I think her point was that most of them manage, at some point, to say or do something controversial. You kind of have to be trying not to be controversial.
It sounds reasonable to me. Maybe I'm just naturally controversial.
OK, there are 500k +/- people in DC itself, plus another 1.5-2 million in N. VA and the DC suburbs of Maryland. MOST of those people have some connection to the government - and of them, somewhere between 100k and 200k are lawyers. Think about that for a second. Thats a fricken ton of lawyers running around DC.
On top of that, most of those lawyers are here doing serious policy work. The average DC lawyer isn't a slip and fall Johnnie Cochran criminal defense attorney - we tend to be highly specialized and compartmentalized and very serious. While some are lobbyists, only a few are media whores.
I'd say, in any given year, there really are no more than 1000 lawyers total who appear on TV, and most of those "talking heads" you see are not really practicing lawyers, but either media whore lobbyists or "spokespeople" for one group or another.
For the most part, going on TV does squat for your legal practice here - and in fact, in most cases hurts your client tremendously. If you have a corporate practice, like Roberts had, your clients for the most part don't want the public to know about their problems. Large companies like to keep things quiet, hence their lawyers keep their mouths shut. In addition, Roberts is an appellate litigator. He's not a trial attorney, but rather a very serious lawyer arguing high (and for most people, boring) technical points of law. Not really ready made for TV stuff, and fighting your battles out in the press is pretty much looked down upon amongst the appellate bar (abortion accepted, but then, those folks don't have real practices here). The impact to his clients from his going to the press (in the form of backlash from the bar) might even amount to malpractice. So, the real question rather is why would he go to the media.
Now, prior to his 10 years in private practice, he was a government lawyer. Again, they aren't big on talking to the media, especially if your not lead counsel (or in his case - Solicitor General). Most of that goes through the press office. As a judge, he is pretty much off limits to the press too. Nothing to gain, and unless he wants to recuse himself from all manner of cases, no media appearances.
FWIW - I have been here almost 8 years now, 6 in private law practice and 2 as a policy expert for a very public institution. While I've been quoted a couple of times in the trade press as a lawyer, mostly picking up points I made at oral argument, but also one interview I gave when we were trying to get relief in Congress (since the courts weren't helping - that was bad of me, but the senior partner ordered me to do it) I haven't been in the press. If I wanted, in my current position*, I could probably have my name in any of the major national newspapers multiple times a week. As it is, I get 5-10 press calls a day. I turn 100% of them down.
Why? Cause I get nothing from it. Whatever I say on behalf of my clients will be twisted by a press biased against our side. part of this is bias, part of it is I deal with complex ideas not easily conveyed in 5 second soundbites. If you have to read multiple 100 page reports to even get a basic understanding of the problem, do you think a reporter is gonna have the time to learn the issue failry and report on it adequatly? No, some in the trade press do, but no MSM do. Plus, even if it was reported accuratly, it wouldn't get us any of the relief we sought, and the backlash from the people we advocate too would be tremendous as they were caught up in it (they spend enough hiring PR firms to do the press manipulation thing, they don't hire me for that). Finally, the press doesn't pay me. Why would I go on their shows and in their papers, enabling them to get ratings and create controversy at the cost of my reputation and my clients ability to succeed.
The answer is, I won't, and Roberts wouldn't either.
Ann Coulter though is a media whore - nothing wrong with that (I whore on behalf of my clients) but remember she has only her demented perspective that the people in her circle are the only people that count. She is part of the larger nepotism and self importance that infects everyone in the media (heck, just read Howard Kurtz's column any day for an example)
*Don't waste your time trying to figure out who I am. Really, I am no one important, or anyone whose name you would know. I do what I do, and in the small community that i work in, people know who I am. You wouldn't know me (though a couple of people here do) - like most people in Washington, I am not famous - just a policy geek dealing with boring technical and arcane legal points who has horrid typing skills. And for what its worth, I am nowhere near as smart as Roberts nor have I ever made anything close to the $1million a year he pulled down at Hogan Hartson (though I almost took a job there once - thankful I didn't)
