Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Tearing Down Attorneys' Work:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_10_21-2007_10_27.shtml#1193170851
Commenter [1]DJR writes, apropos my criticism of [2]the badly written
Supreme Court brief:
I see that your (quasi-associated) firm hasn't filed an amicus
brief (at least not as lead counsel) in this case. Even so, don't
you find it at least a little bit in poor taste to be tearing down
these attorneys' work in such a public way? It's one thing to
disagree with the arguments or to think that they should have
addressed matters more substantively. It's another thing entirely
to make them look foolish on a widely read legal blog.
I'm puzzled by this position. It seems to me that when someone is in
businesses offering goods or services to the public, it's perfectly
proper to accurately criticize the quality of those goods or services.
That's true whether the target is a large corporation or a team of
four lawyers, and whether or not the critic is a fellow lawyer.
In fact, I'd think that such public criticism is on balance helpful.
First, it might be educational for law students and young lawyers who
read the blog -- bad examples often are.
Second, it might remind some such law students and young lawyers that
their work will be evaluated by outsiders, and might be criticized.
This reminder could encourage such readers to be more careful
themselves.
Third, to the extent the criticism does affect the reputation of the
authors of the brief (which I doubt, since I doubt that many potential
consumers of their services read this blog), it seems to me that this
will help consumers: If I'm right that these lawyers filed a badly
written brief, consumers will benefit from knowing the lawyers'
weakness.
Naturally, if my criticism were substantively unfair, then it should
be criticized for that; yet that doesn't seem to be the commenter's
point. Likewise, perhaps it wouldn't be right for me to publicly
criticize a law student's moot court brief, since the student is
clearly just learning and should be cut some slack on those grounds.
But these lawyers are filing a brief in the highest court in the land,
and representing a real criminal defendant. They are playing in the
big leagues. If their play isn't up to what should be big league
standards, it seems to me quite proper to publicly note that. Or am I
mistaken?
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1193166106.shtml#284081
2. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_10_21-2007_10_27.shtml#1193166106
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