Posts tagged as:

legal discipline

Judge Zilly’s sanctions order against Cyrus Sanai; Kozinski recuses himself

by Ted Frank on June 15, 2008

The furor over the Kozinski web site pseudo-scandal over what Wonkette calls “the sort of naughtiness you’d find in the dirty birthday cards section at Spencer Gifts” has caused Judge Alex Kozinski to recuse himself from the obscenity trial, resulting in a mistrial. Kozinski is known for his ethical rectitude, which is perhaps why he did so, but one wishes that he didn’t permit the appalling LA Times coverage to create a perception of a perception of a bias, much less agree that that provides grounds for recusal. But with some implausibly calling for his resignation, discretion is perhaps the better part of valor. Still, as Jesse Walker notes, “There has been no shortage of free-speech trials in which the presiding judges had a moral objection to essentially innocuous material. I don’t see any reason why such a case shouldn’t be heard by a jurist with a history of tolerance.” And one wishes that the conservatives calling for Kozinski’s resignation would use that powder for Ninth Circuit judges who act ultra vires rather than for the jokes judges share in their own time.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: , , , , ,

{ 33 comments }

Operation “Staged Impact”

by Walter Olson on June 14, 2008

The FBI undercover crash-fraud investigation netted 35 defendants, including 31 patients faking injury supposedly arising from car crashes and three “runners”. It also caught lawyer Jordan Luber (Luber & Cataldi) of Philadelphia. Per the Philadelphia Business Journal:

The sting included a fake chiropractic clinic the FBI set up in Northeast Philadelphia called Injury Associates. Instead of providing care it generated paperwork to make it appear patients received treatment so they could file fake claims.

According to prosecutors: Two agents posing as cleaning women told Luber they went to Injury Associates and wanted to pursue claims. They admitted on audio and video recordings to Luber that they had not received any treatment and had created fake medical records. Luber still pursued the claims, telling an insurer they were in an accident and received treatment. He negotiated a settlement of $7,500 each.

Luber, who is reported to have kept $6,000 of the $15,000 or 40% as his fee, drew a sentence of two months plus a year of supervised release and 100 hours of community service. He is “also prohibited from practicing law for a year.” The Philadelphia Daily News account says he’s surrendered his license, although the only report I could find online is of a suspension (PDF). So it sounds as if, assuming equal luck in any bar disciplinary process, he might reapply for the license and be back practicing law before too long. Won’t that bolster confidence in our court system? (IFA Webnews via P&S weekly roundup).

Tagged as: , ,

{ 2 comments }

Florida Bar recommends disbarment for Jack Thompson

by Ted Frank on June 5, 2008

Overlawyered will have a little less to write about when the Florida Supreme Court implements the recommendation from the Florida Bar. The Daily Business Review (via Above the Law) has full coverage, including audio of the hearing; in the comments to the DBR story, Thompson is once again promising law enforcement will come to his rescue. Jack Thompson, of course, was a regular subject of Overlawyered coverage; click on the tag to remember his greatest hits.

Tagged as: ,

{ 5 comments }

Montgomery Blair Sibley suspended

by Ted Frank on May 15, 2008

We’ve had a lot of Montgomery Blair Sibley coverage over the years:

And we didn’t even mention his work representing Larry Sinclair (the fellow who unsuccessfully sued Barack Obama for denying Sinclair’s implausible claim that he had engaged in a homosexual tryst with him) in a lawsuit against three anonymous bloggers. (DBKP blog, Mar. 14.)

After years of over-the-top abusive litigation, the state bar finally took action, and he has been suspended by the Florida bar for three years. No doubt, this will result in a new round of frivolous pro se collateral litigation. It took a contempt-of-court citation for failure to pay child support before the Florida bar took action, so this can hardly be considered a rousing success of the bar in policing its own, even for someone as over-the-top as Sibley. (Florida Bar v. Sibley; ABA Journal, Apr. 25; MPGS blog, May 14; h/t S.G.).

Update: Two commenters (who never appeared on Overlawyered before) implausibly defend Sibley, both posting from BellSouth accounts in Atlanta, GA. Nothing about a divorce requires one to sue seven Supreme Court justices for “judicial treason” for denying a (frivolous) certiorari petition from a frivolous lawsuit. He should have been disbarred a long time ago; that he is only being suspended, and then only because of failure to obey court orders, is appalling. He’s been a hazard to his clients and to taxpayers; so, no, I don’t think he’s a “damn good lawyer.”

Update, May 16, 2:45 AM: We originally repeated a second-hand report sent to us that Sibley had also been suspended in DC as part of reciprocal discipline. It is possible that our correspondent confused a Rule 8.1 report, made by the DC Bar counsel recommending reciprocal suspension, with an actual suspension. If a Rule 8.1 report was filed, Sibley is entitled to file a response; no oral argument is scheduled at this time (though none is required to be scheduled) and no DC Board on Professional Responsibility report is listed as having issued with respect to Sibley. Rule 8.4 of the DC Board on Professional Responsibility Rules of Procedure is titled “Conclusive Effect of Adjudication in Other Jurisdiction,” which would appear to give Sibley nothing to argue in DC, and would likely make discipline inevitable, but the District of Columbia, in its typical competence, has posted the wrong text for 8.4 on its website, so I cannot say that for certain. Montgomery Sibley is, as of May 16, still listed on the DC Bar’s website as a member in good standing. If the error is ours, rather than that of the DC Bar website, we regret the error. Without written confirmation of the suspension, we retract the original statement that the DC Bar has suspended Sibley in response to the Florida bar’s three-year suspension of Sibley.

Update, May 20: We were right the first time.

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

{ 11 comments }

Update: Panel recommends penalty for Boston judge over settlement demands

by Walter Olson on April 6, 2008

“The Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended a $25,000 fine, a 30-day suspension without pay and a public censure for state court Judge Ernest B. Murphy for sending improper letters to Boston Herald publisher Patrick J. Purcell that demanded settlement of Murphy’s libel lawsuit against the newspaper.” (Sheri Qualters, “Suspension, Fine Recommended for Boston Judge Who Sent Improper Letters to Newspaper”, National Law Journal, Apr. 2). For more on Judge Murphy’s “fascinatingly repellent” letters and their “‘Surrender, Dorothy’ flavor”, see Dec. 23 and Dec. 8, 2005.

Tagged as: , ,

{ 2 comments }

Disbar Dickie Scruggs?

by Walter Olson on April 2, 2008

Not so fast, he says — the Mississippi Bar didn’t file a “certified copy” of his guilty plea. (Patsy R. Brumfield, “Dickie Scruggs files to dismiss attempt to have him disbarred”, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Apr. 1).

David Rossmiller has ten unanswered questions about loose ends in the Scruggs scandal (Mar. 24) which elicit responses in turn (and more unanswered questions) from NMC and Lotus at Folo (plus an NMC update). These latter bloggers, by the way, have shed their anonymity and stand revealed as Oxford, Miss. lawyer Tom Freeland (NMC) and retired lawyer Jan Goodrich, now of New Smyrna Beach, Fla. (Lotus), now also joined by Jane Tucker.

Is it okay for the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) to take Scruggs’s money? “It depends on what the felony is…” Chancellor Robert Khayat is quoted as saying (Folo/NMC, Apr. 1; more). Gulfport M.D. Bill Hemeter, in a letter to the editor printed in the Biloxi Sun-Herald (Mar. 19), is claiming prescience: “I sent Chancellor Khayat the book ‘The Rule of Lawyers’ by Walter Olson several years ago, with a warning not to take money from plaintiff attorneys.” Earlier, when Scruggs pled guilty, another university official was heard from:

“My initial reaction is one of sadness,” said Samuel Davis, dean of the University of Mississippi Law School, Scruggs’ alma mater. “I’ve known and been friends with Dick and Diane Scruggs almost 50 years now going back to our days in Pascagoula, and I feel a great sense of compassion for him and his family. And that’s just a very personal reaction. I haven’t really thought about the implications for the legal community or the legal profession.”

Davis, who also directs the Ole Miss Law Center, said not everybody who pleads guilty is guilty and that Scruggs might have had other reasons for the move. If that were the case, Davis said, the reasons likely were good ones.

(emphasis added by an understandably astonished Lotus @ Folo; many, many comments follow).

And from Sid Salter of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger (Mar. 19): “In spite of their insistence that there were no ethical lapses in their behavior on the tobacco suit, [former attorney general Michael] Moore and Scruggs still owe the taxpayers of Mississippi an accounting of the lawyers’ fees and expenses that accrued from that litigation.”

Tagged as: , , , , , , , ,

{ 1 comment }

“The Weirdest Legal Pleading Ever”

by Walter Olson on March 9, 2008

You guessed it: it’s the Jack Thompson Florida folly discussed here a couple of weeks ago (Bonnie Goldstein, Slate, Mar. 7). Bonus: the court includes a reference to the precedents set by Montgomery Blair Sibley in his struggles with the Florida bar (earlier). P.S. More from Dennis McCauley at GamePolitics who exchanges emails with Thompson regarding his use of a photo of burned-out Hiroshima to presage what may “figuratively” happen to the Florida bar if he gets sanctioned.

Tagged as: , , ,

{ 5 comments }

“A paradigm for ‘frivolous’”

by David Nieporent on May 4, 2007

This week, Roy Pearson, the Judge With the Missing Pants, has replaced Duke Lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong as the symbol of lawyers run amok in the United States. And after hearing the story of Pearson’s lawsuit, approximately 65 million people — one for every dollar Pearson is demanding — have asked me in exasperation what it takes for a lawyer to get disciplined in this country. Well, perhaps one reason it’s so difficult to discipline an attorney can be illustrated by a case handed down on Thursday in the Ninth Circuit, involving an attorney named Richard Canatella. Mr. Canatella has a rather… spotty disciplinary history. As described by the California State Bar:

Canatella stipulated to filing numerous frivolous actions in courts in San Mateo, San Francisco, and Santa Clara county courts, as well as in the California Court of Appeal and federal district and appeals courts.

[...]

Canatella’s involvement in nine other matters also was the subject of discipline.

Sanctions were ordered against him or his clients 37 times. Courts repeatedly found him responsible for frivolous, meritless and vexatious actions. Sanctions totalled more than $18,000 in one matter, and the opposing parties were granted all fees and costs in another.

In one case, a federal judge said, “This complaint is a paradigm for ‘frivolous.’” Wrote another federal jurist: “Plaintiff’s repeated attempt to challenge the sanctions and judgments . . . in the face of clear authority that his claim is frivolous evidences his bad faith and wrongful purpose.”

So what did Canatella do? You guessed it: he sued the California Bar and various Bar officials for publishing this disciplinary record online, claiming that it violated his civil rights. The California Appellate Report elaborates:

You’d probably freak out too if that’s what they said about you. Mind you, Cantanella offers the following defense (?) of his conduct in his second amended complaint, and alleges that he was not actually sanctioned 37 times, but was instead “investigated” for 47 “purported sanction orders” over a nine year period and was sanctioned on at least 26 “separate” occasions by federal and state courts between 1989 and 1998. Once you hear that, by the way, do you think the judges have a pretty good sense regarding whether Cantanella’s a particularly sympathetic figure? Or, perhaps, think — shockingly — that a person sanctioned this pervasively is precisely the type of person who would file the present action?

Not surprisingly, Canatella lost his suit. So, showing the same level of sense that got him sanctioned all those times, he appealed. He lost again, in the decision handed down yesterday.

This wasn’t the first suit he filed against the Bar, by the way.

So, it’s not hard to see why state bar officials may be a little cautious in disciplining attorneys.

Tagged as: , ,

{ 3 comments }

“Fen-Phen Zen”

by Ted Frank on April 4, 2007

Hey, I just write the American.com column about the Kentucky fen-phen fraud, not the headlines. Earlier on Overlawyered: Mar. 26 and links therein. (Cross-posted at Point of Law.)

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , ,

Still more on Montgomery Blair Sibley

by Ted Frank on March 27, 2007

The Legal Times has a great deal more about the litigiousness of Mr. Sibley:

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Update: disabled-access impresario Ted Omholt

by Walter Olson on February 11, 2007

Readers who follow the phenomenon of ADA filing mills (Dec. 7, etc.) may recall the case of West Coast attorney Theodore Omholt, who has filed hundreds of legal complaints against businesses for violations (trivial or otherwise) of disabled-access laws, which he then settles for cash. In Honolulu, according to one news report, Omholt filed 574 lawsuits. (Carolyn Said, “Controversial disability rights lawyer”, San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 21, 2002.) Omholt then refocused his practice on California where he sent out the following letter, quoted in my article three years ago in City Journal:

I am the attorney (age 48) who for the past three years has had the privilege to represent a small action group of six wonderful individuals who use wheelchairs age 37 to 66. . . . Their shopping at inaccessible stores in San Francisco and then filing lawsuits as clients of mine against those inaccessible stores nets them each an income which makes them financially independent. For each of them, the lack of funds which used to limit them to life’s bare necessities and which plagues so many disabled individuals today has become only an unpleasant memory from the past. As a reward for implementing the law and making stores more accessible for other disabled shoppers, group members now use their stream of income to eat out at good restaurants when they want to, buy new clothes and computers and televisions and gifts for family members, travel and take vacations wherever and whenever they want to go, and live a lifestyle they could only imagine prior to joining the group. . . . The group has room for a small number of additional members. Once that small number of additional members has been selected, the group will again close to new members.

Alas, even the most thoughtfully devised business plans sometimes meet with a hitch. Reader W.R. alerts us to this copy of Supreme Court minutes (PDF) from San Francisco, dated May 10 of last year, which at page 51 reports the following:

S143253 OMHOLT ON RESIGNATION — The voluntary resignation of TED OMHOLT, State Bar No. 92979, as a member of the State Bar of California is accepted without prejudice to further proceedings in any disciplinary proceeding pending against respondent should he hereafter seek reinstatement. It is ordered that he comply with rule 955 of the California Rules of Court and that he perform the acts specified in subdivisions (a) and (c) of that rule within 30 and 40 days, respectively, after the date this order is filed.* Costs are awarded to the State Bar. *(See Bus. and Prof. Code, §6126, subd. (c).)

It’s too bad the minutes aren’t more informative about the circumstances surrounding Mr. Omholt’s voluntary resignation from the California bar. Readers familiar with the details are welcome to illuminate matters.

UPDATE: Omholt writes to dispute the accuracy of certain details in the Honolulu account; seeing no reason to doubt his word, we have revised the post to omit those details.

Tagged as: , , ,

{ 4 comments }

Jack Thompson faces possible disbarment

by Walter Olson on February 7, 2007

Aw, that’s not fair. What would we do for material? “Thompson’s ire [at the alleged evils of videogaming] spread to several law professionals involved in the lawsuits he filed. The disbarment proceedings resulted from separate grievances filed by people claiming that Thompson made false statements and attempted to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them, according to documents in the [Florida bar disciplinary] case.” (K.C. Jones, ” Grand Theft Auto Critic Faces Misconduct Charges”, InformationWeek, Feb. 6; “Jack Thompson Faces Florida Supreme Court Disciplinary Hearing”, GamePolitics.com, Feb. 3; Billy Berghammer, “Jack Thompson Faces Florida Disciplinary Hearing”, Game Informer, Feb. 5). More: Oct. 30, Oct. 20, and many others.

Tagged as: , , ,

Kentucky fen-phen lawyers suspended

by Ted Frank on August 25, 2006

Melbourne Mills, Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion were “temporarily suspended” from the practice of law by the Kentucky Supreme Court this week. The three had taken well over half of a $200 million settlement Wyeth had given them on behalf of 440 fen-phen users they had represented. (Brandon Ortiz, “3 Fen-phen case lawyers are suspended”, Lexington Herald-Leader, Aug. 25; Andrew Wolfson, “Fen-phen case fees poured into racehorses”, Louisville Courier-Journal, May 30; Andrew Wolfson, “Judge: Fen-phen lawyers breached duty”, Louisville Courier-Journal, Mar. 10; Beth Musgrave and Jim Warren, “Fen-phen settlement is back in the courtroom”, Lexington Herald-Leader, Jan. 29, 2005 (reprint)). More: May 10, 2005 (civil lawsuit); Mar. 6 (judge who profited from approval of settlement resigns).

Mills was recently in the news because he won a suit against a secretary who claimed (with the help of a recording) that he promised her an “Erin-Brockovich”-style payment for her help in the settlement. (Brandon Ortiz, “Ruling benefits Melbourne Mills Jr.”, Lexington Herald-Leader, Apr. 4). (cross-posted at Point of Law)

Tagged as: , , , , , , , ,

“Sex, lawyers, secrets at heart of sealed legal case”

by Ted Frank on June 13, 2004

According to a story in the San Antonio Express-News, husband-and-wife legal partners Ted H. and Mary Schorlemer Roberts received money in a curious sequence of events. Mary, claiming to seek “no strings” discreet encounters, would seduce men over an Internet dating service. Ted would then write the men (in legal documents sometimes typed by Mary) and notify them that he planned to seek intrusive and public civil discovery to investigate whether the affair brought forward potential causes of action that were flimsy at best; the men would pay tens of thousands of dollars for a release and confidentiality agreement. (As the law firm’s web site puts it, “We believe in a team approach.”) Because of Texas’s permissive legal ethical rules, prosecutors decided they couldn’t pursue extortion charges; state law permits Roberts to bring “creative” claims and to take discovery in advance of filing a lawsuit, and the prosecution had no way of proving that Roberts’s intent in submitting the documents was a bluff rather than a “legitimate” lawsuit.

The newspaper found out only because another lawyer, Robert V. West III, sought to raise the scheme as part of a separate business dispute with the Roberts; fans of poetic justice will note that the Roberts accuse West of blackmail, and brought disciplinary charges against West and his lawyer to the state bar. The bar is investigating West, but, apparently, not the Roberts. Everyone involved denies any wrongdoing. Roberts unsuccessfully brought suit to prevent publication of the story, but the court records remain sealed. (Maro Robbins and Joseph S. Stroud, Jun. 13) (via Bashman).

Tagged as: , , , , ,

{ 3 comments }

Compulsory chapel for Minn. lawyers, cont’d

by Walter Olson on November 21, 2003

In the state of Minnesota, lawyers can lose their licenses unless they complete two credits every three years in what is called “Elimination of Bias” training, which resembles what is known in other contexts as diversity or sensitivity training. As we commented two years ago (see Dec. 18, 2001): “The point is less to regulate attorneys’ conduct than to instill in them opinions that the authorities consider correct about complex political and moral questions, and many of the resulting seminars have had a tendentious, preachy anti- white- male tone.” Now an attorney named Elliot Rothenberg has taken the matter to the Minnesota Supreme Court by defying the requirement. “The Board of Continuing Legal Education recommended last June that Rothenberg?s license be placed on involuntary restricted status” because of his refusal to submit to the training. “Rothenberg argues that the rule violates his free-speech rights and the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government endorsement of particular religious viewpoints.” (Barbara L. Jones, “Lawyer challenges two-credit anti-bias requirement”, Minnesota Lawyer, Nov. 17, subscriber-only article; website about the case by Peter Swanson, a lawyer who has filed an amicus brief in Rothenberg’s favor) More: Power Line has a summary with many further details. (& see Jan. 2). Update: Aug. 4, 2005.

Tagged as: , ,

{ 3 comments }

Update: San Antonio evidence-faking and witness-tampering case

by Walter Olson on July 10, 2003

The Texas case we covered on May 23 and Jun. 26, 2000 and Mar. 17 of this year has now eventuated in a suit by DaimlerChrysler against the Kugle Law Firm. A trial court dismissed the Kugle firm’s $2 billion suit against Chrysler and imposed sanctions of $865,000 against three of the firm’s lawyers after finding that the steering decoupler of the sued-over Dodge Neon had been altered to simulate mechanical failure and that Mexican policemen had been asked to change their accounts of the accident giving rise to the suit. An appeals court called the firm’s conduct ‘an egregious example of the worst kind of abuse of the judicial system.’” “The senior lawyer at the firm, Robert A. Kugle, has been suspended from the Texas bar and has moved to Mexico. He could not be located for comment.” (Adam Liptak, “Law Firm Is Sued Over Conduct in Liability Case”, New York Times, Jul. 10; AP/Miami Herald; San Antonio Express-News). More: David Giacalone at EthicalEsq.? weighs in.

Tagged as: , , , , ,

{ 2 comments }

Next Entries →