Why Lawyers Represent Bad People

As a lawyer, I often get asked why I represent bad people. The short answer is rather than good or bad, people are both. The choice stems from their needs and whether they have been met suitably. A recent study from Yale university documented this in a psychology study conducted on babies. 
Babies Choose Good Regularly
​According to the BBC, the Yale University study shows babies can tell the difference between good and evil. Babies also choose good over evil. The experimenters had infants watch a puppet show of three colorful puppets. The results of the puppet show experiment showed that children favor good, helper puppets (people).

The puppets played out a simple story - one puppet tried to climb a hill, struggling and falling. One of the other puppets tried to help push the puppet up the hill, the other puppet tried to push the climber back down the hill. After the story played out, psychologists gave the babies the ability to grab for one of the puppets. Consistently, babies reached for the good, helper puppet.

This is important because unlike young people or adults, babies have yet to be influenced by other people. We refer to this as their pre-cultural mind. That means they have not been influenced by other people  or society - yet. They make decisions on pure instinct. Their instincts tend toward good, nice and helping.

Humans Naturally Like Good People.  They watched longer if the climber puppet moved toward the bad puppet and they expressed surprise. Their attention waned more quickly if the climber moved toward the good puppet, but they expressed happiness.

Since good makes them happy, why would a baby group up to do anything bad or evil? How is there evil in the world? Why do individuals ask the members of Lazaro Law Group "Why do you represent bad people?" We do not.  We represent people who made a bad choice.

Situation Influences Choices
While people inherently want to do good and be good, situations get in the way of that. Our first choice for good,  what we prefer, gets influenced by our biology and evolution. We evolved or learned  behaviors that enhance our survival and reproduction chances.

In a stable environment, a human being with proper food, shelter, clothing and other resources will choose good and the nice, helper mentality. In a stressful, resource-poor environment, we choose whatever helps us survive and thrive. Sometimes, that results in bad choices.

So, a homeless person might steal. A person who becomes suddenly poor might act stingy. A sick person might focus only on himself. People change based on their situation. When they were living in a nice house with a normal income and healthy though, they were nice, good people who gave their time and some resources to others. Put into a situation where their needs were not met, they resorted to what they had to do to survive and try to return to their own normal way of life.

Part of It Is Our Biology

Biologically, most of us have a substance called oxytocin in our bodies. It is there naturally. Some people have too little and some have too much. Those people make up a tiny part of the population, but they are the ones we think of when we think of evil or very good. Five percent of the population has too little oxytocin, making them pathologically selfish. Another small percent have too much oxytocin and exhibit the most giving natures. Think of Bernie Madoff as an example of those with too little oxytocin and Mother Teresa with an overabundance of it, which resulted in her extreme virtue.

Part of It Is Our Situation
The rest of us are normal. Our bodies make a regular amount of oxytoxcin. We vacillate between good and evil. Our situation, also called our environmental factors, influence our body to create and release oxytocin and another common body substance, testosterone. Those with high testosterone and low oxytocin tend to be less helpful people.

The Bible Agrees: We Begin Good
Science is not the only field that discusses our inherent or natural good. The Bible backs up our natural tendency toward good. Genesis 1:31 reads, "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” While God made us good, our situations influence whether or not our good shows.

Our Client Eddie
Take for example, Eddie, a former client of Lazaro Law Firm. Eddie came to the US as a little boy of six years. His alcoholic father beat his mother in front of him. His mother worked two and three jobs at a time to take care of the family. She had little time for her three children. As a young man, Eddie kept company with a bad crowd, became an alcoholic and experimented with drugs. He abused his significant other and shoplifted. Arrested for possession of marijuana, at aged 22, he spent time in prison. The US government deported him when he reached the age of 33. He was returned to the Philippines. His mother wept at his deportation hearing, stating he’d never been a bad person and was a good child.

While not evil, Eddie made poor choices. One could argue these choices stemmed from his environment during his upbringing. At Lazaro Law Group, we believe and embrace the idea that the foundation of adult morality is basic instinct to do good. We believe that each client’s situational influences have a lot to do with their choices. We see the daily struggle for good and evil. We also recognize the potential for redemption, rehabilitation and ultimately, the hope for greatness.

Redemption
None of us is all good or all evil. Each makes mistakes. We all deserve the second chance,  the opportunity for redemption. When people ask "Why do you represent bad people?" I explain that we don’t. We practice crime law and we represent people who made a bad choice. They each deserve their shot at redemption.
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Photo Credit: 

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Kartabya Aryal