Reflections of a Boston Lawyer

The level of uncivility in the political rhetoric today is reaching frightening proportions.  Today's Boston Globe includes a timely column by Derrick Jackson , urging Republicans "to find someone with courage to disarm the rhetoric, before someone reloads for real."  Peggy Noonan writes in an excellent column in today's Wall Street Journal  that leaders of both parties need to get everyone to "lower the temperature," before something bad happens.  They are both right. As an experienced litigator, I know how difficult it can be to rein in uncivility once it takes hold.  We fight hard both in and out of court because we believe in our clients' causes and want to win.  All too often, vigorous advocacy crosses the line and becomes personal attack.  Bar associations have adopted aspirational c odes of civility to help prevent inappropriate behavior between opposing counsel.  In one of my cases a few years ago, a Magistrate Judge admonished counsel to &quo

Much has already been written, mostly disapprovingly, about a group calling itself “Keep America Safe,” that has demanded the identification of  Department of Justice lawyers who once represented Guantanamo detainees.  By calling these lawyers “the Al-Qaeda 7,” this group has not very subtly implied that they are traitors in our midst.  And, by demanding that the lawyers be outed, this right-wing group would appear bent on damaging, if not destroying, the lawyers’ careers. Almost 50 years ago, an extremist Senator from Wisconsin sought to advance his own interests by inflicting similar harm on the career of a young Boston lawyer who had traveled to Washington with the Boston legal team retained to represent the Army, headed by legendary attorney Joseph Welch .  The young lawyer, Fred Fisher, whom I was privileged to know much later in his career, had been a member of the National Lawyers’ Guild while a student at Harvard Law School.  Although Fisher was a good young man with a promis