OPINION: 'He who represents himself has a fool for a client' — Abraham Lincoln
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador should have heeded Honest Abe’s advice before launching his repeated frivolous attacks against the Open Primaries Initiative (OPI). Lincoln was saying what is common knowledge amongst lawyers and judges — a lawyer who pursues a hotly-contested claim in which he is personally invested can make serious errors of judgment, effectively sabotaging his or her own case. The self-interested lawyer often substitutes wishful thinking for reliable evidence and sound legal principles.
During my 12 years on the Idaho Supreme Court, I heard and considered about 1,600 cases presented to the court. Several cases that stand out are ones where the lawyers were so personally invested in the outcome that they were blinded to the fact that they had no chance of winning. Their self interest caused them to overlook fatal flaws in their evidence and legal theories.
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