Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Interlude 15. Disbarring the State Bar


In an astonishing but deserved worsening of fortunes for the California State Bar, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the State Bar appropriations measure. (See http://tinyurl.com/yla9zlo.) Without funding the State Bar is dead, one of the most favorable potential outcomes. Schwarzenegger vaguely demanded reforms, his motives no doubt predominantly fiscal, but Schwarzenegger should be held to his commitment. Since no serious reforms will be forthcoming, Schwarzenegger should axe the State Bar, which is so broken it does much more harm than good.

The veto confirms that the political establishment repudiated Drexel's extremism by removing him, and it continues to punish this arrogant, out-of-control police agency. The themes Schwarzenegger sounded show that critics' attacks have gained foothold in public-opinion's mainstream. Schwarzenegger mainly objected that the State Bar has not proven itself above reproach, most blatantly in the Sharon Elyce Pearl case, where a clerk embezzled 6.75-hundred-thousand dollars over eight years while the State Bar recklessly disregarded its duty to secure entrusted funds. Publicizing the Office of Chief Trial Counsel's statutory responsibility for the embezzled funds, kanBARoo court uniquely argued that the case exposed the State Bar's ethical hypocrisy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve - The Governor's Veto message said the bill would be considered again in 2010. There will be hearings on the bill, whether labeled SB641 or not. You should gather up those who have evidence, real hard evidence, of state bar ethics violations and crimes and present them there. For example in my case the State Bar judge found the Bar submitted 3 false declarations to him. That is a crime under B&P6128 and a disbarrable offense. Yet when the Review Dept considered that issue they said I complained too much and wrote too many letters complaining about it. Moreover, I have proof the Bar loses jurisdiction over lawyers suspended with a requirement they prove they are fit to rejoin the bar. Those who are suspended from the state bar are not members under B&P 6126(b) A FELONY LAW that only applies to those who are no longer bar members who are practicing law.
The other bar trick is to take a lawyer through a B&P 6007(c)(3) hearing, which under the bar rules has NO EVIDENCE STANDARD whatsoever, and have the person found mentally "INFIRM", then transfer them to involuntary inactive.
The ONLY types of Bar members are active and inactive according to B&P 6003-6005. There is no State Bar Corporate definition or legal definition of Suspended Bar member, Suspended, disbarred member, etc.
In fact the Bar is in serial contempt of court because each disbarrment order of the California supreme court commands the bar to strike the disbarred members name from the list of attorneys and the bar doesn't obey those court orders, never has obeyed them.
Any law student should immediately transfer to medicine in order to have a career that will last past the payoff of their student loan.

Brad Henschel, JD said...

The Bar doesn't know how much their former real estate director took from them because they had NO accounting controls in place. They discovered the theft when a former tenant asked for their deposit returned.
Since California has a history of having Republican Governors, one shutters to think how high the taxes would have gone without a republican governor, even a demo-pub like Arnold.
The Bar is hostile to republicans but they commit gross ethical misconduct and criminal acts, for which they have been caught and punished, against the political laws of California and back in 1979 when they labeled everything the practice of law and got stopped by threat of lawsuit from the US Justice Dept.
The Bar does nothing to train lawyers to provide home loan modification assistance. They do nothing about prevention of bar ethics violations. WHY? They get from $12K to $30K in "costs" from prosecuting lawyers ethical violations. They have no incentive whatsoever to stopping lawyers from ethical violations or helping lawyer learn new areas of the law to help the public.
Most of the so-called "ethics" are lawyer job protection rules.

Anonymous said...

Steve - The Governor's Veto message said the bill would be considered again in 2010. There will be hearings on the bill, whether labeled SB641 or not. You should gather up those who have evidence, real hard evidence, of state bar ethics violations and crimes and present them there. For example in my case the State Bar judge found the Bar submitted 3 false declarations to him. That is a crime under B&P6128 and a disbarrable offense. Yet when the Review Dept considered that issue they said I complained too much and wrote too many letters complaining about it. Moreover, I have proof the Bar loses jurisdiction over lawyers suspended with a requirement they prove they are fit to rejoin the bar. Those who are suspended from the state bar are not members under B&P 6126(b) A FELONY LAW that only applies to those who are no longer bar members who are practicing law.
The other bar trick is to take a lawyer through a B&P 6007(c)(3) hearing, which under the bar rules has NO EVIDENCE STANDARD whatsoever, and have the person found mentally "INFIRM", then transfer them to involuntary inactive.
The ONLY types of Bar members are active and inactive according to B&P 6003-6005. There is no State Bar Corporate definition or legal definition of Suspended Bar member, Suspended, disbarred member, etc.
In fact the Bar is in serial contempt of court because each disbarrment order of the California supreme court commands the bar to strike the disbarred members name from the list of attorneys and the bar doesn't obey those court orders, never has obeyed them.
Any law student should immediately transfer to medicine in order to have a career that will last past the payoff of their student loan.

Stephen R. Diamond said...

"Most of the so-called 'ethics' are lawyer job protection rules." – Brad Henschel J.D.

One academic opined, "Legal ethics has no more relationship to ordinary ethics than Madison, Wisconsin has to James Madison."