Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Lawyers and Power in Canadian Society

AuthorAdam M. Dodek
Pages57-81
[57]
Lawyers, Guns, and Money:
Lawyers and Power in Canadian Society
adam m. dodek*
Well, I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, to o?
I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and mone y
Dad, get me out of this
I’m the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock
and a hard place
And I’m down on my luck
Yes I’m down on my luck
Well I’m down on my luck
I’m hiding in Honduras
I’m a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and mone y
The shit has hit the fan
— , “Law yers, Guns and Money”
Excitable Boy, (Los Angeles , CA: Warner Bros. Records, 1978).
* Thank s to Trevor Farrow, Vanessa Gruben, All an Hutchinson, Gra ham Mayeda,
Stephen Pitel, Lor ne Sossin, Alice Woolley, and tho se in attendance at a workshop on
Legal Eth ics at UBC in October 2009 for rea ding earlier dra fts of this paper and pro -
viding helpfu l comments. Special t hanks to my comrade s-in-arms Suzan ne Bouclin
and David Wisem an.
    
[58]
   certain (older) generation are likely familiar with the simple
lyrics and the mag netic chords of Warren Zevon’s 1978 classic song “Law-
yers, Guns and Money.” Those of another (younger) generation can f‌ind
videos of it on the Internet or download it as a ring tone for their phones.
Zevon was somewhat of a cult f‌igure, know n more for his strange ta ke on
life and the unusua l subject matter of his songs than for pop hits.1 S ome of
his songs featured politica l undertones, and “Lawyers, Gun s and Money”
has a ring of Grah am GreeneCold War intrigue to it. But there is no mis-
taking the t itle’s reference: Zevon’s trio of lawyers, guns, and money rep-
resents a triumvirate of power.
Lawyers’ relationship with power is a complicated and conf‌licted one.
On the one hand, the law works to preserve the ex isting power structure
in society. Lawyers play a critica l role in this process. On the positive
side, lawyers support the stability and integrity of our system of govern-
ment and of our society. On the negative side, supporting the stat us quo
through law has often res ulted in the exclusion and continued discrimin-
ation against outsiders in Ca nada over the course of our history: women,
religious groups, racial ized minorities, and other groups who are not part
of the existing power struc ture. Both the law and the legal profession have
been used as a tool of exclusion throughout Canad ian history.
However, individual lawyers also cha llenge the status quo through the
system. They are defenders of the individual against the massive power
of the state and proponents of the rights of those w ithout power. This is
the essence of the plea in Zevon’s song by “the innocent bystander” who
is now “stuck between a rock and a hard place” and implores his father to
send “lawyers, gu ns, and money” to help him get out of the jam, by legal
(lawyers), illegal (money), or violent (guns) means.
In this chapter I explore the dif‌ferent ways in which lawyers exercise
power in our society. Political scientist Peter Russell ha s been at the fore-
front of recognizing and expl aining the unique nature of the exercises of
judicial power and the issues th at arise with it.2 Th is chapter is my attempt
to apply this general idea to the exercise of “law yer power.” The specif‌ic
ways in which lawyers exercise power and the nat ure of that power re-
mains lar gely unexplained in Can ada. In places, the exercise of power by
lawyers clashes with t he public interest and should be reconsidered, re-
1 See Paul Beeston , “Life and Death on ‘T he Late Show’” The American Spectator (1 1
November 2002), online: ww w.spectator.org/archi ves/2002/11/22/life-and-deat h-on-
the-late-sho.
2 See Peter H. Russell, The Judic iary in Canada: The Third Branch of G overnment (To -
ronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerso n, 1987).

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