Attorney Misconduct

Benchslap of the Day: Rude, Crude, and a Bad Attitude

If you're rude and crude with a bad attitude, you can wind up in some serious trouble with the state ethics panel....

By Staci Zaretsky on May 15, 2012 3:13 pm

Respondent brandishes his opinion as a battering ram, intentionally offending people. This Panel does not believe these are “slips of the tongue” or inadvertant. Respondent is intentional in his conduct and bull whips people by his words with a zeal. While in private life he may be as rude, offensive and demeaning as he chooses, in his professional life he may not hide behind his First Amendment rights to ignore his sworn responsibilities.

— Presiding Disciplinary Judge William J. O’Neil of the Arizona Supreme Court, in a recent ethics opinion concluding that attorney Meyer L. Ziman should be suspended for one year’s time, with reinstatement on probation.

(So what did Ziman allegedly do that was bad enough to warrant his suspension? Let’s find out, after the jump.)

As explained by Mike Frisch of the Legal Profession Blog, Ziman was allegedly involved in several incidents involving “communications by telephone with medical records providers,” the first of which went a little something like this (according to Judge O’Neil’s ethics opinion):

Ziman insisted that he called her a “slug,” but Hudson noted that she had “never had a problem in distinguishing words ending in ‘t’ or ‘g.'” (Most women can easily discern whether they’ve been called a “slut.”)

But this was not the worst of Ziman’s alleged misbehavior. Let’s get him a towel:

Hey, Ziman, we’ve got a suggestion for how you can spend your time while on suspension: invest in some Viagra. You’ll be coming all over yourself in no time.

In re Meyer L. Ziman: Report and Order Imposing Sanctions [Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge of the Supreme Court of Arizona]
The Battering Ram [Legal Profession Blog]