By Tim Redmond
Protests are going to continue at UC Berkeley over John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote memos authorizing CIA torture. I’m generally an academic-freedom purist, and I hate to suggest that anyone be fired from a university position because of his or her political statements.
On the other hand, the California bar does have rules of professional conduct, and one of them goes like this:
Rule 3-210. Advising the Violation of Law
A member shall not advise the violation of any law, rule, or ruling of a tribunal unless the member believes in good faith that such law, rule, or ruling is invalid
Would that include international law? Would that include advocating torture? I’m not a lawyer or an expert on legal ethics, but perhaps the state bar ought to look into this.