Listened to Nestle #SCOTUS argument over last few days. Thought all counsel did well. Remain perplexed at the dunking on @neal_katyal, like @pareene article below from today. A few thoughts I keep returning to: #appellatetwitter https://newrepublic.com/article/160481/neal-katyal-depravity-big-law

1. Katyal wasn't saying child slavery's morally OK. 2nd sentence of OA began: "The claim plaintiffs bring alleges something horrific." He was arguing that Plaintiffs didn't have $ claim vs. particular client under particular law. If that's true, was he supposed to not argue it?

2. His client wasn't admitting that, as a factual matter, it engaged in child slavery. Page 3 of his brief: "Nestlé USA has tremendous sympathy for Plaintiffs’ suffering and unequivocally condemns child slavery." Much of the critique seems to exaggerate client's argument IMHO.

3. Regardless, at start of representation, you won't know every argument your client might eventually need to make. But you have a duty not to abandon clients due to your personal moral reactions to arguments that later become apparent & might help & might be legally correct.

4. Some Katyal-dunking seems premised on idea that his arguments will lead to bad results. But lawyers don't decide what law is. Courts do. If lawyer's argument is wrong, then the judge will agree w/ his opponent. Lawyers' job=putting best arguments to judges, so they can choose.

5. Maybe most valid criticism of Katyal (& yrs truly) is he chose firm where he'd get big $ to represent big business. OK, I get it. But it's not a Fortune 500-confined problem. I've had to make lots of arguments for pro-bono & low-paying clients that raised similar moral issues.

6. I do think casting opprobrium on lawyers for making legally plausible but morally problematic arguments -- whether for Fortune 500, low-bono, or pro-bono clients -- is not just unfair to those lawyers, but has systemic costs as well.

7. Adversarial system depends on lawyers making all legally & factually plausible arguments to support clients. Lawyers act morally when they do. All the more so when their own moral instincts might run contrary to the results to which the arguments might lead.

8. A system in which lawyers act as moral self-referees -- & forsake arguments that are legally & factually correct but personally problematic -- is one where lawyers act as judges for their clients, subjecting them to penalties our democracy has not chosen to impose.

9. That's not our system, w/ good reason. If we don't like result to which a lawyer's argument points, we should change the law. We shouldn't call "deprav[ed]" those people who are performing a function our system deems essential to justice.