The recent story about King & Spalding is another in a long line of similar stories where law firms are criticized for representing unpopular clients or causes. The recurring question in these cases is whether lawyers should ever be criticized for those representations.
We're certainly not going to resolve the debate definitively in a blog post, but I think it may be useful to explore what exactly we mean by "criticize." It seems to me that there are two possible forms of criticism: what I would call a "strong" form and a "weak" form of criticism. The strong form suggests that a lawyer or law firm should be punished in some way, such as through boycotts, for representing a particular client. When controversies like the King & Spalding matter arise, it is not uncommon to see the strong form of criticism invoked.
In contrast, the weak form of criticism takes a more subtle (and arguably more acceptable) form. It goes something like this: "Lawyers can spend their time working for many different clients and causes. As a lawyer, I would not want to spend my time [fill in the blank -- defending Gitmo detainees, defending DOMA, prosecuting drug addicts, suing doctors, representing former Nazis, etc.], because I don't believe in the cause or the values that are at stake. And I don't think my lawyer friends, who hold similar values and beliefs as I do, should take on such matters either. In fact, if my lawyer friends were to do so, I would tell them that they are wasting their time and should spend their time on legal matters that are more consistent with the values that we share, such as [protecting America, promoting civil rights, protecting the poor, pursuing tort reform, etc.]"
It seems to me that the strong form of criticism is more problematic and should be very rarely invoked. One scenario where it might be acceptable is if a law firm decides to represent a client pro bono to pursue a particular cause when the client has more than adequate resources to hire counsel to do the job. I can imagine that a paying client of that same firm might not want to subsidize the firm's pro bono efforts in this area and may decide to boycott the firm as a result. To me, it is important that the pro bono client could afford to pay, because it removes from the equation the idea that the law firm is promoting some other value, such as ensuring that everyone has access to a high quality lawyer. In any event, the strong form of criticism should rarely, if ever, get much traction.
The weak form is more palatable, but has its own problems. It's essentially the argument that was at the center of the famous Freedman-Tigar debate, which Monroe describes in his book with Abbe Smith and which Brad Wendel describes in this excellent article.
However one comes out on these issues, I think that the debate profits from making clear what we mean by "criticizing" a lawyer's client selection decision. Typically, the press focuses (for obvious reasons) on the strong form of criticism, but I think the more interesting discussion for ethicists concerns the weak form.