Government Lawyer by Barbara A
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StanfordLawyer Fall/Winter 1978 Volume 13, No.2 Editor: Cheryl W. Ritchie Graphic Designer: Carol Hilk-Kummer 1 Dean's Page 2 The Role of the Government Lawyer by Barbara A. Babcock, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, and Professor of Law, Stanford Law School 6 Gerald Gunther: Reflections on a Relationship With His Native Germany by David Margolick 77 13 Stanford's Teaching Fellows: Helping Students Master the Language of the Law 16 Impressions of a First-Year Student Drawings by Piotr S. Gorecki 18 Alumni Weekend: November 3-4, 1978 21 Hug vs. Shell Oil: How One Man Beat the Computer 22 School and Faculty News 27 Class Notes Stanford Lawyer is published semi-annually for alumni and friends of Stanford Law School. Materials for publication and correspondence are welcome and should be sent to the Editor, Stanford Lawyer, Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA 94305. Dean's Page portion of this issue of the Stan and client counseling competitions at the ford Lawyer recounts the activi School; many work for the School's Law A ties of Alumni Weekend, held Fund as Inner Quad or Quad volunteers, this year on November 3 and 4 in con- or as class agents; and perhaps most im junction with the Stanford-USC game. It portantly, a large number demonstrate was our most successful alumni gather their support through the placement pro ing yet. Some 325 people attended the gram by representing their firms during Friday night banquet and over 250 alum the School's interview season. Clearly, ni/ae attended their class reunion dinners alumnilae participation in the affairs of on Saturday night. But equally impres the School takes myriad forms, and each sive as the numbers was the enthusiastic is vital to the School's educational, as participation of the alumni/ae in the pro well as fiscal, welfare. grams presented at the School, about I do not deny that you hear from us the School. For a full day and a half our about money, nor do I apologize for graduates and friends heard about the asking. Private education is beset with School's activities: clinical legal educa financial problems: we are a labor-inten tion, scholarship in legal history, the re sive service institution, and the better we search and teaching interests of profes get the more labor intensive we become. sors who have recently joined the faculty, With inflation being the new American new curricular developments, admis way of life, it is no wonder that we run sions, faculty appointments, and fund short of dollars. Moreover, since there raising and finances. is virtually no foundation or government About the last of these areas, I want support of private law schools, we must to add a word or two. Occasionally look to our alumni/ae and friends to alumni/ae tell me that they never hear make up the difference between our in from the School except when we ask for come and our expenses. money. That accusation, in my view, is The programs described during Alum unfounded. It is undeniable that the ni Weekend-clinical training, research in School relies heavily on contributions legal history, curricular innovation-are from alumni/ae and friends, but just as expensive, but it is through scholarship vital to our well-being are the time, in and teaching that a law school makes its terest, and emotional and intellectual contribution to legal education and to participation that we also ask you to the profession. It is for these essential give. We seek your support through sev functions that we ask your support. eral means, one of which is our publi As I said earlier, I am not ashamed to cations, such as the Stanford Lawyer, talk about money, but I don't think we which you are reading this moment, and should ask for it without describing the Board of Visitors Report, which you what we are doing with it. The Stanford received in November. The Alumni Lawyer and our other publications seek Weekend, with its many hours of pro to do exactly that. Please read the mate grams about the School, is still another. rials we send you. Please come to pro Many graduates offer their support grams like Alumni Weekend to learn through participation in the School's and observe firsthand what we are trying various volunteer activities. For example, to do at the School. Please consider several alumni/ae are involved in the ways that you might become involved "Godparent" and Liaison Programs, in programs such as the ones I've men which provide a means for prospective tioned. We want to keep you informed students around the country to learn about the School because we believe that about the School from its graduates; the better informed you are, the more others act as "judges" for moot court willing you will be to help. 1 TheBoleofthe Government Lawyer any times over the last year All of these expressions amount to and a half I have reflected on saying that government lawyers have M the good old days when I was more than a single client. We represent in private practice and later a public de client agencies, the government as a fender. Life was relatively simple, al whole, and the people of the United though we had to make many difficult States. As a matter of rhetoric, whether decisions about which defenses to raise, you express it in governmentese or in a which witnesses to call, whether to go to law journal or in an engraving, this is trial at all. Nevertheless, within the bal all fine. But the application of the ideal ance of law and ethics the clients' best in daily life is full of tensions and diffi interests dictated the choices. In those culties. For one thing, our client agen days my job as a lawyer was to serve cies are just like every other client: they my client and to let justice be served require soothing and hand-holding, they by the adversary system. Now, as a gov are demanding, and they expect miracles ernment lawyer, I find that those were from their lawyers. halcyon days. Added to the problems which all law In this job I, and all the lawyers in the yers have with their clients is the fact Civil Division of the Justice Department, that in most instances our clients are face almost daily great tensions which also lawyers. We deal with our clients arise from playing what is essentially a through their General Counsels' offices, triple role. It is a triple role because the and it has been my experience that there Civil Division represents: (1) over 200 is nothing worse than having a lawyer government agencies, including Congress as a client! Why? Because as we all itself; (2) some abstraction, which is know, no lawyer ever saw another law called "The People of the United States," yer perform brilliantly or even ade or "The Interest of the United States"; quately, since he or she didn't do it and (3) the government itself in its inter exactly as you would have done it. by Barbara Allen Babcock, est in consistency and in its interests that So, I take it with a grain of salt when Assistant Attorney General, go beyond those of an individual agency. our client agencies call me and complain U.S. Department So, we do not have the kind of straight about the performance of our lawyers. of Justice, Civil Division, forward representation of a client, which But they do call and they do complain and Professor of Law, is the essence of the "normal" lawyer's regularly. Moreover; in any particular Stanford Law School "normal" role. case, it is often difficult to discern what This concept of the triple role has the public interest is or to define what been stated in many ways, perhaps most is justice. The client agencies whom we classically in the engraving above the at Justice are in the habit of characteriz Attorney General's office door, which ing as having narrow, parochial inter reads, "The United States wins its point ests nevertheless have a claim to an equal whenever justice is done its citizens in or, perhaps even better, discernment the courts." Or, stated in governmentese, about what is best for the people of the a government manual for lawyers reads, United State<s. "As the largest law firm in the nation, Perhaps most problematic is the fact the Department of Justice serves as that we are dealing with clients who do counsel for its citizens. It represents them not have a choice of lawyers. In the vast in enforcing the law in the public in majority of cases, once a problem comes terest." And finally, in academese, Judge to court the litigating authority is placed Weinstein wrote in the Maine Law Re in the Attorney General. If we at Justice view, "One of the most important func decide that an issue or argument should tions of the government lawyer is to not be raised, the client does not have provide a bridge or neutral meeting the choice of finding a lawyer who will ground between opposing forces so that do a more satisfactory job of representa viable compromises, which are the hall tion. And there are real and significant mark of a functioning democracy, can tensions that arise from having clients be developed." who are in this position. In many ways, 3 the situation is the reverse of that of the phone and rejecting his written work sector Title VII cases courts have held lawyer in private practice who must at and she said to me, "It turned out this that a prevailing defendant could be times feel like a slave to his major clients, guy is a sixty-two-year-old grandfather awarded attorney's fees.