Stupid Lawyer Tricks

What In The World Were These Lawyers Thinking?

Don't copy their mistakes.

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It’s been a while since I’ve asked the rhetorical question (or at least to me it’s rhetorical): What were these lawyers and judges thinking? Dinosaurs will remember (and maybe millennials if they’ve seen it on YouTube) Jay Leno’s interview with British actor Hugh Grant back in 1995 on the Tonight Show. Most millennials (dinosaurs will) won’t remember that Grant was busted for lewd conduct after being caught with a prostitute in a car in Hollywood (where else?). Jay Leno asked him the question that everyone wanted to ask.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrJ2jc6qfz

In a situation of “be careful where you point that thing,” a judge in Pennsylvania is on leave while the state investigates the judge’s shooting of her estranged husband in her house.  The judge has a restraining order against the estranged husband and the issue is whether the shooting was justified.

A former (note the use of the term) United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia was convicted of two counts of aggravated stalking of his former girlfriend. He’s scheduled to be released from prison this summer, but he will have to find another line of work. The Supreme Court of Georgia has disbarred him. Do you think there’s an anger management problem here?

Let’s add law professors to this “what were they thinking?” question. In an unbelievable mash-up of poor taste and downright unpardonable laziness, a law professor’s exam question asked his students to discuss an incident that was not only in the news, but that killed one of their classmates. You don’t think that the professor could have changed some of the facts and rewritten the question in such a way that the obviousness was not so… obvious? No wonder there’s a perception that law professors are more interested in their own work than in preparing their students for the rigors of practice. Perception equals reality and this is a perfect example. Shame on him.

Two Harvard Law School grads are duking it out in contentious litigation.  Didn’t they learn dispute resolution skills while at Harvard? The lawyers have discussed mediation, but perhaps they need some persuasion to get them to talk.

Why can’t judges just keep quiet, rather than saying inappropriate things that only get them in trouble and cause them to lose a retention election? You can’t get in trouble for not talking. This is the perfect situation of where stifling oneself would have been the right thing to do. And thank you, Your Honor, for suggesting a prostitution defendant, a so-called “health risk,” move out of Illinois, possibly to California.

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Meanwhile, in Nashville, more than 200 attorneys have signed a letter calling for an ethics investigation of the Coffee County District Attorney for comments he’s allegedly made, proclaiming that he won’t prosecute domestic violence cases involving same-sex marriages (he believes that there can’t be same-sex marriages and so there’s no domestic in domestic violence) and alleged anti-Muslim comments. Nice to know that someone who is sworn to uphold the law and represent all the people doesn’t think that all of the people deserve to be represented.

An assistant public defender in Southern Illinois was fired because she was not a lawyer. Although she graduated from law school, she failed the bar exam twice. The public defender who hired her never asked for proof of bar passage because that had never been an issue before. It is now. The office’s workload just increased, as it now has to contact all the defendants that she represented. How to explain that snafu?

The last story in this version of “what were they thinking?” hits home because it involves a lawyer I know. I met him soon after he was admitted to the California Bar in 2012.  He was a baby lawyer, who worked with me on a planning subcommittee of a local bar association. I am heartsick at what damage he has brought upon his clients and himself. Named a Southern  California lawyer “Rising Star” for several years, he is now facing up to 20 years (not a typo) in federal prison having pleaded to a $4 million wire fraud charge. The victim of the wire fraud was not his only victim. There were others.

Where and how did he run aground? I could say that I thought he was smart (but apparently too smart for his own good), resourceful (to his clients’ detriment), and a hard worker (he worked hard but apparently not for his clients, who have suffered losses in excess of $4M). He has lost his reputation, he has been disbarred, and he faces substantial prison time. Now it’s all gone to hell and for what? What was he thinking?

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old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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