Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Legal News

: Lawbeat

Gillibrand and Big Tobacco: big score with a big flaw

By Mark Obbie

ADVERTISEMENTS

The Times' Raymond Hernandez and David Kocieniewski have an ambitious and heavily reported front-pager today proving that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., had a far more influential legal role defending The Philip Morris Company than she is willing to concede now. Using documents and sources, Hernandez and Kocieniewski convincingly show that even though Gillibrand was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, she played an unusually prominent role for an associate. It's a solid and relevant story, holding a public official accountable by explaining her history with facts rather than with her PR. But it's also unfair to Gillibrand -- not because it zealously debunks the myth she would like people to believe, but because it virtually ignores important context by dumping it into two throwaway grafs:

Mr. Canter said the senator should be assessed based on her record in Congress, where she has voted against the industry's interests on several occasions, including supporting cigarette tax increases to help expand children's health care.And Todd Henderson, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School, argued that it would be unfair to assess lawyers by whom they represent. 'Nobody would want to live in a world in which lawyers are judged by the clients they take,' he said.

Why call them throwaways? Because they appear just before the first subhead-break in the story. When writing a long story, if you are faced with material that interrupts your narrative flow, you can toss it into a little pile at the end of one section, because you're about to resume the main thread of the story after the break. It's a throat-clearing exercise -- well, there's this other evidence, or there are these other themes, that some probably consider relevant but we aren't going to go there, really. And they don't. These are the only mentions in the story of those themes. Which is a shame, because Matt Canter, Gillibrand's spokesman, makes a pretty relevant point. Assuming what he says is true -- and it would need lots of checking and explanation -- that is a powerful counterweight to the underlying message of the rest of the story, about Gillibrand being a tool of Big Tobacco. And, while it's a cliche of legal writing, it still needs to be said that it's bad policy on a number of grounds to tar lawyers with the sins of their clients. Putting those words in the mouth of a relatively obscure authority, without elaboration, and just before zooming off in a new direction in the story, gives the back of the hand to the material. The Times undercut an otherwise important and valid story by appearing to have an agenda other than the full truth.(And yes, I know posting has been unusually slow here. Too much real work right now. I'll try to pop in now and then to show I'm not asleep.)

Full post as published by Lawbeat on March 27, 2009 (boomark / email).