People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him."

So said Robert Kennedy.

It is amazing how much contempt you can garner when you throw a silly little post up on Sunday night after a few cocktails.

I recently posted a completely rhetorical post about character traits found in criminal defense attorneys. I simply contrasted the attorney who is primarily empathetic (on one end of the spectrum) with the attorney who is deemed ruthless in her representation of her client (on the other end). Boy. What a backlash.

Mark Bennett has, once again, taken exception with something I have said. Maybe I touched a nerve. I have now been thrown into the lot of the sleazy, ambulance-chasing, personal injury lawyers. Why? Good question. Apparently because I asked a question, or advanced a theory. Oh, good God, not that!

Just because Mark advances the idea of empathy towards all for all time doesn't mean I regard him as a feel-good, liberal, kumbaya-singing, hippie-pansy. However, Mark apparently feels that I am nothing more than a money-grubbing, slick-talking, megalomaniacal shark.

It seems that Mark has taken my post as some sort of autobiographical advertisement. First of all, anyone that has read this blog with any regularity knows that there is one thing that I loathe; attorney advertising and promises to clients. This blog is not an advertisement. It's nothing more than my own ramblings. (I am Shawn Matlock, and I approved this message.)

My post was neither autobiographical or an advertisement. Quite the contrary. It was simply a rhetorical question as to what should be the dominant character trait in a defense attorney. But Mark has taken exception to the thought that an attorney should be ruthless in his defense of his client. Perhaps he is right. Maybe I should have not used the word "ruthless" but rather the word "relentless." But I'm not sure.

Jamie Spencer alerts us that he has actually already written about this issue, sort of. (Sorry Jamie, I didn't realize that or I would have given you the much-deserved credit.) He thinks (I think) it is all about semantics and that if you change ruthless to aggressive, then he is all for it.

Of course any time Mark gets going, then you know the esteemed Scott Greenfield will chime in all the way from the Big Apple. Naturally he has corrected all of our thinking on this one. Why does it have to be one or the other? He suggests that a good defense attorney can and should be both empathetic and ruthless depending the circumstances and needs of the client's case. I agree. But I'm not sure Mark does.

On this I will defer to the wisdom of Mr. Greenfield. I believe that he is right. I think we should exhibit that trait that best suits the needs of the client at the time. If that means being empathetic for the client and trying to get the prosecutor to do the same, then we should do just that. If that means we should take an aggressive/ ruthless approach to a cross examination of a witness to break his story, then so be it.

It can probably be summed up best by the comment by Norm Pattis to Greenfield's post. "Call the quality both writers admire "heart" and their disagreement disappears."

So, where's your heart?

Comments

[Jamie Spencer]

Shawn:

Actually quoting myself was just me being lazy - not any admonishment to you.

I think Scott has this right too - but then, perhaps I'm a lawyer in part because I like semantics.

[Norm Pattis]

Matlock:

I don't get around the blwgosphere that much, so I am just now checking out your page. Ignore the hecklers and keep writing. This is just a little game of king of the hill.

NP

[Matlock]

Thanks Norm. Writing I shall continue to do.

[Mark Bennett]

The best way to get Norm to read a blog post is to put the words "Norm Pattis" somewhere in it; I think "Gerry Spence" probably works about as well.