North Carolina lawyers were up in arms after a seven-month Raleigh News & Observer investigation reported that an attorney who was a Wake County Court-appointed guardian to manage the financial affairs of a series of incompetent parties had been awarded $3.4 million in legal fees since 1991 by courts from his fiduciaries’ accounts. Not over the possibility that cozy political connections and a flawed guardianship system permitted Robert Monroe to regularly charge the legal maximum commission and be “handsomely compensated for not having to do very much,” but apparently over the fact that the newspaper reported the story at all. [News & Observer; News & Observer ombudsman, both via Obbie]
