#782 Wähle deine Feinde gut: Have a Good Enemies’ List (Letters to a Young Lawyer 5)

·24 min·2 clips

A young lawyer is told to keep a 'good enemies' list—what does that mean for criminal defense?

1. 'Auf dem Weg als Anwält:in' episode #782 examines whether criminal defense lawyers should maintain a deliberate list of professional adversaries, drawing on 'Letters to a Young Lawyer,' chapter 3, letter 3. 2. The two hosts are practicing Swiss criminal defense attorneys; Duri Bonin is identified by name as one participant and runs the podcast at www.duribonin.ch. 3. The episode's thesis is that having the right enemies — not just the right friends — is a marker of professional integrity and inner independence for a lawyer. 4. The discussion opens with a detailed anecdote: early in one host's career at the Zurich State Prosecutor's Office, an old-fashioned prosecutor presented a pre-written reception protocol with questions and answers already prepared, expecting the defense attorney to simply sign it. 5. The attorney refused to sign the pre-written protocol because it conflicted with the client's defense strategy, and at the next case at the same office a different prosecutor urgently warned him he had landed on that prosecutor's blacklist. 6. The hosts reflect that the blacklist incident was only possible because the old prosecutor had been allowed to behave that way for roughly 30 years without colleagues or adversaries pushing back. 7. One host argues that Swiss criminal defenders routinely fail to resist the practice of separating co-defendant procedures without proper notice in Zurich Canton, noting that the law is unambiguous but the violation continues 'so secretly' that attorneys must track separate procedure numbers like a booklet. 8. The Trump tariff analogy is introduced: just as each country individually accepts 15% tariffs rather than collectively resisting the threatened 30%, Swiss defense attorneys fight as isolated 'single fighters' rather than as a coordinated bar. 9. The hosts discuss how procedural rights — such as participation rights — are not automatically defended but must be actively fought for; passivity allows the system to keep running in the wrong direction. 10. One host argues that a defense attorney who focuses on being liked by state prosecutors risks compromising client interests, especially as membership in establishment clubs and associations increases one's 'fall height' when taking unpopular positions. 11. The chapter's claim that 'the whole world is full of bad people and it is important to stand up against the bad' is complicated by the hosts, who note that from a defense attorney's perspective the 'bad' is not necessarily the accused client but institutional abuses of state power. 12. One host makes the point that if the state commits a procedural wrong — a data protection ordinance violation, for example — while pursuing a criminal case, it 'potentiates the evil' by embedding an injustice inside the attempt to address another injustice. 13. The hosts agree that professional hardness in a case must be strictly separated from interpersonal relationships: 'The less we have the same opinion, the more important the beer is.' 14. One host distinguishes a good criminal defender as someone 'not everyone likes, but one who stands up for his values and for the clientele, even if the recognition of the profession suffers from it.' 15. The conversation turns to the psychological danger of self-definition through opposition: if a lawyer only stabilizes their identity by being against something, they 'need the opponent for self-worth,' which one host labels narcissistic and comparable to class-struggle thinking. 16. The warning is that pure adversarial identity prevents flexibility — a lawyer locked into always opposing the state cannot, when appropriate, make a deal with the prosecutor on one case while fighting hard on the next. 17. Tone is conversational and collegial, with two practitioners who clearly know each other well, trading case stories and philosophical disagreements without resolution. 18. The format is a two-person dialogue reading and debating a short book chapter together, neither host taking an entirely consistent position. 19. Lawyers, law students, and anyone interested in legal ethics and professional identity in the Swiss criminal justice system would find this episode directly relevant. 20. Listeners expecting a practical how-to guide on courtroom tactics or case law will find the episode too abstract and conversational to be immediately useful.

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