A group of “leading conservative lawyers”—a phrase never confused with “U.S. Marines”—has produced an embarrassingly pompous letter denouncing Liz Cheney for demanding the names of attorneys at the Justice Department who formerly represented Guantanamo detainees.
The letter calls Cheney’s demand “shameful,” before unleashing this steaming pile of idiocy:
“The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’ representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre.”
Yes, but even John Adams didn’t take a job with the government for another 19 years after defending the British guards—who, in 1770, were “the police.” He also didn’t take a position with the U.S. government that involved processing British murder suspects.
I’d be more interested in hearing about the sacred duty of lawyers to defend “unpopular clients” if we were talking about clients who are unpopular with anyone lawyers know.
Every white shoe law firm in the country has been clamoring to take the cases of Guantanamo detainees, while young associates line up to be put on the case. This is even more fun than defending Ted Bundy!
As The Wall Street Journal put it in a 2007 article, a list of the law firms representing Guantanamo detainees “reads like a who’s who of America’s most prestigious law firms”—which conveniently doubles as Santa’s “naughty” list.
The terrorists’ lawyers have included Shearman and Sterling, Arnold & Porter; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr; Covington & Burling; Hunton & Williams; Sullivan & Cromwell; Debevoise & Plimpton; King & Spalding; Cleary Gottlieb, Morrison & Foerster; Jenner & Block; O’Melveny & Myers and Sidley Austin.
At least 34 of the 50 largest firms in the United States have performed pro bono work on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.
Years ago, when I nearly died of boredom working for a law firm, I heard whispered rumors about a partner, Michael Tierney, whom none of the female associates wanted to work with because his pro bono work included defending—gasp!—pro-life groups. (There was at least one female associate who wanted to work with him!)
I didn’t hear a peep about the august “American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients” back then.
Like Hollywood actresses, lawyers need to believe they’re noble and courageous to help them forget that they are corporate drones doing soul-destroying work, which mostly consists of making photocopies.
Defending terrorists gives status-conscious attorneys a chance to get standing ovations at the annual ABA convention—much like promoting “global warming” makes climatologists feel like they’re saving the world, rather than studying water vapor.
It took me exactly one Nexis search for “ABA,” “award” and “Guantanamo” to find that the 2006 “Outstanding Scholar Award” at the ABA annual banquet was given to New York University law professor Anthony G. Amsterdam for his “extensive pro bono practice, litigating cases that range from civil rights claims, to death penalty defense, to claims of access to the courts for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.”
A rule I have is: You’re not defending an unpopular client if you’re getting awards from the ABA, particularly if the award mentions “courage.”
You’ll never see a pompous letter like the one attacking Liz Cheney on behalf of any lawyer defending clients who are unpopular with lawyers, which terrorists are not.
Ken Starr, a signatory to the “Please God, Let This Get Me a Good Obituary in The New York Times” letter, once, totally by mistake, had a case unpopular with the establishment: Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
He’s shown his mettle by saying that if he met Clinton today, he’d say “I’m sorry.” Because isn’t that what Jesus said? Be very concerned with the opinion of the world!
Speaking of which, I also never heard any testimonials to the sacred duty of lawyers to defend unpopular causes when every lawyer working on the Clinton impeachment was being smeared as a “tobacco lawyer.”
Tobacco companies, being wildly unpopular, are in need of a lot of legal services. Scratch any litigator from a big law firm and you’ll find someone who, if necessary, could be slimed as a “tobacco lawyer.”
You will notice a pattern developing: We only hear paeans to the “American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients” when it’s being used to defend causes popular with liberals—serial killers, terrorists and a horny hick who promised to save partial-birth abortion.
Lawyers want to be congratulated for their courage in defending “unpopular” clients, while taking cases that are utterly noncontroversial in their social circles.
They’d be scared to death to take the case of an anti-abortion activist. Defending the guy who killed George Tiller the Baby Killer won’t make them a superstar at the next ABA convention.
Not only do Americans have a right to know the legal backgrounds of lawyers setting detainee policy at the Department of Justice, but I personally demand the right not to have to listen to Eddie Haskell lawyers constantly claiming to be Atticus Finch.
• High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (1998)
• Slander:Liberal Lies About the American Right (2002)
• Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003)
• HowTo Talk To Liberals (If You Must) (2004)
• Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006)
• If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (2007)
• Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (2009)
• Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America (2011)
•Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (2012)
•Never Trust a Liberal Over Three-Especially a Republican (2013)
•Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (2015)
•In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)
•Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind (2018)
She also writes a popular syndicated column every week published at Breitbart, DailyCaller, Townhall, FrontPage, Yahoo, Takimag, VDare, and dozens of newspapers. (As well as the eponymous, AnnCoulter.com!)
Coulter has been a major media personality for more than 20 years, after starting on MSNBC their first day on air in July 1996.
She has appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, PBS’s Frontline, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Tonight Show, Good Morning Britain, Yahoo News, and a slew of other U.S. and international TV shows. She was the cover story of Time magazine on April 25, 2005, and has been profiled in scores of other publications, including TV Guide, The Guardian (UK), the New York Observer, National Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, The New York Times and Elle magazine. In 2001, Coulter was named one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner.
A Connecticut native, Coulter graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences and received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review.
After practicing law for a few, very long years in New York City, Coulter moved to Washington to work for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan. From there, she became a litigator with the Center For Individual Rights in Washington, DC, focusing on free speech, congressional power, and race discrimination cases.
Within a year, Coulter took a short leave of absence from her law firm to write her first New York Times bestseller, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.
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