Viet D. Dinh Quotes

I think an ethical lawyer would absolutely refuse, if he or she had knowledge that this is the purpose for which her work would be used, that is, to conceal a fraudulent scheme from federal regulators.

I couldn't do that as attorney general. Why? Because they are my clients. You can't say they're not doing what they ought to be doing when you are the attorney general.

The attorney doesn't decide what to do; the client ultimately decides what to do.

It is interesting that I have gone through the process of representing clients as an ex-athlete. I am certainly not naive to think that the possibility of corruption isn't there.

Government lawyers, like private ones, face the problem routinely of aiding in the defense and development of positions in whose correctness they don't believe.

I am not necessarily my clients. I will seek to defend them, to vindicate their rights but that doesn't mean that I necessarily think that what they did was proper.

When I started doing my work years ago, I had doubts as to whether the informed-consent question was answerable.

I think that one of the primary roles of an attorney, and certainly we try to teach it here to our students, is that you counsel compliance with the law. The lawyer, more than simply being a mouthpiece for the client and advocating at whatever cost the client's interest, is also an officer of the court in questions that appear before the court.

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.

We're talking about the lawyers for the United States of America. And I think it's very, very important that the lawyers be comfortable being very candid and open about their views on very sensitive issues affecting the United States.

Nothing important is done in the United States without lawyers.

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.

Well, there is an attorney-client privilege here that needs to be respected, and it's a privilege that has been found to be worthy of protection by our courts.

And if these be unprincipled agents who scruple at nothing, he will be a bold man who will deny that there are always to be found men at the bar who lend their services most cordially to back and support these agents in their most desperate cases.

… the comfortable fiction that all lawyers are skilled or even competent craftsmen in representing the fundamental rights of their clients.

Ethical and legal are not synonyms. ;

I think, clearly, where you have a situation in which the Solicitor General tells me, 'I cannot in good faith argue a certainly legal position,' and if the president told us to argue that position, we would have to tell him, 'No, we can't do that, Mr. President.'

I have had to make a decision I may not agree with, but I am required to follow the letter of the law. It is not my job to think what is best... My responsibility is to decide what the law says and to decide to the law.

When the law says you're entitled to an attorney, it doesn't mean you're entitled to an attorney who sleeps or an attorney who doesn't do his job.

But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because igorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.

A lawyer's duty is to read the law well himself, then tell the people what it is, and let them act upon it.

Every good lawyer knows that if there is something in his client's cause that so personally offends you, morally, religiously, or if it so offends you that you think it would undermine your ability to do your duty as a lawyer, then you shouldn't take it on.

I will not lobby. I will not be an influence-type lawyer. I'm a professional lawyer.

Lawyers have their duties as citizens, but they also have special duties as lawyers. Their obligations go far deeper than earning a living as specialists in corporation or tax law. They have a continuing responsibility to uphold the fundamental principles of justice from which the law cannot depart.

I believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution and to give their independent legal advice to the President.