There are potentially many offences that journalists could commit in the course of their business. It would be very unhealthy if you had a situation where a journalist felt that they needed to go to their lawyer before they pursued any lead or asked any question.
Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.
I grew up on a ranch in Walla Walla, Washington. Except for one lawyer, I don't remember anyone in my family being anything else but ranchers.
My background is not typical of a lawyer or a DPP. My dad was a toolmaker before he retired, so he worked in a factory all his life.
Dave Foley and I have been friends for a very long time. We both actually have the same lawyer in Toronto.
You will find this hard to believe, but I've never laughed as much as I did when I was a corporate lawyer. When you're working 16 hours a day for months at a time, you get punchy. Everything and everyone seems hilarious.
In any profession, whether it's teachers or doctors or lawyers, the more we say we're not going to evaluate those people on the merits, I think that's when the profession goes into decline.
I was more interested in journalism and fact-finding than other things, so I didn't plan to work 30 years as a lawyer.
A lawyer wants to get his client off the hook. And even if he knows the client is guilty, he is going to find ways and means of getting him off the hook.
I have to say that every white-collar criminal defense lawyer knows when the chief financial officer turns state's evidence, everyone in the executive suite is in a lot of trouble because the chief financial officer knows exactly where the money is coming and going.
I was a lawyer for 10 years, and when you're in law, things really have to get done, or somebody sues you. It's a great trick.
I'll tell you who I really like - the lawyer Imran Khan. I did my dissertation on stop-and-search powers, and I put in loads of quotes from him. Years later, when I was selling insurance over in Harley Street, he rang up and asked for insurance. He told me his name, and I asked him if he was the lawyer, and he said yes.
Basically, I come to Washington a couple of times a year, sort of on a strictly business basis: talk to my counterparts at the Federal Trade Commission, of the DOJ, give an occasional talk, very often in a lawyer or academic environment.
Everybody has a right to be defended, and every lawyer has a duty to defend people accused. And my office is to defend him, to discuss the accusation point by point, as I think this is a normal step in a democracy.
That image of a lawyer standing up in a criminal case and doing the right thing always stuck with me. I love the idea of building cases and really going after bad guys.
You can get a lawyer with two months off or a New York socialite who wants to play at being Lewis and Clark and put them up there, but Everest is still in charge; it can still kick butt.