Law Commons^™

Just Being A Lawyer: Reflections On The Legal Ethics Of A President Under Impeachment, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The core vice that Posner finds in Clinton’s efforts to contain the truth of the Lewinsky affair is very similar to a fault the public perceives in the behavior of lawyers generally. Namely, lawyers often try to obscure or distract from factual truth order to prevent the law from applying as intended. Most of this avoidance behavior is technically lawful because, for pragmatic reasons, allowances for such avoidance have been deliberately built into the criminal laws against perjury, obstruction of justice and the like. These allowances are a compromise that the law makes with morals so its criminal prohibitions will …