being a zealous advocate. I don’t actually know what the difference between the two options you list would be in practice, but thinking a suboptimal outcome for your client would be “fairer” than an optimal outcome shouldn’t change your representation in any way, imo. Whether you can stomach fighting for the best outcome for a client or class of clients will depend on lots of things. I personally would not keep a job where I would not be at least satisfied with getting the best result for my client, and if doing so left me with a moral unease, I would change jobs or fields.
It means zealously advocating for the best possible outcome without compromising on your principles, i.e., being honest and litigating/negotiating/advising in good faith. Sometimes behaving unethically could get your client a better outcome. But that’s professionally unacceptable.
If your principles are following the applicable law and the rules of professional conduct, then yes. If they are “I could probably get my client an extra $2 million, but it would be fairer not to and the client hasn’t agreed to take the smaller number,” then no. Your quality of representation or the strategy you employ should not change based on whether if you were an outsider you would want your client to “win” or not (or win or lose by a certain amount).
You’re an attorney. What you want doesn’t matter. If you are uncomfortable being paid to get people more than is fair, you have picked the wrong profession.
What the attorney wants doesn’t matter when it comes to being a zealous advocate. But it does matter *for the attorney* when they’re justifying to themselves why they do what they do. I think the distinction is most apparent in the criminal defense context. If I have a client that I know is a despicable criminal, but I believe he has had some sort of due process right violated during trial, I’m not defending him because I think he’s innocent. I’m defending him because he, like everyone, still deserves zealous advocacy and just treatment.
So you want to have it both ways? Make huge amounts of money that are only possible because of corporate clients, yet remain “pure?” What about the fact that the firm you work for — even if you are somehow able to cherry pick which clients are worthy — is only profitable because of the corporate mix? This is something you should have considered before grabbing the BigLaw brass ring. I did.
Nothing I said requires picking and choosing, because everyone deserves zealous advocacy and just treatment in our legal system. That’s the entire basis for the adversarial model.
Oops, the comment wasn’t directed at you but at OP. Sorry.
Well sure. But if you uncomfortable being the cause of unfair or unjust outcomes, that’s the job and you need to find another one.
I think if you’ve stayed within the ethical bounds of our profession and acted in good faith while safeguarding your client’s interests to the best of your abilities, but the outcome is “unfair” or “unjust,” then it is not your fault. It is the system’s fault.
Sure, if you can compartmentalize and profit happily from that, this is the job for you! If you will feel bad profiting from it, it isn’t a great job. Seems like OP will feel bad and should find something else.
Is it compartmentalization? I think it’s realistic. Lawyers do not decide outcomes. Their advocacy, combined with the facts and the law, are the inputs to the legal system. The outputs/outcomes are the verdicts and the opinions — neither of which are decided by regular lawyers.
My point is that a client’s actions or reputation may also change over time, and if you already have it in your mind “I can handle this because the client is morally good!” then you might be disappointed when you read the paper one day and find out they’ve done something that you think is evil. Think of it like this—if you were ok representing Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes in 2014 because you saw them as morally good clients doing morally good work, you might have been disappointed when things came to light. So if your representation was contingent on you not thinking they’re evil, how effective of an advocate are you going to be? Whereas if you thought they were evil the whole time and were still fine representing them, then the fallout probably had less of an impact on your representation—you weren’t relying on their continued morality. You were just doing work for the evil client, and them being more evil isn’t going to change it
I don’t think the individual client is the appropriate reference level. If you find yourself in a situation where a client turns into someone you can no longer represent for whatever reason, you can withdraw (or maybe attempt to withdraw). I am talking about on the level of the industry or practice area. If you truly detest all or nearly all clients in an area, I do not think you will be able to represent them well, and I don’t think you would want to represent them. I don’t mean “X made a mistake,” “X wants to achieve a goal I think is bad,” or even “X is clearly guilty/responsible/liable for something serious.” I mean “the oil industry and everyone who works in it is rotten to the core and irredeemably repugnant.” How can you ever with a clear conscience represent ANYONE in that field? Your example of someone happily representing clients knowing they are evil might be a thing. But I think people who are taking biglaw jobs with that kind of attitude are either exaggerating how evil they believe their clients/industry are or are just not good people. Evil is a strong word. I would not participate in something I thought was evil; nor do I think many others would. We may disagree about what is evil or abhorrent, but “my clients are evil which makes it easy to not give a shit about what they do” is not a great model for a career or life.
>If you find yourself in a situation where a client turns into someone you can no longer represent for whatever reason, you can withdraw (or maybe attempt to withdraw). This is the pitfall I was talking about when your representation relies on the client’s morality. You’ll have to stop representation if/when you realize the client is evil because your representation was contingent on them being morally good. I don’t think I have to go into the chilling effect/candidness reasons why I think this would be a bad system at large. I think clients should feel comfortable telling their lawyers whenever they do evil things. >“my clients are evil which makes it easy to not give a shit about what they do” is not a great model for a career or life. “I can sleep at night, but only because my clients are good. If they do something evil, I’ll have to stop representation” is a worse model I think. I think we can agree that some clients are evil. Maybe we disagree on who they are, but at least some clients are evil. I still think they deserve zealous representation. To me, that’s as fundamental as saying they deserve oxygen, so there’s no cognitive dissonance. I’m not the arbiter of all that’s good in the world. I’m a paper pusher who they hired to do specific things.
You may be right about this, but to the extent you are trying to characterize and respond to the views I have shared here, I do not think you have done so.
To me, and I went from class act defense, to regulating an industry people don’t love, to working for one of those industries…so I’ve been on all sides…my job is to represent my client and follow the law. When I did class action defense, I made sure my client got a fair shake. The class rep was appropriate. The class was fairly defined. The elements of the violation were established to the degree required. The damages, if any, were ascertainable and definite. The settlement amount was as low as the other attorney would allow. And that was on them to fight me on. They had their own obligations to their client. When I was a regulator, I did the reverse. And now that I’m in house, I pull from both areas of my experience to stay under the radar of each and be aggressive with either when it doesn’t work. It’s…not that hard. You don’t have to drink the Kool-aid, although you DO have to believe in your *analysis of the fact and law*. You DO have to have some hard conversations with your clients. THAT is a bad fact. THAT is not a reg violation. That WOULD be one so you can’t do it. My tact is to not be a hard ass and explain my reasoning and offer alternatives. So that when I do have to lay down some hard truths and say “fuck off, I’m not putting my name on that,” partners and clients understand it’s a hard like for me and them. The very few times I’ve had an issue, we’ve either not done it, or I’d write it and refuse to put my name on the memo or pleading. The partner/attorney in charge can have their name and bar number on it. Only after paying outside counsel to bless it on some technicality. It’s just never been an issue. It’s a job. I took an oath to do my job. If a doctor can perform life saving medical care on a mass shooter or someone with white supremacist tattoos on them, I can write a goddamn motion. Our job is not that deep. We are lawyers. And most of us are not changing the world. We’re not the Supreme Court. We’re 1 of 100,000 Big Law lawyers in a single country.
> what happens when they do something you don’t agree with? I really hope you took an ethics class, the MPRE and are familiar with your bar rules and that this question isn’t serious
I think that is quite a naive and inexperienced viewpoint for someone to have about working as a criminal lawyer. Whether or not you find a client repugnant is mostly irrelevant. The question is whether you have the professionalism to act appropriately for the client. You ought to be able to set aside your personal issues and do your job. If you can't, the world of legal practice is largely closed to you. Even clients not accused of heinous crimes can be unbearable, infuriating and disgusting. There are many situations in which you will need to set aside personal distaste to act.
I don’t think anything I wrote is inconsistent with this. I am not talking about individual clients, but the types of clients you get as a certain type of lawyer. OP essentially asked “how should I be a biglaw lawyer if I think all my clients are evil?” My opinion is that that is tantamount to something thinking “criminals are scum, how do I become a criminal defense attorney?” In my view you shouldn’t. “Repugnant” is a strong word, and to me there is a difference between personally not liking someone or what they did/are doing and finding them repugnant.
You're operating out of a lot of assumptions here. There are plenty of ways to make a "decent living" - if this job is morally reprehensible to you, it is very simple to not do it. We all make choices in life. Make the choices that you can feel good about. Nothing is worth doing just for money. I found a practice group that I connected with, enjoyed, and don't feel my clients are evil - greedy and obnoxious are things that most people are guilty of at some point or other. I could not work in labor/employment in biglaw. I find it morally objectionable so I did not pursue it. You can do the same if you find big law as a whole to be problematic.
Precisely this. The choice is OP’s to make, seems strange to be unable to accept the basic tenets that are the foundation for high end legal work and his high salary. The joke about wiping tears away with dollar bills isn’t supposed to include *real* crying lol, why do this work if you disagree with it when so many other options for well-qualified lawyers are available? Clearly the moral quandary can’t be that big if OP signed on the dotted line for $225k+ a year
If you have an objection to a particular client, then just tell management you don’t want to be staffed on that client anymore. They will likely accommodate this request. But if your definition of repugnant and evil is so broad that it includes all possible clients, the problem is most likely with you and not biglaw.
Agreed. Most firms are large enough that they can accommodate these requests without too much fuss, as long as you’re not asking to be taken off every third case you get assigned too. Just make sure to raise it ASAP.
I’ve said no to multiple deals based on the clients. One that was morally objectionable for the product they sold and one that was known for excessive cost cutting, aka firing people after acquisitions. The latter several times.
Go do a different job. I wouldn’t have worked on the Sackler cases, or represent wealthy individuals trying to minimize their tax liability, or a bunch of other things. But I do general run of the mill corporate work for large companies and occasionally investment banks and while I find individual clients incredibly obnoxious and dense all the time, I don’t think the act of representing them is particularly morally objectionable. If you have a problem with capitalism or the art of making money via transactions/the art of conserving or gaining money via litigation, go do a different job. It’s honestly appalling to me that someone would insist “I have NO OTHER CHOICE than to make mid 6 figures doing something I DETEST because I need to MAKE A LIVING” and then look down on people who don’t find what they do particularly wrong. You 100%, absolutely do not, *need* to work in biglaw to make a living. We make more money than anyone would possibly need. If you feel strongly that what you are doing is morally objectionable, and yet you do it anyway, I think you’re probably just a pretty bad and greedy person that is willing to sacrifice your principles to make a lot of money. Maybe that’s why you hate your greedy clients so much, lots of projection…
I do as much pro bono work as I can and donate to charities and other worthy causes. A few years ago, the CEO of a client that really, really sucked was running for office, so I maxed out donations to their opponent. That made me feel better.
Your firm let you get away with this? Our GC would have hauled your ass into his proverbial office. Political donations are public info!
I used my wife’s name. I don’t think it was actually against the firm’s rules, but I liked the partner I was working with and appreciated that it might’ve put him in a bad spot if it somehow came out.
Im sure you are enabling their bullshit by pumping out those signature pages!
My clients aren’t detestable! If you despise someone and feel you can’t be a good advocate for their interests, don’t represent them. If you truly believe that every corporate client, from Apple to REI to GM, is deplorable…. biglaw isn’t for you.
lol. You think BigLaw clients are repugnant because they prioritize money, but you want to prioritize money without being repugnant.
funny how that works
At the firm I was at before joining biglaw I represented a company that bought underwater mortgages and foreclosed on them (most often without having any equity) to try to force settlements and payment plans. They did a lot of the negotiating in house, probably way more aggressively than anyone they could hire would be willing to, but we’d handle the foreclosures and would fight lien strips in bankruptcy. It was pretty scummy stuff, but at the end of the day they were just enforcing their contractual rights. If I wasn’t doing the work someone with even less of a moral compass would have been their counsel and I don’t think the borrowers would have been any better off.
You’re not interested in different perspectives, but the clients are closed-minded and self-centered?
Being closed minded to certain interest’s perspectives isn’t being closed minded. “Guys, you’re being hypocritical. I really think we need to give Bull Connor a fair shake on this. Have you even considered his perspective? And you call yourselves open minded!”
>Being closed minded . . . isn’t being closed minded. It's definitely being closed-minded in at least one respect (and the one that matters most here). The answer to OP may be that there's nuance involved. And cutting off responsive opinions because of *other* beliefs of commenters is odd.
cool it with the comments about my pro bono clients
I'll take an oil company over actually evil criminals any day. Everyone needs a lawyer, after all!
Username checks out.
As if oil company execs aren’t evil criminals?
Why are they evil criminals?
They have lobbied for decades to deliberately mislead the public about climate change. [Just one example.](https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/new-joint-bicameral-staff-report-reveals-big-oils-campaign-of-climate-denial-disinformation-and-doublespeak/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%2520evidence%2520uncovered%2520by%2520Oversight,is%2520now%2520a%2520civilizational%2520emergency)
I mean, now that we all know the awful truth … it turns out that nobody gives a crap and we’re all still using the same amount of oil anyway. It’s pretty obvious now that they’re just giving us what we want, right?
How bout we start with the fact that they spend millions suppressing evidence of the harm their companies are doing to the planet while promoting their own pseudo-science saying how great the world would be if your toaster ran on gasoline
I don’t think any oil company denies the harm to the environment (any more) but ultimately, it’s a necessary evil. You want them to produce less oil but that’ll jack the price of oil up. You want them to produce more oil but that’ll fck up the environment. What do you want exactly? Out of big pharma, big tobacco, and big oil, I’d give it to big pharma for being the worst.
For half a century they absolutely denied harm to the environment that they knew was happening. Come on. No one is saying out current society doesn’t need oil to function, but let’s not pretend oil companies aren’t just as bad as Purdue pharma was with opioids or big tobacco with smoking.
Denying environmental harm vs creating an opioid crisis / selling life saving medicine at absurd prices. Hmmmm.
Whatever helps you sleep at night
There are levels to this. There aren’t actually many clients who are genuinely bad people. And most firms don’t represent the genuine bad actors much. Like 99% of big firms won’t have anything to do with Donald Trump or whatever. And it’s usually easy to separate a giant company from the shithead that founded it. Lots of fine people work at Blackstone, even though Steve Schwarzman is a sack of shit. I think I had one client as a senior associate where I turned down working for them because I couldn’t bring myself to do work for them. The head of my group was fine with it. If I’d been a junior, it would’ve been much easier just to separate myself from the client because what you do is so far removed from seeing the impact. It’s like the difference between officiating a shithead’s wedding and delivering silverware to their reception.
Personally, I try to think not to think about these large corporations as massive evil entities and more as a morally gray hodgepodge of different human beings, each of which is being serviced in some different way. For example, lets say you have a corporation that focuses on the logging industry. On one hand they are contributing to deforestation and have some generally accepted massive moral and ecological downsides. On the other hand, this company employs thousands of people and enables these folks to have stable careers, families, homes, etc. The wood the company generates then goes to building more homes, bridges, whatever. Sure the corporation may itself have negative externalities, but it also has positive ones. People like to pretend the world is black and white but it just is not that simple. Some companies are downright greedy, some companies are obnoxious, some clients just downright suck. But that doesn't mean that their employees are awful. That doesn't mean they don't provide a service to the world that has positive effects either. I may disagree with the way certain companies function and engage with society but you can not ignore that these same companies are so powerful because they have provided something that society has deemed to be valuable. So at the end of the day, even if you are representing the most problematic of clients, those clients STILL provide some good. I like to focus on that good.
That’s what the money is for.
I don't consider myself particularly conservative or pro-business and I don't really find biglaw clients morally repugnant. they're just corporations who don't want to lose money. i understand why someone who is more far left or communist would find the actions of corporations morally repugnant, but if that is true you really shouldn't work for them. I would never want to encourage someone to abandon their deeply held morals. There is also an additional truth here which is if someone truly feels like they are advancing the interests of and facilitating a "downright evil" entity, that, in itself, is morally repugnant. It reflects poorly on someone to instead of following their moral compass to toss it aside.
I dealt with it by quitting. Fuck private equity.
We have this thread every week, comrade
The other side are usually also assholes. If not, their counsel are assholes.
“That’s what the money is for.”
Work for them, then outside your work lobby and contribute to things that can refute their heinous being. e.g. defense contractor? Vote against the people they want you to vote for. Contribute to organizations fighting against them.
Bruh, you need to rethink your job. I do criminal defense work as a Public Defender. My clients are often folks who have messed up. What works for me is that I find the alternative (our criminal punishment system) repugnant. I believe even my "bad clients" deserve the least amount of interaction with our system as possible.
Good question. Some people find the law to be a way to use loopholes and power/access to further any immoral act. It happens all day . Others fight hard to do the right thing and believe the laws are to be applied to everyone. They use the law and the Constitution to prove their arguments I definitely am the latter.
The only problematic clients I see are the fake asylum frauds, culture war issues from the Left, plus some ESG zealots. Fortunately most of those are pro bono and can be avoided.
Just don’t talk publicly about how they’re complicit in a genocide, and you should be good!
I deal by being a transactional attorney and reconciling the fact that I help move money around instead of my litigation colleagues who *actively* make things worse (yes, yes, I know… but you gotta admit “class action defense” sounds pretty bad lol) Also, I realized that most of the time there’s an inverse relationship between money and morals. Sucks but c’est la vie. If I felt bad enough I could quit, right? No one is forcing us to do anything
Why is class action defense bad? Lots of class actions are BS and just aim at moving money from corporations to lawyers. This just goes to show that lots of things that sound bad might not be as bad in reality (and vice versa).
Well yeah. That is literally my point. We all live in different shades of gray. What we’re talking about is perception. If I tell a non lawyer that I do structured finance their reaction is instant boredom. If I say class action defense it’s much easier for them to think I work to help J&J and nestle or big pharma trying to keep rights to life saving medicine or something (which, to be fair, all use biglaw litigators) Not many “good guys” can pay our rates. The difference is when the “bad guys” come to me they want a result most people don’t understand or care about. When the “bad guys” go to the litigators, well they either want a result people don’t understand or care about OR they want a result people do understand and definitely care about. Even if it’s the same client. None of this is absolute, but i do hold that it’s merited. Generally we all know we are one and the same. I just choose not to believe that. Otherwise every client would be repugnant in some fashion and I’d have to follow some subjective definition of “morality” over money
What morally objectionable industry is served by Biglaw?
I have no problem working in biglaw, but I don’t really see how this could possibly be a good faith question … oil lobbies, for one
My private equity clients buying up health care organizations to profit and provide the bare minimum or less of care are morally objectionable.
There were biglaw attorneys for Chevron who worked to put an opposing lawyer in prison after he helped secure a huge judgment against them. That seems a little bit evil. Google Steven Donziger if you want to learn more
He is being held in criminal contempt because he refused to turn over evidence after he lost the RICO suit after a US court found that he committed fraud and bribery. An international court also found the same underlying facts of bribery and fraud. Chevron may be a bad guy for other reasons, but this guy is a bad guy. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrauss/2018/09/16/justice-delayed-but-not-denied-corrupt-ecuadorean-process-fails-in-international-arbitration/ Among other things: > Unlawful conduct from the plaintiffs’ legal team included: the bribing of Messrs Reyes and Pinto (falsely portrayed as “independent experts”); the blackmailing of (then presiding) Judge Yánez; the corrupt collusion with Mr Cabrera (court-appointed environmental expert); the ‘ghostwriting’ of Mr Cabrera’s Report; the bribes paid to former Judge Guerra for drafting orders for (then presiding) Judge Zambrano; the inappropriate private meetings with several judges of the Lago Agrio Court, the collusive and extortionary criminal proceedings against Mr Veiga and Dr Pérez (TexPet’s lawyers) and the covert plan for ‘ghostwriting’ the Lago Agrio Judgment.
I always find the Donziger stuff insane! I kept hearing about him so did a deep dive once and it turns out he is just a massive lying scumbag that broke a ton of laws, did NOTHING for the people actually affected by the environmental issues (which Chevron didn’t cause) and yet is somehow canonized by morons without a brain? Really startling stuff
I get evil clients. I'm sure there are third-world child labor exploiters and environmental rapists. My question was about industries. Obviously, there are evil industries (sex trafficking, drug trafficking, greeting cards). But are there any evil industries represented by BigLaw?
Oil and gas. Tobacco.
Fair point on tobacco. Had not thought about that. But then where do you put booze? Both are harmful. Can't agree on oil and gas being inherently evil.
How are oil and gas companies not “environmental rapists,” as you put it?
Do you want to live in the 18th century? If not, some level of chemistry, mostly enabled by petrochemicals, is necessary.
You suck it up, 95% of biglaw clients are repugnant. And to be honest their law firms aren’t exactly clean either lol, their interests are aligned and guess where you work.