Lawyer’s Refusal of Male Client

Alan Dershowitz is correct when he charges that the divorce lawyer who turned down a potential male client just because of his sex was a sexist and otherwise morally reprobate (Commentary, Feb. 9). The law would, however, be doing a disservice to that potential client if it were to require an attorney, no matter how skilled, to represent him where such representation was anathema to her.

Requiring an unwilling attorney to serve is not the same as requiring an unwilling restaurateur to serve cheeseburgers to a segment of the population the restaurateur would otherwise be unwilling to serve. If the cheeseburger is overcooked, you send it back. But if the lawyer who is pressed into service on behalf of a client with whom that lawyer has either an ideological or pathological problem works at less than full capacity, there is not much you can do. Mediocrity is not the same as malpractice. There are only so many ways you can burn a cheeseburger. There are many ways to burn a client, many of which do not necessarily involve actionable malpractice.

Absent a shortage of skilled lawyers who are not bigoted or sexists, the state of affairs that Dershowitz rightfully decries should just remain one of those nettlesome problems we’ll have to live with.

LES ZADOR, Attorney

Los Angeles