The failure on the part of lawyers to weave ethics into politics could prove to be one of the many significant causes of the acute and negative way in which the public views lawyers and the law, as well as politics and politicians. Amid the public, the law is viewed as nonsensical rules that asphyxiate morality, defeat common sense, and undermine the efficiency of American society; lawyers are perceived as the unscrupulous, parasitical elite who fix these unsuitable rules and then use and abuse them for their own profit and gain.
Parallelly, politics is viewed as a self-interest imposed gridlock that occasionally succeeds in turning lunacy to law; politicians are viewed as debaucherous5 “beltway bandits”6 who proclaim ad nauseam the common good, but fill the pockets of their special interest patrons when the cameras stop rolling.7 When lawyers and politics unite, these ill visions only feed off each other, fortifying public belief that the political institutions of our country are controlled by the well-heeled, tassel-loafer crowd, and not by “we the people.”