I must confess that I feel entirely too close to Karinna Moskalenko personally and too involved professionally in the defense of our client, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to objectively comment on what appears to be a horrific mercury poisoning attempt in her car in Strasbourg, France. My subjective opinions on these events, colored as they may be by emotion, nevertheless lead me to believe that we are witnessing the latest chapter in a long established pattern of threats, harassment, intimidation, and now violence against lawyers in Russia. It is this pernicious pattern, and the institutionalized impunity that supports it, which must be unequivocally denounced, confronted, and challenged by every government, NGO, private sector company, and individual who still claims to uphold even the most minimal standard of ethics, morals and decency.