Reprinted from The Satirical Political Report http://satiricalpolitical.com

In a move that legal scholars are calling both stunning and long overdue, the American Bar Association (ABA) has issued a ruling prohibiting all lawyers from serving in, or representing, the Bush Administration.

Although this decision had been under consideration for some time, the straw that broke the camel's back was the recent statement of Charles D. Stimson, a senior Pentagon official, who condemned lawyers at leading national firms for providing representation to prisoners at Guantánamo, and suggested that corporate clients should terminate their relationship with such firms. The same point appeared Friday on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

The decision by a special three-member panel of the ABA was based on a seldom-used disciplinary rule, DR-666, which provides that "a lawyer's duty of zealous representation does not apply to a client who is the devil-incarnate."

However, the decision was not unanimous, as Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School cast a dissenting vote, on the basis that "the ruling did not go far enough, and should have included a proviso for the torture and rendition of these right-wing lawyers."

CONTINUED at: http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=517