Can A Strong Christian Be A
Good Criminal Defense Lawyer?

William Kitchin
Loyola College, Baltimore

     Of terms which defy definition, “strong Christian” might well top the list. If one proposes that a strong Christian is one which attempts to put into practice Christian beliefs, then one is faced with the daunting task of identifying which beliefs are core and which are peripheral. Moreover, some beliefs do not readily have a behavioral corollary that is, some beliefs do not require any particular actions.¹ In contrast, there are certain Christian beliefs which have clear behavioral corollaries. An example is the Christian disapproval of pride.²

A TYPOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

     Thus, there are lots of Christian beliefs. Some have clear behavioral correlates, and some do not. Some beliefs are core, and some are peripheral. Person A might consider himself or herself to be a strong Christian, and B considers himself or herself also to be a strong Christian, but both could disagree about a peripheral belief. For example, should one be completely immersed in baptism, or does something less than immersion suffice? A and B both consider themselves to be strong Christians but differ on this belief. The point is that if we tried to give a content-based definition of “strong Christian,” that definition would immediately be subjected to criticism (perhaps justifiably) that it misidentifies what is and is not a core belief and what the content of that core belief should rightly be.³
     Rather than becoming entangled in the theological jungle of identifying core and peripheral beliefs, what I propose instead is that there are among others, two basic dimensions which facilitate the classifying of Christians. First, there is the Grace-Works dimension. Some Christians emphasize that salvation is a gift from God. We do not deserve salvation; it is given by the grace of God. This belief is that we simply need to make the decision to accept Christ, that is, accept that Christ paid a price that God wanted paid for our sins. Christ having paid that price, if we believe in Him and ask for forgiveness, then we gain salvation. This is the only requirement for salvation - - - belief.⁴ With all our weaknesses and shortcomings (sins), we would never be able to work our way into heaven, but through grace, the door is opened to us.
     Other Christians believe that our works, what we actually do, is the route to salvation. Works count, and that does not just mean “doing good.” It often means doing certain specific things, such a confessing, being immersed in baptism, etc. “Faith without works is dead.”⁵ That is, if works are deficient, that simply reveals that that person’s faith is also deficient. It all rides on what we do, not on what Christ did. We work our way into salvation.⁶
     A second dimension which facilitates the classifying of Christians is Biblical Literalism.⁷ Some Christians believe in the Bible literally, that is the word of God, and though written by men, those writers were inspired by God and put down each word correctly, without errors, and, therefore, the words are to be taken literally. The Bible is God’s manual of how we should live and it is His intentional providing of insight to us about what and who God is.⁸ But literalism does not allow for picking and choosing what things in the Bible to accept. The description in Genesis of Eden tells us literally, not metaphorically, what Eden looked like. There was a tree, for example.⁹ Moreover, there are times when the literalist simultaneously operates as a literalist and as an interpreter. For example, when Paul cites the Old Testament about not muzzling the ox, even he explains that that idea from older times obviously applies to more than oxen, that it applies to us humans also.¹⁰ Thus, except for the case of the rigid word-for-word literalists, there is not that much difference between those who call themselves literalists and others because even literalists interpret as needed to make various passages of the Bible make sense.¹¹
     In contrast, a Humanist is the person whose default approach to reading and understanding the Bible is that it is not to be taken literally and is hardly the word of God, that it is written by humans and like any literary work, it has mistakes, biases, incompleteness, excesses, brilliance, and ambiguities. The Bible, to this person, is not the word of God, but instead it is a human-written philosophy of life. This person might well believe in Christian scripture, but not because it is God-given but rather because it is wise and inspiring, maybe even inspired. The Humanist interprets the Bible and extracts meaning from it based not on the specific words of the Bible but based on one’s understanding of the fundamental messages that this or that passage attempts to communicate. The Humanist does not think it is important whether there was a tree. What matters is the value of the passage and its relevance to one’s life, and this is derived completely from the Humanist’s own reading of the passage.
     Table 1 sets forth the four types of Christians based on these two dimensions.
(See Table 1)
The Positive-Scripturalist
     The Christian who believes that we are saved by grace is positive on the Grace-Works dimension that the Bible is the word of God and is a Positive-Scripturalist. This person believes that we are saved not by our deeds but by grace, that grace is an undeserved gift from a God who cares. We can know about this God through the Bible, parts of which are to be taken literally and parts of which require interpretation, and perhaps parts of which we simply do not get. The Positive-Scripturalist puts her or his faith in God rather than in him- or herself and derives the principles for the fulfilling and properly focused life from scripture. Because God exists, cares, and has provided us with guidelines (the Bible) for living, we are not free to just substitute our own preferences and guidelines for those of the Bible. The Positive Scripturalist is likely to give priority to such passages as “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not from yourselves; it is the gift of God.” ¹²
The Negative-Scripturalist
     The Negative-Scripturalist also accepts that the Bible is the word of God, but believes that how successfully and faithfully we live according to that word (our works) determines our eternal destiny. Grace, to the Negative-Scripturalist is too much like a free ticket into heaven; it is too easy; it allows too much deviation from the behavioral norms set forth by Christ. We must earn our way into heaven. “Follow me” implies action, not mere thought or belief. The Negative-Scripturalist is likely to value various passages from James, such as “Faith without works is dead,”¹³ “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”¹⁴ and from Revelation, “and they were judged every man according to their works.”¹⁵
The Positive-Humanist
     The Positive-Humanist believes that the Bible, far from being handed down by God was written by men. It is a great book, great philosophy, and has profound principles for living life, but it is not something which God penned. As such the Bible while quite worthy to be followed is also fallible, not because its principles are necessarily faulty but because some of its principles are obscure, out of date, and/or inaccurately translated. Nevertheless, the Positive-Humanist believes in the basic salvation message of Christ as further interpreted by Paul, namely that we are saved by grace, not by our deeds.
The Negative-Humanist
     Finally, the Negative-Humanist believes that the Bible is a fallible product of man, not God’s word, and that we each achieve (or fail to achieve) our own salvation. Our works determine our eternal destiny. Christ indicates what we need to do to be saved, but it is up to us to do it. Doing trumps believing; believing is empty unless deeds follow.
     Which of these four approaches a person is has enormous implications for how that person lives life day-to-day. For the public at large, over 75% consistently over the past decade claim that religion is an important part of how they live life.¹⁶ More specifically, between 56% and 60% in every survey done by the ANES since 1992 say that religion provides “quite a bit” or “a great deal” of guidance in their “day-to-day living.”¹⁷

CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

     In spite of the plethora of lawyer jokes (many of which seem suspiciously on target!), there is no principled reason to suspect that these national statistics do not also apply to attorneys in general. Now, whether such high percentages of criminal defense attorneys also consider religion to be important in their day to day lives might be a more troublesome inquiry, but, nevertheless, there is no principled reason to suspect that attorneys are different from the random sample of Americans from which the ANES data is derived.¹⁸
The Zealous Advocate Rule
     Being a criminal defense attorney carries a special set of obligations and norms and can involve very unique conflicts between one’s private notions about right and wrong and the demands of the profession - - - demands which the attorney has knowingly bought into and subscribed to. More than anything else, the attorney is an advocate for the client and is obligated to represent and advance the client’s legal interests as vigorously and aggressively as is ethically possible. Though there are a number of ethical rules setting the parameters for what the attorney should and should not do, the primary ethical rule is an affirmative one - - - that the attorney must zealously advocate the client’s legal interests. This is known as the zealous advocate rule, and in one form or another is embraced by the bar of every state in the United States.
     In practice, this means that the truth gets lost, that the system, largely because of the zealous advocate rule, is designed so that it becomes inevitable that the truth gets sacrificed. Even many judges realize that the system is critically broken in this respect. For example, the late Judge Harold J. Rothwax wrote about this under the banners “Anything but the Truth” and “The Theater of the Absurd.”¹⁹ The attorney’s role, even when the defendant is guilty is still “to prevent, distort, mislead.”²⁰
     Even though the zealous advocate rule encourages trial practices which obscure the truth, the zealous advocate rule is nevertheless energetically embraced by the legal profession. For example the Model Code of Professional responsibility in its second paragraph says that “as advocate, a lawyer zealously asserts the client’s position under the rules of the adversary system.”²¹ A significant comment to Rule 1.3 states the following:

A lawyer should pursue a matter on behalf of a client despite opposition, obstruction or personal inconvenience to the lawyer, and take whatever lawful and ethical measures are required to vindicate a client's cause or endeavor. A lawyer must also act with commitment and dedication to the interests of the client and with zeal in advocacy upon the client's behalf.²²

Further, one judge recognized that “a skillful and zealous advocate is often able to sidestep the technical letter of the rules and enter some evidence which should have been excluded.”²³ The important point here is not that the system is designed for this to happen²⁴ or even that the system allows it to happen. Rather the important point is that the system requires it to happen whenever it would help accomplish an acquittal or a lower sentence! Thus, deliberate obstruction, obfuscation, and deception is encouraged by the system and legitimized by the zealous advocate rule.²⁵
     In contrast, it hardly needs documentation that core Christian beliefs oppose deceiving with the objective of accomplishing nontruth, obscuring of the truth, gaining the release of persons into society who will probably seriously harm others in the future, misrepresenting the truth, misrepresenting others’ (usually opposing witnesses) own veracity, or manipulating rules in order to introduce into a trial record material which is either untrue or only partially accurate. The list can go on and on. So the inquiry becomes, what is the Christian defense attorney supposed to do²⁶ - - - that is, how can the attorney be both a zealous advocate and a strong Christian?
     How the Christian criminal defense attorney handles the tensions and problems born of the zealous advocate rule depends first on what kind of Christian the attorney is. Of the four types we earlier described, each type permits certain coping strategies through which the attorney can deal with the conflicts. Table 2 sets forth coping strategies for criminal defense attorneys of the four religious types described above.
(See Table 2)
The Positive-Scripturalist Attorney
     Since the positive-scripturalist believes that the Bible is the word of God and is taken at least to some degree literally, the Christian who attempts to live according to this view has the immediate problem of reconciling the requirements of the zealous advocate rule with the Christian requirement to be faithful to the truth and to avoid deceiving
     The coping strategy is the Ends Justify the Means strategy. The attorney who is a strong believer that grace saves can tolerate zealousness which is contrary to Christian principles because the attorney’s specific actions do not threaten the attorney’s standing with God. The attorney can rationalize the questionable actions in the name of the greater good of playing a part in a system which achieves ends that are godly, namely protecting the innocent and the guilty from being nifonged,²⁷ protecting against bad judges, and doing those things which will enable the adversary system to function ultimately as a truth system.²⁸ Though this strategy itself may not have a scriptural basis, it does remove or at least weaken the ambiguity and tension of engaging in actions which in isolation appear un-Christian.
     The Ends Justify the Means coping strategy is also the same logic which supports the adversary system and its zealous advocate rule. In isolation, a number of features of the adversary system are arguably amoral and maybe stimulate actions which in isolation are immoral and un-Christian. Thus, the Positive-Scripturalist probably senses less tension and conflict between Christian principles and zealous advocate actions because professionally the attorney is part of and has bought into an Ends Justify the Means legal system. It is a small step to apply the same logic to those Christian principles which run counter to the larger system, particularly since salvation for the attorney is not in question as it might be were the attorney to be judged according to his or her deeds.
The Positive-Humanist Attorney
     The Positive-Humanist accepts the idea that it is grace rather than our works which is important and at the same time believes that the Bible is not the word of God but instead is man-written. With these beliefs, it is easy for the Positive-Humanist to accept and live by those parts of the Bible to which he or she gives priority and demote the relevance of other parts of the Bible. Things easily become relative to the Positive-Humanist because there is no fixed standard imposed on human affairs by the Bible. Since the Bible is man-written and is not to be taken literally, the Christian who falls into this category is unimpeded in adopting a strategy of interpreting scripture in ways that are functional to being a zealous advocate. The coping strategy is Functional Interpretation.
     The first of two major aspects of Functional Interpretation is selective application, that is, the Positive-Humanist is selective about which passages of the Bible apply closely and restrictively to the legal profession. Not everything is relevant. Provisions which might make for cognitive dissonance in the Christian who wants to be a zealous advocate in the criminal justice system can easily fall away, primarily because they are not commands from God but merely ideas from man. Jesus concluded that if one is going to be dishonest with little things, that person will be dishonest with more important things also.²⁹ There are other passages admonishing against deception and dishonesty³⁰, and most of the passages link dishonesty in small things (white lies) to the notion that they open the door to dishonesty in matters which are crucially more important. The Positive-Humanist can demote these passages in the strength with which they are to be followed because they are not God-ordained. White lies can be rationalized. Nothing that man has ordained is absolutely binding. The Positive-Humanist is free to interpret everything, scripture included, in a way that is functional at the moment.³¹
     A second aspect of Functional Interpretation is contextualism. Every passage of scripture, every “command” in the Bible must be applied in the context in which the person today finds herself or himself. Thus, when one is rearing children, it is super easy to rationalize lying to the children about Santa Clause. “Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Clause,” is a imaginative answer that shows that in the context of dealing with a child, one is fully justified in deceiving, and if clever one can deceive without being technically untruthful. An attorney can similarly deceive a jury by (1)a tricky examination or cross examination, (2) a clever closing statement which has nothing to do with conveying to them what really happened, or (3) appeals to jurors’ emotions to divert them from the facts.³² The Positive-Humanist is fully able to do this without feeling pangs of guilt because of the dual parameters controlling the intersection of religious beliefs and professional life - - - primarily nonliteral interpretation of the Bible and also salvation via grace rather than works. These parameters allow the Positive-Humanist to take liberties with scripture and to selectively apply scripture.
The Negative-Scripturalist Attorney
     The Negative-Scripturalist believes that the Bible is the word of God and that one’s deeds are the path to salvation. Works save; grace alone does not. The immense burden to the attorney who is a Negative-Scripturalist to do the right things in his or her job because he or she is bound by God’s commands. If the Bible says do not be dishonest, then this person cannot rationalize away white lies, partial truths, or other similar less-than-truth deceptions unless he or she interprets the Bible permissively.
     Therefore, the coping strategy that the Negative-Scripturalist adopts depends on the degree to which he or she is a strict literalist. A strict literalist will be hard pressed to rationalize away various biblical regulations of conduct. In contrast, relaxed literalism, that is, freedom to interpret certain passages of the Bible theoretically allows one to rationalize various types of half truths, deceptions, etc. But this is in theory. As a practical matter, those biblical passages which relate to behavior relevant to the trial attorney’s job can hardly be rationalized or interpreted to permit deceptions and partial truths for the person who is bound by the words themselves. The belief that the Bible is God’s word coupled with the belief that one’s deeds indeed are the path to salvation makes it extremely difficult for the strong Negative-Scripturalist who is also a strict literalist to cope at all with the value conflict between biblical principles and the zealous advocate rule. There is no coping strategy readily available to this person primarily because the conflict between Christian values as literally interpreted. The strict literalist should not be a criminal defense attorney.
     The Negative-Scripturalist who is freer in his or her willingness to interpret the Bible with minimal cognitive dissonance will be able to engage in the Ends Justify the Means strategy. Unleashed from the inhibitions and limitations of strict literalism, this lawyer will be able to rationalize certain actions, which in isolation and on the surface might look unbiblical, as serving greater, more important goals. Usually these goals will be justice and fairness, and even though those two goals are arguably human constructs rather than God-given states, the absence of rigid literalism liberates this lawyer to serve the ends of the system rather than the means by which those ends are accomplished.
The Negative-Humanist Attorney
     The Negative-Humanist will be very similar to the nonliteral Negative-Scripturalist in that free to interpret the Bible, the Negative-Humanist can interpret passages in an Ends Justify the Means rubric. Once one believes that the Bible is not the word of God, one is by definition relatively free to create one’s own behavioral standards. Since the Negative-Humanist attorney believes that works are the means to salvation, what the attorney actually does qua defense attorney indeed does matter. However, the standards are somewhat variable from attorney to attorney because this type of attorney, unlike the literalist Positive-Scripturalist, determines individually what the controlling standards are.
     Another strategy theoretically open to all of the four types is the strategy of Withdrawal. The attorney on written motion to the court can ask to withdraw from the case. There is no guarantee that the motion will be granted; moreover, common knowledge is that the motion asking for permission to withdraw because of matters of conscience will probably not be granted and that if it is granted, the price to the attorney’s reputation can be high.³³ The rules in every state, as far as I have been able to discern, make no allowance for withdrawals because of matters of conscience. The rules allow withdrawals only if continued representation would entail violation of the law or of the ethical rules, but a priori the ethical rules mandate zealous advocacy.³⁴ As a strategy, Withdrawal is unrealistic. It is just one step from withdrawing from criminal practice itself.

CONCLUSION

     It is definitely possible to be at the same time a strong Christian and an effective criminal defense attorney. The more relevant conclusion is narrower. For a certain subset of Christians (biblical literalists who believe that works are what matter most), it is probably not possible to be at the same time a strong Christian and a good criminal defense attorney. If one tries to be both at the same time, either biblical commands or the zealous advocate rule will be compromised. Consequently, the strong Christian who is a biblical literalist will find that criminal defense practice presents irreconcilable conflicts of conscience. If the attorney is adversely affected by the affront to his or her religious beliefs caused by criminal practice, from a purely psychological (and spiritual) perspective, he or she should not be a criminal defense attorney.³⁵ Creating 501(c)(3)’s might be a more comfortable area of practice.

Table 1
A TYPOLOGY OF CHRISTIANS

Table 2
Coping Strategies for Christian
Criminal Defense Attorneys

______________________________________________________________

1. For example, most Christians believe that Jesus in indeed part of the Godhead and/or is the Son of God, but this core Christian belief, does not have a particular way of putting it into practice in day-to-day living.
2. “God opposes the proud.” (James 4:6 (NIV)) It cannot get much clearer than that. Therefore, Christians believe that pride is ungodly and probably puts one in opposition to what God intends for that person. Behaviorally, this belief means that Christians should strive for humility and attempt to restrain the ego. Whether this is a central or a peripheral belief is, of course, debatable.
3. Moreover, to some Christians the method of baptism is core; to others it is very peripheral.
4. . One can question what is “belief?” What did Christ mean when he said that “all who believe in me” shall have salvation? Is it just a profession? Is it a “head” decision? To qualify, must it be “from the heart?” Satan believes in God and Christ, and Satan is hardly a Christian; thus mere belief is clearly not what is meant by “belief.”
5. James 2:20 (KJV). This relates to what we actually mean by “belief” (“faith”). Mere avowal (“Hey, I believe, so I’ve made it into heaven!”) not evidenced by any behavior may indicate that there is no real belief there to begin with.
6. A variant of this is that we have to do certain things to get salvation. For example, if we sin, it is not enough that we have been saved though the grace of God. In a sense, we lose that salvation unless we confess. Thus, we have boxes to check off, things to do, if we are to get salvation. Under this approach, it is not the open-ended quality of our deeds that matter as much as whether we have done certain specific things from a list. Like Viking sailors yearning for Valhalla, we too can earn our way into heaven.
7. This variable is based on the data compiled by the American National Election Studies (ANES) since 1990 of the percentage of Americans who believe that “the Bible is the actual Word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word” and the percentage who believe that “the Bible is the Word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally, word for word.” A third category is those who believe that “the Bible is a book written by men and is not the Word of God.” http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/toptable/tab1b_2b.htm (Last Accessed April 14, 2007). In my discussion, I am collapsing the first two categories into the type I have labeled as Scripturalists. The category I have labeled as Humanists are those in the third ANES category.
8. Of course, many Biblical Literalists are arguably not really literalists. When the plain language does not communicate exactly or when the language is metaphorical, then the literalists cannot be a literalist. For example, Christ says, “I am the vine.” If one is a rigid literalist, he or she would have to believe that Christ was a plant, and that is patently absurd. Thus, even literalism provides for interpretation where the plain language implies the need for interpretation.
9. “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2: 16-17 (NLT).
10. “For it is written in the Law of Moses: ‘Do not muzzle an ex while it is treading out the grain.’ Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he?” 1 Cor.: 9-10.
11. Of course, there all sorts of problems with rigid literalism, not the least of which is that almost no American literalists are reading the texts in their original language. For example, it is an elementary principle of linguistics that some things just do not translate literally. Likewise there are all sorts of problems with liberal literalism because that opens Scripture to our own personal filters and interpretational agendas.
12. Eph. 2:8 (NIV).
13. James 2:20 (KJV).
14. James 2:21 (KJV).
15. Revelation 20:13 (KJV).
16. http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/toptable/tab1b_3.htm (Last accessed April 14, 2007).
17. http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/toptable/tab1b_4.htm (Last accessed April 14, 2007).
18. We simply do not have much empirical evidence about attorneys and matters of conscience.
19. These are the titles of two chapters in his excellent indictment of America’s criminal justice system, Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice, New York: Warner Books, 1996, pp. 15 and 121.
20. Ibid., p. 141.
21. Preamble, p. 1, § 2. Annotated Model Rules of Professional Conduct, 5th Edition, Center for Professional Responsibility (American Bar Association) http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/preamble.html (Last accessed April 14, 2007). Various states track the Model Code.
22. Comment, Rule 1.3, Ibid., http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/rule_1_3_comm.html (Last accessed April 14, 2007).
23. Brooks v. Bienkowski, 150 Md. App. 87, 127 (2003).
24. The very fact that there is a neutral judge to umpire the prosecutor/defense fight gives support to “the zealous advocate model of the lawyer and all that it entails.” Murray L. Schwartz, “The Professionalism and Accountability of Lawyers, 66 California Law Review 669, 676 (July, 1978).
25. See Robert A. Kagan, “Do Lawyers Cause Adversary Legalism? A Preliminary Inquiry,” 19 Law & Social Inquiry 1, 51 (Winter, 1994). The prosecutor’s first duty is not to be a zealous advocate but is generally to procure justice. There is no empirical data that I know of which indicates the degree to which prosecutors actually adhere to this first duty. See ibid., 52. Because criminal prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys are educated by a system dedicated to zealous advocacy and because defense attorneys and prosecutors readily switch positions as they move through the years, one can be skeptical about prosecutors’ actually abandoning their zealous advocacy training.
26. Yes, I know. The strong Christian can just practice some other area of law, but then that just takes the largest identifiable population of principled persons out of the defense bar, leaving that bar partially, perhaps largely, to the unprincipled, the scoundrels, the facile deceivers, etc. For the individual lawyer, this might be a viable option, but for the American criminal justice system, such as it is, that is probably not desirable.
27. The reference is to Mike Nifong, the district attorney of Duke lacrosse rape case fame. He was disbarred for his conduct in that debacle. See, for example, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19275010/ (Last accessed July 27, 2007).
28. The theory is that if the defense and the prosecution fight it out aggressively, the truth will emerge from that fight though neither side is directly committed to presenting the unvarnished truth.
29. “. . . whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” Luke 16:10 (NIV).
30. Another example of the biblical admonishment against falsehood is “Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” Eph. 4:25 (NIV).
31. Ironically the one thing that the Positive-Humanist is not free to interpret away is the zealous advocate rule. The Positive-Humanist has sworn to follow the Rules. Therefore, the option of functional interpretation of the zealous advocate rule is taken away, and the Positive-Humanist can either outright disobey the zealous advocate rule or follow it - - - completely.
32. The well-heeled defendant can even afford scientific jury selection research in order to attempt to stack the jury. This is quite within the bounds of the zealous advocate rule and has nothing to do with discovering the truth and everything to do with simply winning the case regardless of the truth. A narrow search on google.com of the phrase “scientific jury selection” turns up over 1000 links. A LexisNexis full text search of legal literature for “scientific jury selection” resulted in 98 articles. There is a big industry out there, fueled by defense attorneys operating under the zealous advocate rule.
33. Obviously withdrawals are granted for conflicts of interest, biased judges, and things dealing with matters other than that the attorney just does not want to handle or cannot handle to conflict between legal and Christian values.
34. The Model Rules make possible withdrawal for “good cause,” but that terms does not include matters of the attorney’s own conflicting values. See Rule 1.16(b)(7), Annotated Model Rules of Professional Conduct, 5th Edition, Center for Professional Responsibility (American Bar Association) http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/rule_1_16.html (Last accessed April 15, 2007). The heavy presumption against a withdrawal because of a matter of conscience is reflected in a LexisNexis search which turned up no articles dealing with the topic. It also makes sense in the context of the adversary fight system not to disallow withdrawal because one combatant cannot get his or her values worked out in advance.
35. Moreover, undergraduate pre-law advisors should alert their students about these potential conflicts of conscience.