American lawyers are engaged in a profession that, in even its most private applications, is always an intrinsically public calling. That is not an aspiration but a fact intrinsic to a lawyer’s role in delivering the rule of law to people in the United States, where the social contract uniquely depends upon it. This inherent public character of private law practice in our country informs any realistic and worthwhile understanding of what the profession is and demands of its practitioners. Among the characteristics necessary to this understanding is independence. American lawyers have been fortunate to be free of governmental interference with their ability to practice law as their ability and judgment dictate. But increasing and varied pressures have made it harder in modern times to exercise the independence from client pressures that professionalism requires. While some have argued that lawyers’ loyalty to their clients is trumped by their conscientious duty to the public interest, this is an unrealistic and theoretically unsound approach to the independence issue. Loyalty to a client, and the lawyer’s role as private “law-giver” require the lawyer to speak truth to the client. Recent developments in the law, the “salience effect” of notorious recent events, coupled with demographic changes in the profession itself are providing both the means and the opportunity to reinforce, and, where necessary, reclaim this aspect of lawyer independence, and thus offer a hope for reinvigorating lawyer professionalism and morale.