In this scholarly article on lying, written in 2017, published in 2018, I began investigating lawyers’ particular skills and obligation to addressing lying in politics. It has held up, and I realize I should continue the project. https://dsc.duq.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3827&context=dlr 1/

A corollary to lawyers having special skill in identifying lies harmful to democratic governance: lawyers who lie about politics and government are especially grievously unethical. 2/

They should be disbarred and professionally shunned. 3/

Lawyers who rely for career advancement on harmfully mendacious politicians are uniquely problematic. Here I have Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Barr particularly in mind. 4/

Lawyers who facilitate and benefit from a lying, powerful politician are comparable to so-called mafia lawyers surrender their professional independence to the criminals who they advise. Lawyers caught up in public lying pervert the profession. 5/

Lawyers who facilitate political lying take advantage of their professional skill and position to undermine the conditions for ethically sound legal practice. Lawyers who benefit professionally from lying politicians legitimize lying in politics. 6/

Because of Trump and “democracy denial” (ht @NormEisen @deborahlipstadt), we must focus specifically on lawyers’ ethical obligations to truth and truthfulness and on concrete, practical responses to lawyers who breach these. 7/