What is he supposed to do, endlessly delay and make up shit to fall on the sword for a client that won’t take this seriously?

Yes. Precisely. He was supposed to lie and bluster like Alina Habba, and then suffer for it later and who cares about that part. When you’re a servant of a despotic regime, you’re “supposed to” sacrifice yourself for the cause, because the people who are creating “supposed to” don’t give a shit about you (or about anyone else). That is why it is important to stop caring about “supposed to” as early as possible.

Tim Snyder wrote about this: No Soviet regime could have happened without judges and lawyers “doing their jobs” at the show trials. Once the people making the rules are unequivocally doing evil, you need to re-analyze whether your “following the rules” is justified and if you’re helping create something monstrous.