Lawyers, the Modern Day Sin-Eaters

I spent a significant chunk of my early career with 100% of my job being legal in nature. Over time, fortunately, I've been selected for positions where my legal skill is helpful and comprises a portion of my work, but there are portions of my work that are non-legal in nature. But I've been thinking lately about how lawyers serve as the modern day sin-eaters of our society.

For those who are unfamiliar with the practice, the concept of a sin-eater is exactly what it sounds like. The idea was that when someone died, there would be a living person who would eat a ritualized meal, and through the meal, would consume the sins of the decedent. Through this process, the decedent was purified, and could go to the afterlife. It's kind of a different take on indulgences, another interesting religious concept where one could literally buy forgiveness for sins. But the lawyer / sin-eater concept intrigues me specifically because of the parallels. With lawyers and with sin-eaters, there's the use of a second party (lawyer or sin-eater) to manage the sins on one's behalf.

In many instances, individuals and companies use lawyers as their sin-eaters. They engage in some form of wrongdoing, and then they pay the lawyers to make it right, to pave over the wrongdoing, to absolve them of liability for it. It's exceedingly rare for an individual or company to come forward and say, "hey, we did this wrong, we're sorry about it, we're going to make it right." When that happens, it makes the news. Far more common is a cycle of denials, litigation and arguments...and those processes are customarily managed by lawyers.

When things go south, companies refer comments to their lawyers. They stop directly addressing issues and instead rely on lawyers as their mouthpieces (the idea being that the lawyers will hopefully not say anything that adds to their liabilities).

Even more troubling is a significant body of scholarship suggesting that the wealthy get more favorable treatment in court--they can buy better lawyers (or at least, pay for more time with them and pay to continue cases through appeal after appeal). If you're not familiar with that concept, there are some thoughts on it here, here, here, here and here. In the sin-eater days of old, it took a certain level of wealth to be able to hire someone to eat your sins. That tradition carries forward to today, where wealth enables a different level of avoiding accountability for wrongs.

Similarly, in the olden days, sin-eaters were often pariahs. They were outcasts that were at the fringe of society. They were avoided....ridiculed. In modern times, attorneys have assumed their own role as outcasts--as the butt of innumerable lawyer jokes, and as the cliché of the slimy attorney in court (reinforced through countless films and shows).

The law is an honorable profession, and lawyers often stand as the defenders of the liberties that we enjoy. But every time there's a lawyer advocating for liberty, or advocating to right a wrong, there is also a lawyer advocating on the other side of that equation--not necessarily advocating against liberty or in favor of perpetrating a wrong (although sometimes they are)--because our system requires the balance of advocates on both sides. There are certainly some legal and ethical guardrails that keep lawyers from going too far astray, but within those guardrails, there is a considerable amount of leeway to be a "zealous advocate." As that phrase is apparently interpreted by many lawyers, it's a role that is surprisingly close to eating sin.

So let's assume that we all agree--the concept of sin eating is, putting it lightly, not great. The extent to which lawyers parallel sin-eaters is also not great. Where do we go from here? I'm going to ponder that over the next few weeks.