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Private Practice, Public Profession: Convictions, Commitments, And The Availability Of Counsel, Barry Sullivan

West Virginia Law Review

I would like to start by stating a proposition that may strike you as either simple-minded or self-evident, but, more likely, will simply seem strange because of the way in which I state it. My proposition is this: In a democratic society, the legal profession, its rights and privileges, exist to serve public purposes. The legal profession serves two principal public purposes: to provide representation to those who lack the specialized training to represent themselves, that is, non-lawyers, and to promote justice in society. One might object that representing clients is not a public purpose, but that, I would suggest, …