When lawyers choose darkness instead of light

Last week Michael Cohen, the United States' President Donald Trump's former lawyer, was sentenced to three years in jail. He admitted that he was covering up Trump's dirty deeds. Trump, however, has emphatically denied any wrongdoing. Whether Trump was really involved or not, will only be known by proper investigation, but Cohen's guilt has been proven and admitted.

It is quite uncommon for lawyers to be sent to jail as the lawyers typically are expected to keep their clients out of jail. Unlike many hard core criminals, for whom jail is like the second abode, the lawyers have a reputation in society and they are expected to be following the cherished principles of the noble profession. Lawyers are given the status of an officer of the court and are envisaged to walk the straight and narrow path which leads to truth and justice. There may be a perception in the society that lawyers may be working for the rich, famous and those people, who have no qualms in breaking the law, forget about bending and twisting it, for their personal and professional gain.

However, the fact of the matter is that the lawyers are trained, and most of them practise it in routine professional life, to work within the framework of law and try to get the best legal remedy for their clients and at the same time align it in the interest of justice by putting the facts along with the law with proper and convincing flair before the court. For every lawyer, it may not be possible to do so every time, and some of them do try to take shortcuts by using unfair means as has been depicted in a number of movies and is also reflected in the literature of yesteryears and the current genre. Still, there is some merit in saying that lawyers do take responsibility in advancing the interest of the society along with trying to work in the interest of their client.

Where did Cohen go wrong?

Cohen has said that he chose darkness instead of light. Why did he do so? He was quite a successful lawyer by American standards, had a good list of clients and was earning good money. Why did he blindly follow Trump? Was it simply greed for more fees, legitimate in nature; and other pots of gold, which usually were coming his way in a highly disproportionate manner and could easily be labelled as illegitimate money?

Legitimate fee of lawyers is simply an agreement between a lawyer and a client and is usually driven by the market; primarily based on the fundamental principle of demand and supply. The better and more exclusive a lawyer is, the higher the fee he can command. But, these are clean transactions, with almost complete transparency. On the other hand, there are several dirty works of a good number of highly successful persons which get covered by manipulating facts, evidence, individuals involved, etc. The returns for doing this work are not in linear progression but increase exponentially.

By knowing fully and then intentionally covering up the wrong deeds of the client is unethical and unprofessional for a lawyer. For a few dollars more, or the exponential gain, can apparently be the principal reason for even very senior lawyers to get into doing something wrong deliberately. Lawyers in India have also been caught in sting operations; have been laughed at and penalised for making ridiculously unbelievable excuses of termite damaging all the account books; have brokered with the opposite party; have misbehaved with the judges on the bench only to get the matter transferred; have made false allegations against the judges so as to force them to recuse themselves, etc.

It is because of these black sheep that the legal profession, in India and elsewhere in the world, gets a bad name. Practitioners of this noble profession ought to choose light instead of darkness. Tamso ma jyotirgamaya.

The author is a professor at IIM-A, 
akagarwal@iima.ac.in