between defending individuals and the due process that assures individuals aren't deprived of their liberty falsely and defending the Chiquitas of the world who break the law as part of a profit driven cost/benefit analysis--where the only downside is a adverse money judgement and very rarely a criminal or civil one against the individuals who personally hide behind a legal fiction to prevent their amoral decisions from having personal consequences. As much as the law has set the precedent that fictional legal entities and living breathing human beings have the same rights it has become quite clear that entities have greater access and ability to protect their "rights" than do humans because of money. And that simply doesn't comport with most people's sense of Justice. There is a difference of which Glen is quite aware, and he should speak to that. Is that to suggest all corporate lawyers are bad (no--some are even donating their time to defend Guantanamo detainees under threat that their corporate clients might take their business elsewhere--but there can still be legitimate questions about a corporate lawyer's do-gooder motivation given their normal client base).

As far as Holder goes, almost anybody (including that self oiling nutbag Ashcroft) is an improvement over Consigliere Gonzalez.

violate the law for money and corporations as" . . . the difference being a "gang member" regardless of how financially successful his criminal enterprise is, is unlikely to have the financial wherewithall to insulate himself from legal accountability should he be caught. Corporations on the other hand do it as a matter of business and are rarely, with a few notable sacrificial lambs who take down entire segments of an industry, held accountable. And corporate lawyers willingly string out litigation indefinitely to save the entity money (time value) rather than counsel them to accept the legal consequences of their actions once proved.

Yeah they are both bad actors, and yeah it is probably a matter of perspective which attorney is the engaging in the more noble pursuit, and yeah it's also a matter of the scale of potential or actual harm inflicted. For myself I have very little empathy for corporate attorneys or their clients. It was a very bad legal precedent to for all intents and purposes insulate corporate actors from personal civil and criminal accountability. As I'm sure you know it isn't very hard for lawyers to insulate with a few degrees of separation any executive from personal accountability. Yet most corporate attorneys know full well the culpability of their entity client and its directors, officers, or managers, and that not one of the former will likely ever be held accountable for the very human consequences of their profit driven decision making. But they are more than willing to interpose themselves to prevent justice from being done so long as billables are high and the checks keep getting signed.

The ethical issues are not quite the same between individuals and entities despite law schools all over America trying to brainwash people into believing they are. A street criminal languishes in jail until what little process he is afforded expires. The corporate criminal and their lawyers join our political criminals on the cocktail weenie and bullshit circuit at 7:00pm every day. Same can't be said of the public defender.