Previously, on the Ogden matter: 104th Installment. State bars assault the First Amendment: The Paul K. Ogden Matter in Indiana
New developments
in the Paul Ogden Matter
The
vindictiveness of the state bars is revealed only when lawyers criticize them,
which—due to this very vindictiveness—happens rarely. If lawyers withhold
criticism because they fear the State Bars, how can opponents prove the ordinarily
silent constraint on criticism: state-bar retaliation? We must rely on courageous
lawyers like Paul Ogden to take the brunt of state-bar oppression. Even the
original charges against Ogden, formally
acts of retaliation on behalf of a corrupt judge, substantively were retaliation for Ogden’s public criticism of
Indiana’s Disciplinary Commission (D.C.) when he demonstrated the D.C.’s
big-law bias, the charges having immediately followed the criticism ten months
after Ogden’s (private) criticism of the judge. Recent developments in the Ogden matter definitively prove D.C.
retaliation. The D.C. is acting with impunity in pursuing clear vengeance for itself by serving
Ogden with another charge, the illegality blatant.
Behind
the new charge is a dramatic story: because of the uncriticizable incompetence
of the Indiana judiciary, a party to a family-law matter suffered 14 bullets. The
victim had asked Ogden to represent her in filing a legal document removing a
family-law court judge, who failed to rule on a motion within Indiana’s
three-month deadline. Ogden couldn’t undertake the prospective client’s representation
because of conflict of interest, this being the same judge who had complained
against him, alleging ex parte
communication in Ogden’s already pending D.C. matter. He provided informal
assistance, the “lazy-judge praecipe”
was filed and should have compelled reassignment. However, the scoundrel of a
judge had his clerk delay formal receipt of the praecipe to pretend to have ruled, and the ruling was harsh and
retaliatory against the woman, encouraging the other party in his murderous
appetites and denying the eventual victim writ protection.
That
the judge had manipulated the filing times isn’t speculation; even the Indiana
Supreme Court agreed and reassigned the case. But what about the invalid order?
The Indiana Supreme Court completely neglected that issue. Ogden
blogged this, for which he was charged with … disclosing confidential information.
You needn’t be a lawyer, only listen to the daily news, to know that client
wishes govern disclosure, and the severely wounded victim actually confirmed from
her hospital bed that she wanted the case publicized. (See Indiana Rules
of Professional Conduct, rule 1.6.) Yet, without even confirming them, the
D.C. brought charges for breach of client confidentiality—utterly ridiculous
but, apparently, the best it could manage.
California
implications
The State
Bars across the country are far more similar than different. Even though
California has distinct rules (which it is moving to conform still more to the
national standard), Bar practices are everywhere much the same. The “laboratory
of the states” is sacrificed, but the uniformity lets lawyers generalize across jurisdictional lines, important where dispositive evidence of bar retaliation
is, by nature, hard to acquire. (As I wrote in Installment
22, there was a probable element of retaliation in my Bar case in 2007, but
the evidence is much stronger in Ogden.)
California
lawyers should worry more about retaliatory State Bar practices after Ogden. The awareness that the state-bar
establishment is a vindictive claque is particularly important now, since the
California Bar is trying to expand its jurisdiction: it lobbies for the right
to punish nonmembers—and to retain
the fines it proposes to obtain—for the unauthorized practice of law. (HT
Kafkaesq.) The California Bar complains its jurisdiction must expand
because the Justice Department is reluctant to prosecute (what the Bar considers) unlawful practice. For at
least the third time, the California State Bar fraudulently
asserts the prerogatives of a state agency.
The
California Bar proposes to apply the same biased fee system, wherein respondent
pays attorney fees if it loses but the Bar never pays anything. This will no
doubt serve as a tool of vengeance against former attorneys incurring the sadistic rage that the state-bar establishment harbors for all principled opponents.
