Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, September 18, 2006 11:05:36 PM
This is a multi-part series with the premise that the legal ethics system appears to have been intentionally designed to fail. It
begins here. The last post,
part-2 is here.
". . . unless, of course, there were something to prevent that."
It turns out that the Colorado Supreme Court has denied Attorney Regulation jurisdiction on these kinds of complaints unless they are referred by a trial judge. It is my intention to link the document which does this when I can find it. I can't, so I will relate how I came to know this: In 2005, having read the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct and a good deal of the supporting case law, I proceeded to make a lengthy, well documented 12 item complaint against an attorney to Attorney Regulation. Much as I would like to quote the response I got from Attorney Regulation, I cannot, as Attorney Regulation is a "paperless office." I did receive a one-hour phone call from Attorney Regulation informing me that they had no jurisdiction. You'll just have to take my word for it, which is why, I suppose, it is a paperless office, deniability being the first refuge of scoundrels.
(Anyone who claims that it is cheaper to have a $40 an hour attorney make an hour long phone call than it is to write and send a letter gives the Colorado Supreme Court much more credit for integrity than they appear to deserve.)
If you can't go around the trial judge, at least you should be able to make the strongest case possible by writing the complaint yourself, right . . . unless of course there were something to prevent that, as well.
You guessed it. A litigant who has been damaged to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by an unethical attorney can't simply forward a complaint through the trial judge. Instead, he has to pay his attorney another several thousand dollars to litigate the issue of whether the judge will forward the complaint. Since that attorney has to fear a potential lawsuit, you can bet that the arguments will not be strong, and the liklihood that the complaint will be forwarded not high.
I cannot imagine how a system could be more cleverly
designed to fail than the system the Colorado State Supreme Court uses to accept and act upon discovery related ethics complaints. In the next Part, we will examine the Colorado case law supporting and defining the rule against diliatory practices. Surprise, surprise, there isn't any!