Demanding Sex For Legal Services Frowned Upon In Indiana

A lawyer gets smacked with ethical charges for an "alternative fee structure," but it's the cops who come out of this tale looking like creeps.

Alternative fee arrangements are all the rage. But beware in Indiana, because the courts have drawn the line at seeking “sex or fellatio in exchange for providing legal services,” suspending a lawyer for a year, without automatic reinstatement, for propositioning an arrested prostitute in exchange for representation. So much for pro boner legal services.

Seriously though, the described behavior cries out for discipline — and not in the way involving the proposed client. The lawyer, Christopher A. Hollander, worked as a public defender and used the access provided by his position to score the phone number of an unnamed sex worker that he’d previously admired in the classified section. Armed with her phone number, he called her up and offered his services… intending to barter. The exchange never happened because when Hollander met with the prostitute, it turned out to be an undercover cop. Which is good, because it avoided the awkwardness of both parties billing for cab fare home.

Hollander got smacked with 9 Indiana Professional Conduct Rule violations ranging from “attempting to counsel or assist a client in conduct the lawyer knows to be criminal” to “attempting to charge an unreasonable fee,” which really depends on what hookers charge in Indiana, because around here lawyers are charging upwards of $1000/hour, so unless this woman was one of those Ashley Dupré 7-diamond types, the fee sounds like a bargain.

While his rendezvous may never have happened, Hollander still got screwed. I’m not saying lawyers should be demanding sex in exchange for legal services, but the facts recounted in the opinion should get your blood boiling because Hollander got pinched by a bunch of overzealous cops who seemingly substituted “s**ts and giggles” for “probable cause” or “reasonable suspicion.”

On or about November 30, 2012, Respondent sent a text message to H.S.’s cell phone, apparently without realizing that H.S.’s phone was in IMPD’s possession. An officer impersonating H.S. responded to that text as well as several other texts and calls from Respondent during the next several days. In those communications, Respondent indicated he could help H.S. with her situation, falsely stated he had been given information about her from a former client, said he would “work with” H.S. regarding her attorney fees, and set up an appointment to meet her.

Now he’s lying of course, since he really snagged her intel from a police report he came across in the course of his job. But the cops who got the text message don’t know that. All they know is that a lawyer claimed to have learned of an accused woman’s plight from a friend of hers and offered representation. There’s absolutely nothing shady about this text. Even the offer to “work with” the woman regarding fees isn’t inherently suspicious when dealing with a most likely financially strapped client living hand to mouth. So to speak.

With absolutely no reason to suspect anything but the exercise of someone’s constitutional right to counsel, the cops decided to impersonate the alleged prostitute to set up a meeting with the lawyer. You know, because defending accused criminals is suspicious activity.

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On December 4, Respondent met in a hotel room with an undercover IMPD officer impersonating H.S. Respondent attempted to hug and kiss the officer, made statements conveying that he wanted sex in return for his legal services, and began to undress. Respondent then was arrested for patronizing a prostitute. After his arrest, Respondent gave a statement to police admitting that he had used information obtained through his employment as a public defender to attempt to meet H.S. under the pretense of discussing her pending criminal case, and that his intention in doing so was to have sex or fellatio in exchange for providing legal services.

Didn’t he realize it wasn’t the girl from the classified ad?

OK, so the cops were correct that this guy was the defense-side Dan Fielding. That doesn’t excuse the cops wasting time and money setting up a sting operation just to figure out if a defense lawyer had pure intentions. This seems to be the theme for police forces in 2015 America. It’s all about harassing defense lawyers for doing their jobs, buying shiny new military surplus, and testing chokeholds on guys selling cigarettes.

And maybe you can’t blame the cops in Indiana for focusing on soft targets. The state passed a highly publicized law a couple of years ago telling citizens that they could haul off and kill cops with impunity if they “reasonably believe” the police wrongfully entered their property. There are, of course, limits to “reasonably,”[1] but those will get tested after a guy has already been killed. Sure, there are a lot of problems with modern police forces — and overblown paramilitary raids of innocent homes is on the list — but when a state makes responding to a distress call an invitation to armed combat, it only escalates the tension and adds more fuel to the militarization of police. If Indiana has a problem with its police, perhaps introduce some actual accountability for wrongful police conduct before outsourcing the problem to individual homeowners with Glocks.

But in that climate, it’s no wonder they’d decide to run stings on defense lawyers instead of dealing with serious crime. If you live in Indiana, this might be a bad time to torrent BBC shows.

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As for Hollander, maybe it’s time to suggest that f**king prostitutes is a “deeply held religious belief.” It’s no less ridiculous than the actual arguments behind the Indiana RFRA.

(The full opinion from the Indiana Supreme Court suspending Hollander appears on the next page.)



[1] Though the law was passed to overturn an Indiana Supreme Court decision (Barnes v. State) that had upheld a battery conviction for a guy who roughed up cops entering his home to respond to a domestic violence call while the guy’s wife stood there asking for their help, so if that situation gives a guy reasonable cause to resist it’s hard to know where “reasonably” ends. Maybe just at women getting beaten up by their husbands.