SBM Blog

Multi-State Bar Admissions: You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

Legal Profession Blog reports on a case of a lawyer moving from one state to another in pursuit of bar admission but failing to make required disclosures in both jurisdictions. The Massachusetts Supreme Court suspended him for 6 months for falsely stated that he had never been charged with a felony ; he also failed to disclose drunk driving charges that occurred while his application for admission was pending. He then applied for admission in Illinois, where he denied that he had defaulted on student loans and evaded disclosing whether he had been charged with offenses against the law. He ultimately reported his disclosure lapses to Massachusetts at the urging of Illinois Bar authorities.

Difficulty caused by evasions in admissions applications evokes this passage from William Faulkner's The Reivers:

“I lied," I said. ...
"I know it," he said.
"Then do something about it. Do anything, just so it's something."
"I cant," he said.
"There aint anything to do? Not anything?"
"I didn't say that," Grandfather said. "I said I couldn't. You can."
"What?" I said. "How can I forget it? Tell me how to."
"You cant," he said. "Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever lost. It's too valuable."
"Then what can I do?"
"Live with it," Grandfather said.
"Live with it? You mean, forever? For the rest of my life? Not ever to get rid of it? Never? I cant. Dont you see that I cant?"
"Yes you can," he said. "You will. A gentleman always does. A gentleman can live through anything. He faces anything. A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he did not himself instigate them but only acquiesced to them, didn't say No though he knew he should.”

Imprisoned But Innocent -- What Are Society's Obligations?

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy (at its new home at the Washington Post) writes about the moral responsibility of government to compensate people who are wrongfully incarcerated, with reference to this piece in the Chicago Tribune about two exonerated men in Illinois:

The case for adequate compensation is particularly strong in cases where innocent people were imprisoned because of misconduct by law enforcement officials. In one of the cases described in the Chicago Tribune article, officials apparently went ahead with a prosecution for murder despite the fact that police records indicated that defendant was actually in police custody at the time the crime was committed. If this is true, it is a serious case of official misconduct.

But compensation is also morally required even in cases where innocent people were convicted and punished despite the fact that officials acted in good faith. Some number of innocent people will be convicted in even the best possible criminal justice system. Even the most ethical and competent police, prosecutors, judges, and juries will occasionally make unavoidable errors. When such mistakes are discovered, it is unjust to force wrongly imprisoned innocents to bear the full cost of the error. If these mistakes are unavoidable byproducts of a justice system intended to benefit all of society, then their costs should be paid by society as a whole rather than arbitrarily imposed on a few unlucky individuals.

For the State Bar's position on legislation to compensate wrongful imprisonment, click here.

On Second Chances And Admission To The Bar

True story -- Stephen Glass, whose fabrications as a journalist were so extensive and notorious that they were the basis of the movie Shattered Glass, is news again. A graduate of Georgetown Law School, Glass was denied admission by the California State Bar, and appealed to the California Supreme Court, which upheld the denial today. In a unanimous opinion the court called "reprehensible" the fact that Glass's misconduct took place while he was pursuing a law degree and license to practice law, when the importance of honesty should have gained new meaning and significance for him. And they refused to credit Glass's pro bono work as a supervised law clerk:

Glass points to the pro bono legal work he does for clients of his firm as evidence of sustained efforts on behalf of the community, but we observe that pro bono work is not truly exemplary for attorneys, but rather is expected of them.

Non-lawyer Slate editor Plotz, struck by the opinion's "anxious snobbishness," calls it cruel and misguided:

For 10 years, Stephen Glass has been performing virtually all the work of a lawyer for a law firm in California. He is noted for his attention to detail, his care for clients, and his honesty. Exactly how much longer would he need to work in this dedicated way for the justices to forgive? One more year? Five? Ten? How’s never? In the Bible, Jacob served 14 years: Would that be enough?

A comment to Andrew Sullivan's Dish post on the rejection defends the decision:

I’m a lawyer, and I take my obligations – imposed by a rigorous code of ethics put in place by the state – very seriously. That code of ethics is designed to protect clients, who trust in their lawyer, and David Plotz’s “buyer beware” view is antithetical to that. (I also am required to make payments into a fund used to reimburse clients who are cheated by their attorneys, and I don’t think we need to add a known sociopathic liar into that pool.) While I agree that Mr. Glass deserves a second chance at a career, I don’t think that a career in a highly regulated profession that is governed by a strict code of ethics is the right place for a known liar who has already blown through one professional code. The right second chance for a money launderer isn’t working at a bank; the right second chance for a rapist isn’t as a guard in a women’s prison; and the right second chance for liar isn’t in a position of trust.

Ethical Issue Michigan Supreme Court May Never Face, Unfortunately

The Colorado Supreme Court has festooned the columns of its judicial center with gigantic Albert-Speerish orange and blue Go Broncos banners. From the Denver Post's "Colorado Supreme Court risks bias charge with $3,200 Broncos banners":

Judges aren't just any fans and should be hyperaware of appearing unbiased, said William Brunson, director of special projects at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev. He said the banners could create a conflict of interest if a case involving the Broncos corporation, or an individual player, ever appeared before the state's high court.

But a business and legal ethics professor at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business disagreed. He told the Denver Post that there is a gray area between a government agency endorsing the Broncos as a business, or cheering on the team and that he couldn't imagine the court changing its positions as a result of supporting the Broncos for the Super Bowl.

Photo: Michigan Hall of Justice by Phillip Hofmeister, Wikimedia Commons

Ethics And Avvo

UC Hastings legal ethics prof Richard Zitrin registers at the commercial lawyer search site Avvo and then ponders the ethical implications of interacting with the site in managing his profile. An excerpt from his piece at The Recorder:

Here's my concern: If an attorney "accepts" his or her profile, even if the lawyer must do so to correct published errors, that acceptance implies that the information in that profile may be relied on by the public as accurate. The problem comes not with the initial profile; that's easy enough to fix. But what about subsequent endorsements from other lawyers or former clients? Accepting the profile seems like a form of advertising, albeit passive without doing more, such as signing up for "Avvo Pro," answering proffered questions, or soliciting client comments. And what if a client wants to endorse you?

When Making $375K A Year Doesn't Cut It

The New York Times takes its readers inside the economic life of law firm partnership in "A Lawyer and Partner, and Also Bankrupt," describing the distress of a mergers and acquisitions partner in a prestigious global law firm in New York City. Indiana University law professor William Henderson offered this explanation:

For the last 40 years, all firms had to do was answer the phone from clients and lease more office space. That run is over. The forest has been depleted, as we say, and firms are competing for market share. Law firms are in a period of consolidation and, initially, it’s going to take place at the service partner level. There’s too much capacity.

In Praise of Ambulance-Chasing Prohibitions and Ethics Rules

There are no lawyers in this story, but the New Yorker blog post "A Death In the Database" dramatically illustrates the horror of incident-based marketing in the digital age. It reminded me of how important our ethics rules are. They make an enforceable promise to the public about our behavior that is based on caring about people.

Michigan Innocence Project Arson Exoneration

A 39-year old Northern Michigan man who spent four years in prison on an arson conviction was exonerated this week as a result of work of the Michigan Innocence Project. Cadillac News has the story.

Governor Appoints David Perkins To 36th District Court

Gov. Snyder has appointed David Perkins to the 36th district court seat vacated by Judge Paula Humphries. Perkins, a former commissioner of the State Bar, has served as court referee for the 3rd Circuit Court’s Family Division, presiding over neglect and delinquency juvenile cases. He is a member and past-president of the Association of Black Judges of Michigan and the D. Augustus Straker Bar Association, and a board member of the Wolverine Bar Association. Perkins is a graduate of Howard University School of Law.

Legislation Introduced To Make The State Bar Voluntary

Here's the bill: SB 743. The sponsor, Sen. Arlan Meekhof, told reporters that the State Bar had become “more of a political organization." News stories such as this drew a connection between the bill and the State Bar's position calling for greater transparency in judicial campaign issue ad funding. This post will be updated.