Lawyer or Liar? Breaking Down Public Perception

• Author: Stephen G.A. Pitel
• Pages: 43-55

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Lawyer or Liar?

Breaking Down Public Perception

stePhen G.a. Pit el*

INTRODUCTION

   lawyer is to be a member of a profession with a signif‌ica nt image

problem. The perceived faults of lawyers are many, including that t hey

are uncommunicative, expen sive, and rude, but the ubiquitous vice is that

they lie. One of the best-known jokes about lawyers is “How can you tell

when a lawyer is lying? His lips are mov ing.” In the 1997 f‌ilm Liar Liar, the

protagonist, a habitua l liar who ends up magica lly forced to speak only

the truth for a ful l day, is, of course, a lawyer.1 These are on ly two of many

illustrations of the how the public perceives law yers as liars. Sur veys of

the public routinely show that lawyers as a profession have more of a repu-

tation for being untruthf ul than politic ians and people who sell cars. A

study of f‌ilms about the legal s ystem noted that “if there is one negative

trait that Hollywood shows more tha n any other in lawyers, it is that they

* I am gratefu l to Jesse Harper for hi s research assist ance on the topic of lawyers and

lying. I am al so grateful to Ada m Dodek, Trevor Farrow, Randal Gra ham, and the

participa nts at the annual meet ing of Canadia n legal ethics professors i n October

2009 at the Universit y of British Columbia for the ir helpful comments.

1 Liar Liar, DVD, direct ed by Tom Shadyac (Universal City, CA: Univer sal Pictures,

1997). In the movie, the prot agonist’s son is asked by hi s teacher what his father do es

for a living. The s on says, “He’s a liar . . . he wears a suit a nd goes to court and ta lks to

the judge.” When the teach er says, “You mean a lawyer,” the son replies, “ Same thing.”