I've been lecturing members of the press about this. Two points in support of what she's saying (thread):

(1) Every client deserves representation under some circumstances (see 2), but not every *case* deserves representation; it's a longstanding ethical ideal for the (1/7) https://twitter.com/KelsitaJC/status/1334247042823155718

lawyer to be willing to say "what you're proposing to do with my services is totally fucked up, and I won't be a part of it." We need to recover that idea.

(2) The ethic that everyone deserves representation makes the most sense in the criminal context, or at least (2/7)

in cases where individual people are at serious risk of life and limb from the government. This is where the most famous cases of lawyers nobly representing the unpopular and the wicked come from, including John Adams defending soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, (3/7)

ACLU lawyers defending the First Amendment rights of the KKK, defense lawyers defending the boston marathon bomber, etc. There are important reasons *rooted in a lawyer's social conscience* for that representation, like preserving the principles that the government (4/7)

must be put to its proof in every single criminal case, and cannot censor political speech. And in the ACLU case it's also done from a sincere commitment to a broader principle. It's not the purely money motivated representation of an immensely powerful corporate client (5/7)

in order to achieve socially harmful outcomes like the destruction of the environment, or of the actual president of the united states in order to achieve the overturning of a democratic election. The principle that everyone deserves representation is supposed to protect (6/7)

the vulnerable and the weak and the ostracized against the might of the state; it's not supposed to be an excuse for fancy biglaw attorneys to collect paychecks helping the powerful consolidate their power and do injury to others. (7/7)

ADDENDUM: It's also more than a little bit absurd to scornfully mock and scold lawyers for criticizing other lawyers about their choices as to what cases to take as if the mere criticism is inappropriate. (1/3)

It's the highest responsibility of lawyers as a self-regulating profession to collectively articulate and contest the ethics of professional practice. Those ethics are not immune from question or from debate, and going on, like Tom Goldstein does, as if this is just a (2/3)

does an immense disservice to the ability of the profession to define its own standards.

(edit: "just a confusion.")