Legal Ethics

Weed falls out of attorney’s pocket in court

Marijuana.com, March 18, 2015:

“Case in point: a lawyer in New London, Connecticut let a two ounce sack of marijuana slip form his pocket to the floor while in court yesterday. The best part? The lawyer, 46-year-old Vincent J. Fazzone, was in court representing a client, claims the weed wasn’t even his.”

The article, quoting from the Hartford Courant, indicates that the attorney claimed that the pot belonged to his client.

There are a number of ethics issues. If the weed was payment from the client for advanced services, it should have been escrowed in a Bar-approved escrow silo or warehouse with appropriate warehouse receipts showing the client, date and gram weight of the drop – to protect the weed against the attorney’s own creditors, IRS levy on the client’s chronic, etc. [Kidding. Sort of.] The attorney also had a duty to keep the weed entrusted to him from harm; exposing a client’s BC Bud to the greedy hands of the Sheriff would seem to violate ethics rule 1.16. [Kidding. Sort of.]

If the weed became the property of the attorney in a value-for-value representation-for-mowiewowie swap, there needed to be a document to track the earn and a formal removal of the stankweed from trust to operating account, wherein it would be then taxed as in-kind income. Under current IRS regulation, the Treasury of the United States prefers currency or checks drawn on the same, rather than 28% of the actual ganja.

No, I do not consume marijuana.

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in Criminal Law, Legal Ethics, 0 comments

Defense lawyer: “I would put petrol on her and set her alight”

BBC, February 27, 2015 (H/T Talking Points Memo):

Mukesh Singh, the bus driver who admitted driving the bus during the incident, but denied taking part in the attack, was one of five men convicted of Jyoti’s rape and murder and sentenced to death by hanging.

 

. . .

 

Speaking about the appalling attack, which he refers to as “an accident”, Mukesh Singh suggested the rape and beatings were to teach Jyoti and her friend a lesson that they should not have been out late at night. And he criticised Jyoti for having fought back against her attackers saying: “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her’, and only hit the boy.”

 

He said that executing him and the other convicted rapists/murderers will endanger future rape victims: “The death penalty will make things even more dangerous for girls. Now when they rape, they won’t leave the girl like we did. They will kill her. Before, they would rape and say, ‘Leave her, she won’t tell anyone.’ Now when they rape, especially the criminal types, they will just kill the girl. Death.”

To me, that’s not the disgusting part. It should be, but I am hardened to sociopathic violent thugs blaming others for their crimes. So I am not disgusted.

What does disgust me? This, from this Indian death row inmate’s attorney:

In a previous televised interview, lawyer AP Singh said: “If my daughter or sister engaged in pre-marital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight.” And he confirms to Udwin in the documentary that his stance remains the same: “This is my stand. I still today stand on that reply.”

I don’t know what offends me more: that an attorney would so depravedly risk his death row client’s case by endorsing his client’s capital offense, or that an attorney would so brag that he would defy Indian law and commit homicide by burning his sister to death. In Maryland, you can face attorney discipline merely for calling your client vulgar insults, but I guess in India bragging about one’s intent to burn a female relative to death during a death row appeal is not a professional responsibility concern.

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in Criminal Law, Legal Ethics, 0 comments

To avoid: calling your client, in written correspondence to her, an obscene name

Sometimes I can be downright grouchy, truth be told; I have many faults and, sometimes, that’s one of them.

But I haven’t yet lost my cool so badly as to write a letter to a client calling her an obscenity in print, wishing her malice and insulting her progeny.

From page one of AGC v. Basinger:

After learning that Keys had denied that she had retained him, Basinger mailed to Keys letters in which he called Keys “A TRUE C[**]T” who had “finally f[***]ed up one time too many”; called Keys “a reprehensible human being” with “worthless progeny” and a “pathetic and dysfunctional world”; accused Keys of being lazy and dishonest, engaging in “defamation” and “absolute evil behavior[,]” and “trying to weasel [her] way out of paying the full amount of [a funeral chapel]’s bill”; suggested that Keys perhaps was responsible for her grandson’s death; stated that, if he ever saw her again, “it [would] be too soon”; and wished Keys “only the worst from here on out.”

If you are that unhappy with a client, you should simply terminate the relationship (in a manner consistent with, and to the extent permitted by, applicable Rules.) Some clients deserve to be fired and a few rare ones deserve to be chastised; none deserve to be hit with obscenities.

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in Legal Ethics, Practice of Law, 0 comments

“Don’t kiss your clients, but market like you want to.” – WHAT?

Mark Britton of Avvo.com thinks that I should market to my clients in a way that suggests that I want to kiss them.

Um, no.  Lawyer jokes to the contrary aside, we are not sex workers.

I used to advertise with Avvo, and had a moderately favorable opinion of Avvo with some reservations. I feel “nice” about my so-called “Excellent” rating bouncing between 8.3 and 8.6, though I am aware of the preeminent Maryland attorneys who rank lower and purveyors of, in my opinion, vapid and/or dangerous nonsense like Lee Rosen of North Carolina who, despite public disciplinary censure, have a “Superb” rating of 10.0. But I thought that competition with Martindale-Hubbell’s rating system was a good thing.

Avvo lost my favor when I realized just how much damage Avvo was encouraging potential clients to do online by posting, without confidentiality or privilege, intimate details of their cases for every English-speaking opposing counsel, private investigator, detective and prosecutor on the planet to read.  Most of my comments on their comment/question boards were to tell people to shut up and talk to a lawyer privately, particularly in criminal cases.

I believe firmly that marketing to clients “as if I want to kiss them” is unprofessional and beyond creepy. Maybe that works for selling fashion or perfume or fast cards. It is inappropriate for lawyers, even as a metaphor. Clients don’t want to be courted or romanced; they want confidence that the lawyers whom they hire to handle often the least pleasant things in their lives will be effective, competent, diligent and trustworthy. Maybe the “kiss” metaphor works for selling online marketing packages to young, desperate attorneys of weak morals, but in this office the business handshake works just fine.

Posted by Bruce Godfrey in Legal Ethics, Practice of Law, 0 comments