PR on PR

Every time I watch, listen or read about another press conference of former Pussy Riot lawyers, and they now appear on screens no less often than our national leader, I am overcome by a feeling of deep disgust, mixed with a feeling of the unreality of what is happening. What are we talking about? About the fact that hitherto unknown comrades accidentally (or not accidentally?) squandered the most high-profile political case of recent times, and now they want to look like heroes and dissidents on a global scale?!

I was at several court hearings and even then I was unpleasantly surprised that every break the defenders quickly jumped out into the street to show off in front of the cameras, although they had absolutely nothing to say. Now the girls are in prison, the free advertising time is over, but the show of the lawyer trio goes on and on. Fantastic!

"Unfortunately, most of Samutsevich's claims are untrue." This is a quote from the last, I don’t know how long, meeting they had with journalists. And the minority of these very claims - does it correspond or what? And the point is not even whether the lawyers wanted to register the “Pussy Riot” trademark arbitrarily or not, whether they hid passports and papers from the ECHR or not (although all this smells bad). The fact is that, in principle, there can be no public showdowns between lawyers and clients under any circumstances.

Roman law also came up with such a thing as attorney-client privilege, which is stronger than the secret of confession, which, however, did not exist then. Without this very lawyer's secret, the very existence of the institution of the legal profession is simply meaningless, without it, the lawyer turns into an informer, into a "mother hen", etc. What kind of trust can a client have in a "defender", who at any moment can pull out all his secrets, as culturedly as possible? as lawyer Polozov puts it, “to the public”? Yes, none! That's it, the legal profession is over, citizens are going home! Can you imagine defense attorneys publicly complaining about, say, Al Capone! Although, of course, it’s easier with skinny girls.

One can argue whether a lawyer should hide information about an impending crime or something like that, the question is debatable, but out of exorbitant pride he should bring out his childhood grievances!.. What an abomination!

And the worst thing is that these complainers, forging one conference after another, found listeners and even sympathizers, otherwise where would such unhealthy interest come from? This is pure pathology - the defendants are sitting behind bars, and their lawyers are free and throwing mud at them almost every day! They are also threatening to write a book. This is similar to the most disgusting divorce proceedings, with the only difference that only a sense of decency prohibits the ex-husband from sharing piquant details about his wife, and the law also prohibits watering former clients.

And I always believed that a lawyer is a conversational profession. But here the second alarm system is just a disaster. Well, Volkova, in her prosecutorial skills, still speaks smartly, at times even too much, but the young people are just a disaster. Poor provincial speech, poverty of thought. Of course, for people laying asphalt or working with breaking tools, it would be fine, but in such a noticeable process I would like to see something uh... more intelligent.

Not to mention the fact that a good lawyer would benefit from at least some charisma, as well as a sense of self-esteem and even some lordliness. I remember in the 90s I participated in several trials with Lyubarskaya, a student of the famous Whatman. It was a song, a legal symphony! She put a boor and a fool in their place simply with a glance, and therefore even the most severe judges were afraid to talk any nonsense in her presence.

Alas, live broadcasting, for all its public benefits, cannot replace the knowledge and authority of a lawyer, but, alas, I never saw this. However, it seems that our heroes promised to remain silent and not appear on screens with their grievances anymore. It would be good, and even better, to never see them again, but here I doubt something.

On the other hand, Russian history has seen worse examples. When, for example, lawyers for enemies of the people demanded the highest measure of proletarian contempt for their clients. So the girls are still very lucky.