Sua Sponte: A Judge Comments

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Roscoe Pound defined the legal profession as an organized body of people pursuing a learned art in a spirit of public service. When did we replace the commitment to advise clients with the selling of inventory? Ghostwriting is anathema to the justification of the lawyer’s right to be heard, of the privilege curtained by oath and discipline to speak for another in a court of law. It destroys the very basis for the attorney-client privilege; and its stepsister, unbundling, obliterates the attorney-client relationship. As Robert Frost said of free verse, “It is like playing tennis with the net down.”