Ethics

... is apparently the name being given by Liz Cheney's group Keep America Safe to unnamed Justice Department lawyers who represented detainees before joining the DOJ.  (Hat tip TPM)  As our own Stephen Gillers points out, allegations of a conflict of interest are entirely bogus.  Unless the lawyer participated personally and substantially in the same matter while in private practice, there is no conflict of interest if that attorney works on detainee issues in the Justice Department -- see MR 1.11(d).  But everyone who knows anything about the law of lawyering knows that.  The point of this line of criticism is not to raise a technical conflict of interest issue, but to question the patriotism of lawyers who represent accused terrorists.  In this way it is reminiscent of the attack by Deputy Defense Secretary Charles "Cully" Stimson, during the Bush Administration, on law firms who represented detainees pro bono.  Stimson recommended that corporate clients fire law firms whose lawyers did pro bono work for detainees.  Interestingly, the suggestion was not only a flop (to my knowledge, no clients retaliated against their firms for doing detainee representation) but provoked clear condemnation from the right and the left.  Charles Fried, for example, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal reminding readers, for the umpteenth time, of the honorable tradition of lawyers representing unpopular clients. 

Evidently Cheney and other conservative media outlets (e.g., the Weekly Standard, the National Review, Michelle Malkin) think the critique will have some traction this time.  I have no idea why they think this, unless the allegation of a conflict of interest gets people's attention.  So, just to be clear (and to underscore Gillers's point), there is no conflict of interest here -- this is a pure guilt-by-association argument.