Ethical rules too strict to obey or too vague to guide real lobbying practice

Evidence

In truth, the Canon is either so strict as to be impossible, or so vague as to be useless. Washington lawyers do all of these things, and in my opinion properly so. Both the public and the non-public aspects of such work call for his legal abilities, and for the wisdom, understanding and judgment that can come only from experience in many cases, many victories and defeats, over many years. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 294

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the Volume-1 observation that judges feel unable to overturn entrenched rules so rules persist — here canon-ethics language proves unworkable in practice. — connects to: Ethical canons permit lawyers to lobby only publicly by reasoned argument — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 285; Defending the idealized version of a practice cannot guide real-world policy — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 6473; Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284 (+1 more)
• SEED: An essay on how professional-ethics codes that no practitioner can obey quietly license the conduct they purport to forbid.

Broader Connections

• Rules without concrete instances are meaningless hindrances #corroborates (0.80) — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 148
• Defending the idealized version of a practice cannot guide real-world policy #corroborates (0.75) — , The Rod and the Child, 6473
• Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes #corroborates (0.72) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284