Topic: Holding the Clients They Represent Against the Lawyer.
Senator: Graham
Date: SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
Contents
GRAHAM: Another line of inquiry that's been disturbing to me is that we talk about the clients you represent, whether it be the Ronald Reagan administration or some private sector client, and we tend to hold that maybe unpopular position against the lawyer. There's more and more of that happening.
We've had court of appeal nominees that were accused of being insensitive to the disabled population when they won their case 9-0 in the Supreme Court defending a university from the idea that they were not covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
I really do worry that in the future that if we up here start holding who you represent against you, that young lawyers in the future will pass on the hard cases.
What's your thoughts about that?
ROBERTS: You know, it's a tradition of the American bar that goes back before the founding of the country that lawyers are not identified with the positions of their clients.
The most famous example probably was John Adams, who represented the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre. And he did that for a reason, because he wanted to show that the revolution in which he was involved was not about overturning the rule of law, it was about vindicating the rule of law.
ROBERTS: Our founders thought that they were not being given their rights, under the British system, to which they were entitled. And, by representing the British soldiers, he helped show that what they were about was defending the rule of law, not undermining it.
And that principle, that you don't identify the lawyer with the particular views of the client, or the views that the lawyer advances on behalf of a client, is critical to the fair administration of justice.
GRAHAM: Do you believe it's being eroded?
ROBERTS: I do think there is an unfortunate tendency to attack lawyers because of the positions they press on behalf of clients. And I think that's unfortunate.
GRAHAM: I'm going to give you some examples of a sitting Supreme Court justice and her positions and basically take us back to the good old days where you could have what I think are extreme positions and still make it.
Are you familiar with the ACLU?
ROBERTS: Certainly.
GRAHAM: In the conservative world, how does that rank on the food chain?
ROBERTS: I don't know that I could comment on that, but they have a consistent position of promoting civil liberties and a particular view on that.
GRAHAM: If you came to the Reagan administration and the top thing on their resume was the general counsel for the ACLU, do you think they would hire you?
ROBERTS: Might make it a little harder.
(LAUGHTER)
GRAHAM: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
I think that's a good observation.
Well, we have, on the sitting Supreme Court now, the former general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, who is a very nice lady, extremely qualified -- I don't agree with her hardly at all -- but a great lawyer.
She has written that the age of consent for women should be 12, that all prisons to have gender equality, men and women should be in the same prison because, when you separate them, women prisoners somehow are discriminated against.
She wanted to do away or argued the idea that Mother's and Father's Day should be done away with because it stereotypes men and women -- that there's a constitutional right to prostitution.
I can give you -- and I'll introduce into the record -- writings from her point of view that most conservatives would find totally unacceptable. But this person, this lady, the former ACLU executive counsel, is sitting on the Supreme Court, and she got 96 votes.
She said that there should be federal funding for abortion. 90 percent of our caucus is pro-life -- is that about right? Pretty close? I could assure you that, if a Republican was going to make their vote based on abortion thinking, she would have gotten no votes. Most Americans don't want federal funding of abortion, even though they're divided on the issue of a woman's right to choose.
GRAHAM: She has argued that the equal protection clause guarantees a right to abortion.
Now, I completely differ with that, and I'm sure the conservatives in the Senate at the time of her confirmation completely differed with that: the idea the age of consent should be 12, that bigamy statutes are discriminatory to women.
I can go on and on and on.
And the point I'm trying to make is that all of that was put aside, who she represented and what she believed and the position she took, and somehow back then they're able to see in Justice Ginsburg a well-qualified, brilliant legal mind and they deferred to President Clinton because he won the election.
Whether that happens to you, I don't know.
But for the sake of the country and the rule of law, I hope you can be in the ballpark of where she wound up.
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