Lawyers far too often lose sight of what their practice is intended to be. Justice Frankfurter once described what a lawyer’s role should be and what that requires.
It is a fair characterization of the lawyer’s responsibility in our society that he stands ‘as a shield,’ to quote Devlin, J., in defense of right and to ward off wrong. From a profession charged with such responsibilities there must be exacted those qualities of truth-speaking, of a high sense of honor, of granite discretion, of the strictest observance of fiduciary responsibility, that have, throughout the centuries, been compendiously described as ‘moral character.’
–Schware v. Board of Bar Exam. of State of N.M. (1957) 353 U.S. 232, 247 (Concurrence)