Leaning on the Line by Lawyers and Others

Book excerpt: About the Book This book brings you an inside view of criminal trials, civil litigation cases, administration hearings and parts of a general law practice. It illustrates by examples the common thread in all these seemingly different factual situations. The theme is that unless there is integrity on the conduct of lawyers, judges, clients and others to recognize the line between right and wrong our legal system is flawed. Lawyers want to achieve the results their clients want to accomplish. Achieving these results in an adversary system puts getting to truth or justice in a secondary position. To help focus on the problem the cases and factual situations set forth illustrate factual settings where pressures arise that causes either consciously or unconsciously the leaning on or crossing the line. It is the intent that encouraging the consideration of these problems and detecting where they occur will be entertaining and lead to recognizing the need to stay away from leaning on the line.