If you are a criminal lawyer who is providing defense, that is acceptable because everyone is entitled to to a fair trial and defense.
If you are a criminal lawyer who is directly abetting in criminal behavior (eg. a Saul Goodman type) you absolutely will lose your Bar License and open yourself up to criminal penalties.
If you are a criminal lawyer who is in a situation where your client wants you to abet their criminal behavior, then you are expected to drop the client and potentially notify law enforcement.
> If you are a criminal lawyer who is directly abetting in criminal behavior
Not a lawyer myself but I believe this is not a correct representation of the issue.
A lawyer abetting in criminal behaviour is committing a crime, but the crime is not offering his services to criminals, which is completely legal.
When offering their services to criminals law firm or individual lawyers in most cases are not required to report crimes they have been made aware of under the attorney-client privilege and are not required to ask to minimize bad actors from using their services.
In short: unless they are committing crimes themselves, criminal lawyers are not required to stay clear from criminals, actually, usually the opposite is true.
Are you talking about Brian Steel? He was held in contempt because he refused to name his source that informed him of some misconduct by the judge (ex parte communication with a witness). That's hardly relevant here, the client wasn't involved at all as far as anyone knows.
If you are a criminal lawyer who is directly abetting in criminal behavior (eg. a Saul Goodman type) you absolutely will lose your Bar License and open yourself up to criminal penalties.
If you are a criminal lawyer who is in a situation where your client wants you to abet their criminal behavior, then you are expected to drop the client and potentially notify law enforcement.