Lawyers - like doctors & teachers - have a responsibility that transcends morality. Doctors treat thieves. Within a teacher's class, there is a potential rapist. But we don't fault the teachers for teaching, or doctors for treating. Their functions are limited to their practices.

We don't ask of doctors: "did you try to find out if he was a thief before treating him". We don't ask of teachers; "did you try to find out if his father was a rapist before teaching him?" A lawyer defends a thief not because he likes it, but because he has a duty to his oath.

That he earns from his service is a necessary compensation. He is paid not as an accessory to crime but as a lawyer discharging his duty. Shocking as it sounds to some, it is only common sense: that morality is too much of a bog to be used as a yardstick in the professional world