Truth telling and attorney ethics

One of the things that surprised me when I became an attorney is the extent to which clients do not care about their attorneys’ ethics.  Each client is unique, of course, but most clients that I’ve worked with have absolutely no interest in the truth or in ethical behavior of their attorneys.  They just want their attorneys to win their cases for them, and they don’t much care what they do to win.  I’ve also been startled by the number of clients and potential witnesses who have asked me what they should say on the stand, making it clear that they will say anything, whether its the truth or not.  When I suggest they tell the truth, and work with them on how to use the truth to their advantage, they almost seem disappointed. 

America used to be a land in which the truth mattered deeply.  We viewed the social graces of the polite lie of, for example, the Japanese, as an odd, if not dishonest, affectation.  This no longer seems to be the case.  Political correctness has replaced truth.  “False but accurate” is perfectly acceptable.  History is rewritten to make certain groups feel their ancestors had a more significant place in history than they actually did.  Issues like global warming become so politicized that it becomes nearly impossible to sort out the underlying facts.  Rightly or wrongly, the media is routinely accused of presented a highly biased view of the truth.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, we now try to protect our children from the results of their own failures, often denying they are failures at all.

I have no real insights to offer here, just an abiding feeling that the growing disregard for truth in America is a sign of an unhealthy society.  Tell me the truth.  What do you think?