Court advocacy assumes roughly matched adversaries to reach justice

Evidence

The ethical question which laymen most frequently ask about the legal profession is this: How can a lawyer take a case whichhe does not believe in? The profession is regarded as necessarily somewhat immoral, because its members are supposed to be habitually taking cases they do not believe in. As a practical matter, I think the lawyer is not often harassed by this problem, partly because he is apt to believe at the time in most of the cases that he actually tries, and partly because he either abandons or settles a large number of those he does not believe in. In any event, the lawyer recognizes that in trying a case his prime duty is to present his side to the tribunal fairly and as well as he can, relying upon his adversary to present his case fairly and as well as he can. As the lawyers on the two sides are usually reasonably well matched, the judge or jury may ordinarily be trusted to make such a decision as justice demands. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 262

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the Fairness course thread on the adversary system’s rationale — matched adversarial advocacy as the mechanism presumed to generate justice. — connects to: Corrupting legislation and corrupting trials violate the same ethical duty — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 268; Unequal legal representation raises the risk of convicting the innocent. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 722; Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 253 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Unequal legal representation raises the risk of convicting the innocent. #expands (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 722
• Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments #qualifies (0.75) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 253