Abstract
In recent years, headline-making events reminded us that attorneys’ professional responsibilities will be tested in the national security context. The legal foundations of many post-9/11 counterterrorism policies were “sloppily reasoned, overbroad, and incautious,” as a prominent government attorney later recalled. Chief among these were the infamous “torture memos” drafted by legal advisors in executive branch agencies in 2002 and 2003, which authorized controversial interrogation and detention practices in furtherance of the “war on terrorism.” Although the authors of these memos were recently cleared of professional misconduct allegations following a five-year Department of Justice inquiry, their adherence to ethical standards has been sharply criticized. This Article studies the application of legal ethics in the national security context and seeks to determine why, at times, government legal advisors deviate from ethical practice. Employing the analytical framework of compliance theory—the study of why individuals, organizations, and governments obey the law—this Article then prescribes a normative approach that is best suited to steer them back.
Recommended Citation
Petty, Keith A.
(2011)
"Professional Responsibility Compliance
and National Security Attorneys:
Adopting the Normative Framework
of Internalized Legal Ethics,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 2011:
No.
4, Article 8.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2011/iss4/8