Catch 22 of the Legal Profession

In today’s world, we face many ethical dilemmas within the legal professional field. For instance, there has been a big publicized Congressional Hearing at Capitol Hill on February 13, 2008, Clemens vs. McNamee, known as the “Clemens Report”1 (J. Shermann, One Final Showdown: Rocket vs. McNamee, The New York Post, 2008, February 13). This hearing revolves around the usage of steroids in the MLB (Major League Baseball), but the hearing was really about if Roger Clemens2 used steroids and/or any Human Growth Hormone (HGH) while playing baseball. According to the The Mitchell Report3, “McNamee injected Roger Clemens four times in the buttocks over a several week period with needles that Clemens provided”. More statements were provided in The Mitchell Report that accuses Clemens of using performing enhancing drugs. One the other hand, the major problem with The Mitchell Report is that there was no physical (real) evidence proving that Clemens had used performing enhancing drugs and The Mitchell Report solely relied on the testimony given by Roger Clemens ex-trainer, Brian McNamee; Roger Clemens denies such allegations. Therefore, this hearing became a battle of “he said, she said”. Both individuals are telling their side of the story but obviously, there is one truth behind it all.

Nevertheless, the attorneys of each party are representing their client as if they are credible, and each attorney is attempting to diminish the credibility of their “opposition”. In this case, you see some of the ethical dilemmas that many legal professionals’ confronts on the day-to-day basis; principle partisanship, attorney-client privilege, and principle of non-accountability are some of the elements that troubles these legal professionals in this adversarial system5.

Principle partisanship is “when acting as an advocate, a lawyer must, within the established constraints upon professional behavior, maximize the likelihood that the client will prevail.”4 This principle is to protect the client’s interest, so they will not be “short changed” by the attorney’s effort. Just like the “Clemens Report”, although Clemens is looking like the person who is contradicting himself in this case, his attorneys still needs to do their job do their full potential.

Attorney-client privilege is “the right of clients to refuse to disclose confidential communications with their lawyers, or to allow their lawyers to disclose them. It is the client's privilege, not the lawyer's, and is the earliest known “privileged communication” in the law. The attorney-client privilege is viewed as fundamental