Dean Hutson is in Washington, D.C. today as an invited panelist at the hearings on the nomination of Judge Michael B. Mukasey to be the next Attorney General of the United States. The dean is in rare company as one of just six invited panelists, including former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. 

He provided us with a copy of his written testimony, in which he says,

Law isn’t practiced in a vacuum, it is practiced in real life and while good lawyers know the law, great lawyers know about life. That’s a quality we need in our next Attorney General. The job description should call for a wise counselor, not just a clever lawyer.

...

The next Attorney General must be capable of recognizing a legal problem, step back from it and analyze it in the context of real life and understand the non-legal consequences of his advice. One might think, “What a clever lawyer. He defined “torture” so narrowly and the defenses to torture so broadly that we can never be found guilty. He has done a great service to the Nation.” One would be dead wrong. We have seen the consequences of that sort of twisted legal analysis and we must never repeat it.

You can read Dean Hutson's complete prepared testimony on our web site, and tune in to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing through the live web cast available on its web site. We expect Dean Hutson's testimony will occur this afternoon.