On May 1, 2012, the New York Times reported the impending financial collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf, a mega-law firm considered a “powerhouse” with over 1,300 lawyers in 26 offices across the world. The news was that the firm was crushing under the weight of debt – even despite posh offices, valuable Midtown Manhattan leases, and pay packages for some of its top partners “worth more than $5 million a year.” That story was reported almost two years ago.

But the “sequel” – just now making headlines in the news – makes the financial collapse of that firm seem mundane. Now, after apparently months of investigations into criminal misconduct by New York authorities, the latest juicy news in the New York Times is all about how four partners of that once-famous firm were criminally charged on March 6, 2014, with “manipulating the firm’s books to keep it afloat during the financial crisis. . .”

Lawyers have long been the butt of jokes among ordinary people. Q: “What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of a lake?” A: “A good start.” One I heard recently is: Q: “Why was the lawyer able to swim safely in the ocean among circling sharks?” A: “Professional courtesy.” People who are up to no good often think they will find a crooked lawyer to help them do their dirty work. And no doubt there are lawyers in every community that will do just that. Although lawyers swear under oath when they get licensed to practice law that they will uphold the laws of their state and the country, dishonesty comes in a variety of human forms. Big, small, male, female, young, old, and all manner of races and religions. If it lives and breathes and is human, there is potential for wrongdoing. This propensity for dishonesty is not limited to lawyers, of course. No profession, including clerics (sad to say), are beyond acknowledging their very own bad apples.

Back to the story. Who are these former partners of Dewey & LeBoeuf and what did they allegedly do? And what does their wrongdoing, if proven, say about the legal profession? Are there only just a few bad “lawyer” apples who allegedly resort to criminal misconduct in the name of saving their jobs and high salaries?

Charged with larceny and securities fraud, four of the firm’s former leaders, including its chairman, executive director, chief financial officer, and a client relations manager, are being accused of directing the firm’s employees to hide the firm’s “true financial condition from creditors, investors, auditors and even partners in the firm.” Regardless of whether they are ever convicted by a jury “of their peers,” who is so shocked by this story that they think there cannot possibly be truth to the charges? Unfortunately, probably no one.

What has our legal system come to if lawyers in a top rated, highly respected, and rich law firm can be charged with openly engaging in criminal misconduct in protection of their own professional interests and no one is shocked? How can ordinary people trust a legal system that gives rise to allegations of such bad behavior by the very professionals who are licensed to uphold the law and no one is surprised to read the story?

These four attorneys (and there are probably other Dewey lawyers and staff, who are nervously waiting to see if they are drawn into the center of this storm) are not, by any stretch of any imagination, alone among lawyers. Believe it or not, according to the news articles, much of the evidence being mounted against these “first four to be indicted” is in the form of emails that those presumably very smart lawyers wrote to each other in discussing the situation in their firm. For example, according to the N.Y. Times’ article, one email expressed their desire to find “another clueless auditor” to replace the one that had been fired by the firm.          .

Given that looking for evidence of incriminating email threads is a standard strategy of trial lawyers, how could top notch lawyers foolishly create evidence trails against their own selves? Their fellow lawyers throughout the firm no doubt frequently counseled their clients to never put statements that could be construed as guilt in emails to colleagues. And, of course, there are no doubt witnesses within the firm itself to testify against these four lawyers. In fact, the March 6, 2014, New York Times article notes that Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan district attorney giving the news conference, said his office had “already secured guilty pleas from seven other people who once worked for Dewey.”

So, what do we know for sure? We know that even very smart and successful lawyers are capable of foolish, sometimes even criminal, behavior. The age-old question that fascinates many (including me) is this: What turns lawyers into criminals? And where is the line drawn between unethical and criminal?

It’s not hard to judge the law. It’s so often “out of order.”

When is it a good idea for a client to lie to his lawyer? Never. Of course, a lawyer is not allowed to seek testimony from a witness, including his own client, the lawyer knows is untruthful. When a client lies to his lawyer, the risk is the lawyer will learn it is a lie and then the client’s position in the case is endangered. Likewise, lawyers are not allowed to lead a witness to lie on the stand; that misbehavior is called “suborning perjury.” Thus, if a lawyer knows a witness (or a client) is lying about something, a lawyer is ethically bound not to seek that testimony during the hearing or trial.

Naturally, if a witness or a client tells a lawyer something that is not true, the lawyer may well not realize the lie (at least initially). But lies are not good things. We are taught as youngsters that honesty is the best policy and that lying is something no one should do, which is a good policy because lying often gets us in trouble. Nonetheless, some clients think that they can profit from it and will tell their own lawyers things that are simply false. I suppose sometimes people get away with lying, and sometimes it can lead to a winning verdict based on false testimony. But no one ever knows when the lie will lead to profit and when it will, instead, bring disaster.

The disastrous fallout from lies can come at any time, often when no recovery is possible. At the beginning of a case, good lawyers do their homework in the form of investigation into the client’s position. They review documents and talk to witnesses, including the client, in order to see how the case shapes up. At the outset of the engagement, the lawyer is evaluating the strength of the client’s case, looking to see what evidence supports the client’s position and what evidence is against it.

When the lawyer finds a document or talks to a witness and learns something that works against the client’s case, the wise lawyer must raise the issue with the client. After all, the client is the main one who can shed light on the discovery of things that do not mesh with the client’s case. Some things are so contrary to what the lawyer needs to prove that the lawyer has to be able to explain it away. For example, let’s say the client has told the lawyer that the person who sold him the car did not tell him that it had been in a serious accident before the sale. But let’s also say that the attorney for the seller of the car shows the client’s lawyer a document signed by the client acknowledging the disclosure of the accident. If the entire case is one of fraud based on the failure to disclose that fact, such a document likely could be the end of it.

Why do clients lie to their lawyers? Got me. I think sometimes the lie becomes real to the client, sometimes the client thinks that no one will ever learn the truth, sometimes people are just liars. But good lawyers will not go along with lies. Lies have a way of becoming problematic, usually at some terrible moment and in a most unpleasant way.

Recently, a young man told me he had not been served with a certain lawsuit, which meant that he had been denied due process in the getting of the judgment against him. These things do happen, and they are not so unusual that such a thing cannot be believed. Indeed, much earlier in my career another young man told me the same thing, and the documents and witnesses proved him to be truthful and I was able to deliver justice to his cause. But this more recent situation was not the same; the young man had, indeed, been served with the lawsuit and the truth of his false story was discovered before any lawyer wasted much time with him.

It is a good thing the truth was discovered before we moved along the litigation course. Not only would that have been a meritless case against the person who had followed the proper procedure, it would have been a costly error and the lawyer could be the one holding the bag.

People should not lie to their lawyers. It rarely turns out well. Lawyers have a right to expect their clients to be truthful in the tales they tell. And a lawyer might well be stuck in a terrible jam down the road if any important lies are required for victory. Also, although it may rarely happen, a person can be criminally prosecuted for testifying falsely under oath, and lying in order to provide proof in court can be very risky business. Truth is always the best policy.