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Since the horrific events of September 11, I have felt enraged, scared, vengeful, emotionally exhausted. But mostly I have felt helpless. I am just a lawyer, an appellate lawyer at that. All I seem capable of is talking the talk and gnashing my teeth, neither of which seems particularly useful. Yet, as I pondered these feelings over the past weeks, one thought kept running through my mind: Osama bin Laden (or whoever was responsible for the terrorist attacks) must never have read Shakespeare. For if he had been even the least bit familiar with the Bard, his mantra would have been, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

That line, from Henry VI (Part 2, act iv: scene ii), is usually invoked to vilify lawyers. Read in context, however, the statement is perhaps the highest tribute imaginable to those of use who make a living from the law. Shakespeare recognized what bin Laden did not: lawyers are a bulwark against anarchy and tyranny. Most lawyers are dedicated to preserving cherished civil rights. In writing his oft-quoted, oft-misunderstood line, Shakespeare was actually observing that lawyers play a critical role in the preservation of civilized societies. “Killing all the lawyers” is usually a predicate to destroying such societies by ridding them of the very persons who are sworn to preserve the values that make them civilized.

I think bin Laden and his merry band of murderers made a big mistake on September 11. If their deeper goal was to expose Americans to the world as hypocrites – by turning us against Arab-Americans and creating a situation in which our government felt pressured to take away our civil rights in the name of enhanced “security” – they should have aimed for a different target. Instead of flying their hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, they should have set their sights on our state and federal courts and law offices across the country.

Thus, on further reflection, perhaps I should not feel so helpless after all. There may not be much I can do right now in response to the terror of September 11. But I can take solace in the fact that, as a lawyer, I am part of a massive, hopefully impenetrable, line of defense against those who would destroy our way of life.

I write these lines having read dozens of articles over the past weeks, mostly by lawyers, reminding us that we can not win the battle against terrorism by sacrificing our own civil rights, lest we descend to the level of the terrorists. These articles reaffirm my belief that Shakespeare had it exactly right. Yet at the same time, I find something disturbing about them. Why is it that the first thing we lawyers do after more than 6,000 of our fellow citizens and foreign nationals have been murdered is warn of the impending threat to our civil rights? Where is our outrage at the terrorist act itself? Are we so well educated about the dangers to domestic rights inherent in responding to foreign threats that we have lost the capacity to express our moral outrage at the individuals who commit, and governments that sponsor, terrorist acts?

Eli Weisel has said that the greatest enemy of mankind is not hate, but indifference. I fear that in our zeal to prevent our government from sacrificing our civil rights in the fight against terrorism, we may appear indifferent to the magnitude of the wrong that has been committed. I say “appear” because I do not for one minute believe that indifference is read. But the public cannot read our hearts and minds, only our words. Appearances matter. Let’s make sure they reflect what I know we all feel.

This article republished with permission from law.com.