Legal ethics is not an oxymoron

Legal ethics is not an oxymoron. Generally, I enjoy a good lawyer joke.

Unfortunately, there are not very many good lawyer jokes.

But there are a lot of good lawyers. Michael Cohen — President Trump’s personal attorney who is now headed to prison for lying to Congress — is not one of those “good lawyers.”

Sure, he is educated, and probably quite skilled. But so are most lawyers, believe it or not. In order to practice law in Minnesota, lawyers are required to attend law school, pass a rigorous test, attend regular continuing education classes, and adhere to strict ethical rules called the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct.

Yes, lawyers are required to have ethics.

In Michael Cohen’s case, we see that he lacked that last criterion: he failed to follow the rules of ethics. And for that, he is no longer allowed to practice law.

Legal ethics is so essential that many lawyers live in constant fear of violating the ethical rules. Rule 11 allows lawyers to be sanctioned — financially — for signing false or baseless court documents. That means a lawyer will not sign their name to a lawsuit unless there is a valid legal reason to sustain a lawsuit. It’s strictly enforced, which is why we don’t see frivolous lawsuits in Minnesota. You hear about frivolous lawsuits, but they don’t really exist in Minnesota.

There’s an Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility that monitors attorneys’ ethics. In addition to investigating allegations and meting out discipline, it is also willing to answer questions from lawyers about ethical questions, and provides tools and training to help lawyers comply with the rules. In Minnesota, we take lawyer ethics very seriously.

In Cohen’s case, he violated one of the most basic and essential legal ethics: he violated the attorney-client privilege. The attorney-client privilege doesn’t stop once the lawyer is disbarred. The problem is, the lawyer’s penalty for violating the privilege is disbarment. Michael Cohen was already disbarred, so he was bound only by his own honor as a person and a lawyer to maintain the attorney-client privilege. Apparently, he has no honor as a person or a lawyer.

To avoid this happening to you, my suggestion is to hire a lawyer with integrity in the first place. I know just about every lawyer in our area, and have worked with (or against) many of them. Each lawyer has their own idiosyncrasies, just like all people. But I can’t think of one who lacks integrity to the point of violating the attorney-client privilege, and while I know some very ethical lawyers who have received some kind of discipline from the Lawyers Board — hey, even good people get a speeding ticket once in a while — I still trust and respect them. So should you.

Sure, some of us enjoyed seeing the president get nailed by his personal attorney’s testimony last week in Congress, but the scar Michael Cohen left on the legal profession may have a more serious and long-term negative effect.

Pete Radosevich is the publisher of the Pine Knot News community newspaper and an attorney in Esko who hosts the talk show Harry’s Gang on CAT-7. He can be reached at [email protected].