The Journal of the American Bar Association has named disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez as their Lawyer of the Year for 2007. How disgusting. At a time when the reputation of lawyers is at an all-time low, do we really need the premier legal association in the United States calling attention to a lawyer who acted so shamelessly for so many years?
I understand that this award is similar to Time magazine’s Person of the Year award, and that Time has named Adolf Hitler as Person of the Year because he was the most newsworthy person that year. Still, there are hundreds of thousands of good, honest lawyers in this country, and I think any one of them would be a better choice than Alberto Gonzalez.
For the first time in more than 30 years, I am seriously questioning why I continue to be a member of the American Bar Association.