Perhaps it is hard to make anyone too alarmed about the free-speech rights of lawyers -- even when the people you want to alarm are the lawyers on the Supreme Court. A small Minnesota law firm was at the court Tuesday, asking the justices to declare unconstitutional a 2005 federal law that was meant to prevent bankruptcy abuse. One of its provisions forbids lawyers from advising clients to 'incur more debt' if the clients are contemplating filing for bankruptcy. For one thing, the firm's lawyer G. Eric Brunstad Jr. told the justices, that might sometimes be a legitimate thing to do. But more important, he said, the law interferes with the First Amendment and a lawyer's responsibility to give 'unfettered, candid advice.' The law 'proscribes truthful information about entirely lawful activity, it whipsaws the attorneys who are trying to apply it, it creates an impossible situation for them, and it harms the client,' said Brunstad, who is representing protesting lawyers in the Edina, Minn., firm of Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz. To which Justice Antonin Scalia replied: So? 'That's why it's a stupid law,' Scalia said. But before Brunstad could make another point, he added: 'Now, where is the prohibition of stupid laws in the Constitution?' As Justice John Paul Stevens reminded, the court tries to avoid constitutional questions about Congress's actions when there are other ways to judge a statute. So the justices peppered Brunstad with questions and hypotheticals, although some seemed more devil's-advocate than hostile. Perhaps the law only reinforces rules prohibiting lawyers from giving their clients unethical advice, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. 'What in the First Amendment would otherwise give you that right?' she asked Brunstad. Brunstad said Congress didn't have First Amendment concerns in mind when it passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 2005, but lawyers Robert Milavetz and Barbara Nevin challenged the law right away. The heart of their four-year legal battle has been over the 'incur more debt' provision. They argue that there are times when those in dire financial situations should take on more debt -- to refinance a mortgage for a lower interest rate, for instance, or to buy a car necessary for work. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit agreed that the provision violates the First Amendment. But government lawyers defending the law said the restriction should be read as applying only when the lawyer and client are conspiring to abuse the bankruptcy system by running up large debts in hopes that they will never have to be fully repaid. The government says the statute's phrase 'in contemplation of bankruptcy' is a term of art that denotes 'an action taken with intent to abuse the protections of bankruptcy laws.' Assistant Solicitor General William Jay said the intent was not to prohibit lawful advice but to protect clients from 'improper, unethical, abusive or even ... criminally fraudulent advice by the attorney.' Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was Jay's chief antagonist. He walked him through an extended hypothetical about a client thinking of bankruptcy while also contemplating a trip to Tahiti. A lawyer might have trouble advising whether such spending would be proper, Roberts said, without risking that something he said could be interpreted as guidance on how to abuse the system. 'A lawyer sort of has to stop and think at every turn: Well, could this be construed as recommending abuse, or is this just construed as telling clients what they can and can't do?' Roberts said. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wondered if the law would prohibit a lawyer from advising a client facing bankruptcy that she could incur more debt to pay for medical care for a life-threatening situation. Jay said the lawyer could advise the woman to incur the debt, if her intent was not to abuse the system or defraud creditors. But Brunstad disagreed. 'The lawyer would be prohibited from advising her to incur debt to get needed medical attention, and the government, in trying to articulate a way around that during the course of the argument, articulated no less than five different standards,' Brunstad said. None of them are in the statute, he added. 