Most legal professionals would confidently reject my proposal in favor of some version of Devil’s Advocacy, the view that a lawyer should pursue his client’s interests without regard to justice. But the confidence with which lawyers advance this view is not matched by the arguments in its support. Some appeal to the impossibility of being absolutely certain of a client’s guilt, but this hardly seems to explain why pursuing an outcome that one believes to be in the client’s interest is more important than avoiding something that is almost certainly a serious injustice.
Disclaimer: I did not read this post
But I think Michael Huemer’s 2014 paper “Devil’s Advocates: On the Ethics of Unjust Legal Advocacy” is relevant here: https://philpapers.org/archive/HUEDAO.pdf
There’s also this interesting discussion from Bentham against the attorney–client privilege: https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/text_blocks/7432.
(I don’t endorse Bentham’s view).
Thanks! Was not aware of this; definitely relevant :-)