Opinion/Brill: When lawyers sacrifice character for profit

Steven Brill, a founding partner of the law firm Sullivan Brill, LLP, is a criminal defense attorney in New York City, representing clients charged with state and federal crimes.

I am a proud criminal defense attorney.

Throughout my career, I have represented clients whom society deems repulsive and hopeless, charged with crimes that are serious and shocking. But I have never for one moment second-guessed the necessity of this representation or my own motivation for choosing to spend my professional life dedicated to this practice. I rely on the principle that defendants charged with crimes are not defined by their worst actions and will always deserve dignity, fairness and respect.

Our Constitution mandates that each defendant is innocent unless proven guilty and deserves a fair trial. This sums up my motivation and provides the core and character of my legal career.

What then is the character of the attorneys and law firms who choose to represent the Pennsylvania Republican Party (Trump’s coplaintiff) in lawsuits — firms like Jones Day, who are filing and supporting President Trump’s dilatory, frivolous and damaging-to-democracy claims that the 2020 election is fraudulent? What principles inform law firms like King Spalding, who chose to hire former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man who served as Trump’s top soldier in the administration’s child separation policy and who advocated that the Department of Justice should not refuse to prosecute undocumented immigrants simply because they were barely more than infants? What provides the core for these firms? What is their character?

For more than 40 years, on my desk and always in my view is a framed piece of paper with these handwritten words by journalist and Congressman Horace Greeley: "Fame is a vapor; riches take wings, and popularity an accident. Only one thing endures, and that is Character."

Character is the human trait ascending higher than all others, and one that requires a lifetime of effort to attain. As individuals, parents and professionals, we strive to embody — and to instill — character. We seek to surround ourselves with others who are honorable, honest and principled. We crave it now more than ever. Why, then, should we not expect the same from lawyers and law firms regarding the clients they take, the lawyers they hire and the cases they file?

Of course, any lawyer is free to file any lawsuit their client asks them to file. For the same reason, private law firms can hire anyone they choose. And the free market allows potential clients to decide which firms to hire. There is, however, a limit. Jones Day can participate on behalf of the Pennsylvania GOP (an extension of the Trump campaign) to file lawsuits alleging election irregularities and fraud. By doing so, however, the firm lends its stature and credibility to baseless and dangerous claims. Sure, frivolous lawsuits will be dismissed by the courts, but filing them in the first place runs the risk of wrecking bedrock democratic ideals surrounding free and fair elections.

Certainly, King Spalding may see a short-term increase in profit and popularity due to Mr. Rosenstein’s notoriety. If his part in fomenting human-rights violations fails to trigger a deeper sense of morality, however, society is ultimately poorer, even if the firm makes more money.

Over the last four years, the Trump administration and those who serve it have wasted the humanity, moral authority and character America built up for more than two centuries, and replaced it with cruelty, bigotry and isolation. The legacy of Trump’s presidency is bad enough, but each time a law firm chooses to value profit over basic principles, or popularity over character, a small piece of the rule of law and our democracy deteriorates, furthering the damage this administration has already caused.

As unpopular as criminal defense attorneys and their clients may be, our legal system and the rule of law itself thrive on this constitutionally sanctioned representation. Our society not only mandates this attorney-client relationship — it is strengthened by it. The same will never be said for law firms who, in the name of profit and power, advocate for dishonesty and inhumanity, or for clients whose main goal it is to disrupt and destroy democratic ideals.

This proud criminal defense attorney hopes the individuals in these firms take this moment to step back and make a different calculation.