This is what Fred Thompson said in response to a question from Rush today, on his show, about the LA Times piece. Rush's concern was that Judge Roberts may have been "assisting in overturning a duly passed ballot initiative by the people of Colorado." Thompson gave a good response that covered both aspects.
THOMPSON: Yeah, and it's kind of obvious. You know, as a lawyer, I was specially interested in this little story because it shows Judge Roberts as a lawyer, and I've been there, and I know what the deal is and how it works, and the story is basically this -- especially these large law firms. His law firm I think had over a thousand people in the firm. They have these pro bono divisions, pro bono committees, and these committees decide, for whatever reason, what pro bono cases they take over a period of years. It would be hundreds and hundreds of cases, and they go around to the various specialties in their firm to ask for assistance in appropriate areas that come up, and you're expected to do that as a lawyer, and Judge Roberts the entire time he was there at the firm never refused for ideological reasons or any other reason to assist and give advice as to the best way to proceed with regard to a particular legal situation. If it was a plausible legal case and it was ethical, he was playing his role as a lawyer. He handled many pro bono cases, he handled a lot of cases in his practice for wealthy people, and he handled pro bono cases for indigent people. He was a lawyer's lawyer, and he was on a lot of different sides of a lot of different issues. You know, kind of the pinnacle that most lawyers really aspire to. And I think the point here is that, you know, we got a system here where lawyers play their role, judges and juries play their role. And this is no indication of a judicial philosophy. This is an indication of a lawyer philosophy that has a long and illustrious history starting with John Adams who defended the Redcoats at the Boston Massacre -- and Abe Lincoln, you know, was not adverse to representing the railroads against the little guy on occasion. It's a lawyer's role not to be the judge, but to be an advocate for a case that's plausible if it comes into his office, and that's the role that he was playing. But it has nothing to do one way or the other with judicial philosophy.
RUSH: I'm glad you say that, because the one thing about it that concerned me was not his role on the behalf of gay activists. He appeared to be, based on the way the story was written, he was assisting in overturning a duly passed ballot initiative by the people of Colorado.
THOMPSON: Well, you could say that Judge Roberts' secretary assisted overturning that case. I mean, you've got a lot of lawyers doing a lot of things. Judge Roberts did a little bit. You know, unapologetically, again, not trying to beg off on that basis but the fact is he was a very, very peripheral player and to the extent that you want to say that, you know, 1% makes up the whole and the whole caused a judicial decision, I guess you can say that but it's really stretching the point.
One reason that people hate lawyers is because we get into an issue and it's like we have blinders. When I was first out of law school, I had a case involving a lot of interesting law but the facts were awful, murder suicide - two sets of surviving children, relatives fighting over the estate. I remember going into rooms and wanting to talk about it. If they could have, people would have jumped out of windows to get away from me. More recently, I had a client who wanted visitation rights to her long time partner's children. I told her that this was a pretty poor way to make a family but the fact was, the kids loved her and even better, it was fascinating law. So the point is, I can understand how Judge Roberts got sucked into this.
Which is what lawyers DO. A lawyer isn't there to judge a case--he's there to represent a client. Period.
And anyone here who needed a lawyer for any reason wouldn't want one who'd represent their case according to the lawyer's personal feelings. They'd want one who would represent their best interests in the course of the action.
I doubt there's ever been a lawyer who only represented innocent people. (If we find seven of them, these same unrealistic critics would have something else to whine about.) Until we can find all these lawyers who only represent perfect angels, we'll have to settle for those who are actually playing their proper part in the system--not as legislators or judges, but lawyers.