Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, November 20, 2006 4:05:18 PM
In keeping with its philosophy of protecting lawyers from lawsuits and such by damaged litigants, the State Supreme Court inserted the following paragraph into the "Scope" section of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct:
Violation of a Rule should not in and of itself give rise to a cause of action nor should it create any presumption that a legal duty has been breached. The Rules are designed to provide guidance to lawyers and to provide a structure for regulating conduct through disciplinary agencies. They are not designed to be a basis for civil liability. Furthermore, the purpose of the Rules can be subverted when they are invoked by opposing parties as procedural weapons. The fact that a Rule is a just basis for a lawyer's self-assessment, or for sanctioning a lawyer under the administration of a disciplinary authority, does not imply that an antagonist in a collateral proceeding or transaction has standing to seek enforcement of the Rule. Accordingly, nothing in the Rules should be deemed to augment any substantive legal duty of lawyers or the extra-disciplinary consequences of violating such a duty.
If every profession had a "Sugar Daddy" with the capability of writing a set of tough sounding rules and then tearing the legs out of any ability to enforce them with a paragraph like this, we would have a lawless society. We, as citizens, should count ourselves lucky that only one (lawless) profession has such a "Sugar Daddy."
By the way, this is exactly how the legal profession can fund its client protection fund at $5/attorney/year. No one can sue lawyers.