No Stupid Questions

Of course.

First, lawyers don't say "my client is innocent". They say "my client claims he is innocent". Lawyers are not witnesses, they don't claim anything in the court. They present evidence and ask questions. You don't have to lie to do it.

Second, people imagine the job of a lawyer is to get their client acquitted. It's not, it's to represent their client in court.

Let's say you are a lawyer and you have to represent a serial killer. The evidence is overwhelming and it's obvious he is guilty but still he pleads "not guilty". Your job is not to try avoid conviction. Your job is to make sure he is treated fairly and that his rights are respected. You basically have to oversee the trial from his side. Make sure that evidence was obtained legally, that witnesses tell the truth, that experts have proper credentials. You don't have to lie to do any of that.

Yes, some lawyers will be experts in taking out criminals out of jails by manipulating juries, forging evidence or intimidating witnesses. Most lawyers are not.

Most lawyers never litigate or actively engage in matters before a court. There are whole armies of lawyers who do contract law, agreement reviews, general counsel in organizations, tech transfer specialists, etc. These folks advise clients and help manage risk and would never be in a position to need to lie in most cases. Their job is to advise business decision makers, and you don't need to agree with the decisions made to advise on the risk landscape.

Even outside of that, there is a lot of ambiguity and conflict in large amounts of our statutes and promulgated policy, such that two lawyers can disagree about the application of law and neither one is lying.

The kind of lying that is objectively lying, like suppressing or mischaracterizing facts, are also breaches of their ethical code of conduct and would put them at risk of professional repercussions from the courts or the BAR.

So while there are bad apples like in any profession, most lawyers don't lie more than anyone else, and probably less given they have incentives to be transparent in their role.

No because even avoiding answering can be a lie. A lie of omission.

The key being that you are hiding some detail or information in an attempt to deceive, that is what makes it a lie.

Not all lawyers are trial lawyers. There are lots of things you can do helping people with paperwork of various kinds. EoL planing and incorporating businesses, for 2 examples off the top of my head.

I love the trope of lawyers being evil. They are typically held to some pretty tight requirements for ethics. Engineers on the other hand are given a free pass but are responsible for a significant number of humanities worst crimes against both itself and the environment.

Define lie.

Lawyers don’t lie. They massage the truth.

I feel like there's a sequel to liar liar incoming and Jim is doing prep work on the fediverse...

I would respond that it's almost impossible to thrive in any sort of human society that has ever existed in history without telling even the faintest hint of a white lie sometimes. I don't think it's realistically possible to be a successful human, nevermind a lawyer. Everyone thinks they're being completely honest all the time, until you spend some years having a bunch of philosophers pick apart the entire basis of the reality you think you're not lying to yourself or anyone else about, then once you're done figuring out what reality actually is, you might have a totally different idea of what lying even means. But you'll never get there, because you'll never actually figure out what reality even is, nobody comes out the other side of existential philosophy. This isn't new stuff, the ancient Greeks were struggling with it thousands of years ago, and we only know that because they were among the first who bothered to write it all down.

"Due to my ethical obligations to my client, I am unable to answer that question. If your honor insists on an answer, I will need to withdraw."

You will lose out on a lot of money though. Remember that there are two sides to every story, and it's not the lawyer's job to judge what the truth is. The lawyer advocates. The judge and jury decide.

Obviously it depends on what is meant by a lie.

Someone just watched Liar Liar.

Nope