Classmates representing unpopular clients

I don't know if you remember our fifth reunion. If you were there, you might recall that Dante Centouri and I did an updated version of the Class History we did at graduation. In one of our running jokes, we made fun of the fact that so many of our classmates went to law school. I think it is fair to say that we have our share of lawyers in the class.

This many years out, some of the lawyers in our class have left the practice of law. Others of us, however, remain in the profession. I saw a recent piece that highlighted one of our classmates, Tamar Birckhead, and the work she had done representing a very unpopular client. Tamar is now a professor. Before she entered academia, she represented Richard Reid, the infamous "shoe bomber." Not so long ago, there was an interesting ABC News piece in which Tamar discussed this representation.

As an attorney who is almost always on the defense side of things, I found Tamar's comments particularly interesting. I have represented my share of unpopular and publicly vilified clients (I represented Arthur Andersen in the Enron case, for instance), and when defending such clients I get to see a side things that is usually missing from depictions in the main stream press.

This article made me wonder if there are other classmates who have participated in cases as lawyers for unpopular causes. If so, I would love to hear about your experiences.