Symposium: Legal Ethics for Government Lawyers: Straight Talk for Tough Times

Abstract

This paper is part of a symposium on the special responsibilities of government lawyers. Where other papers in the symposium, especially that of Professor Bruce Green, 9 Widener J. Pub. L. 235, claim that government lawyers, unlike private lawyers, have an obligation to pursue justice and refrain from unsupported claims or defenses, this paper argues that private lawyers have the same obligation. Private lawyers, in view of such rules as Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Rule 3.1 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, as well as the oath they take on admission to the bar, have no more right than government lawyers to pursue positions that lack evidentiary and legal support, or positions that seem to them unjust.