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• Thursday, April 30, 2009 06:43 PM

  Q&A with John Dean and Harold Bruff

  Excerpt:

  Harold Bruff is a former U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attorney; currently, he is a professor of law (and former Dean) at the University of Colorado (Boulder) Law School. In his new book, Bad Advice: Bush's Lawyers In The War On Terror, Bruff has taken a critical look at the legal advice provided to President Bush and Vice President Cheney to deal with their "war on terror." His findings, as reported in the book, are not pretty....

  DEAN: At the outset of your book, after noting its timeless nature of problems in advising the powerful, you raise the question regarding what behaviors – and you use the plural – should be expected, if not demanded, of lawyers serving an "insistent" client, and in the context of your study, a client who is a head of state?

  BRUFF: The most important behavior is adherence to the simple ethical rule that governs all American lawyers. They must "exercise independent professional judgment and render candid advice" to the client. Important and insistent clients, such as Presidents, may put heavy pressure on their lawyers to provide advice that serves policy goals, whatever the law might be. Accordingly, the lawyer really has two quite difficult tasks. First, he or she must have the courage, and the detachment from policy agendas, to say what the law requires, even if that advice is unwelcome. Second, the lawyer needs to have the skill to persuade a powerful client that this advice should be received and considered, even if the client is under no obligation to seek or follow the lawyer's advice.

  By the same token, don't executive branch lawyers who provide bad advice need to be set straight by the boss?

  —EJ Read EJ's other letters
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