The one-of-its-kind National Conference on Professional Responsibility is all set to hold its 33rd annual program in Chicago.  The program would be running from Wednesday to Saturday.  The conference this year discusses the critical and controversial issues of lawyer ethics.

The conference includes issues like duties of lawyers to killers when the lawyers are aware of incriminating evidence and the fact that they are trying to defend and acquit somebody whom they personally know to be a murderer.  I cannot deny that this particular issue has always intrigued me. 

While I personally hold that in most issues the duty of the lawyer is to represent his/her client as well as possible, the duty of the judge is to judge the issues, and the duty of the police to prevent and investigate crime and enforce the law – I also believe that all our own rights and duties arise from the initial fact of ourselves being citizens – and as a citizen one has the duty to report crime.  Now, this citizen’s duty clashes with the ethical duty of client confidentiality, and the situation that emerges is tricky and tortuous. 

I don’t profess to know the solution but would surely keep my eyes pinned on what goes on at the Chicago conference.  Incidentally, other tricky issues on similar lines like the ethics of helping cheats and fraudsters are also going to be discussed.  Seems somebody out there wants lawyers to pre judge issues and take over the functions of a judge with the added advantage that the person at the dock is freely granting his confidence and his dollars upon assurances that the information would not be used against him.  Seen that way, the same people want a lawyer to perform the additional role of a treacherous police investigator in camouflage. 

What should be the exact stand and duties of lawyers to criminals is an issue that’s been debated for centuries, and needs to be debated now and onwards.  Meanwhile, I’d love to concentrate on earning my daily bread, and leave the debate to the leading legal scholars, jurists and specialists who are coming together at the conference.