Trump's assault on the legal profession

This is going to be an unpopular comment with a lot of my lawyer friends, but here goes: I do not defend what Trump is doing to law firms. At the same time, however, I don't see BigLaw as a bunch of innocent victims. I dug out Austin Sarat's book about cause lawyering, because he deals with the resistance conservative and libertarian lawyers faced from their law firms when they wanted to represent causes they believed in. He describes an incident in which a law firm forced a lawyer out because his partners disapproved of the pro bono work he did for pro-life groups. And that was not the only incident of the type. When I was in practice, there were other similar incidents and I was told my firm would never approve pro bono representation of such groups. So, I'd be more sympathetic to BigLaw's complaints about being punished for representing clients if they were a little less selective about the kinds of clients they were willing to represent.

And while we're on the topic, let's ask ourselves whether the norms of our profession ought to excuse us not only from legal responsibility for our clients but also for moral responsibility. There's a tone in some of the BigLaw defenders that suggests lawyers are just hired guns who cannot be held accountable for what their clients do. And I agree that lawyers should not be legally punished for representing particular clients. But surely they should not be exempt from criticism when they represent evil clients.