Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Monday, October 09, 2006 11:56:51 PM
An
I Don't Rant-I Write Post. Since about the 16th Century, or so, Artillery has been the "King of Battle." At close quarters, and loaded with double cannister, it was essentially a giant shotgun. If an enemy unit happened to be in a charge on a gun and it went off with that load, the first six ranks of men turned into fine wisps of blood and gore. If a gun was about to be abandoned, a spike was driven down the touch hole so it couldn't be used against you. If you failed, you and your friends were likely to be wisps.
You can tell that I am running out of metaphors to describe how badly I think the legal profession is messing up by going after DA Carol Chambers on very questionable ethics charges. I am usually unimpressed with the writing and editorial content of the Rocky Mountain News, but Ivan Moreno did an excellent job of following the story and gathering up useful, to me, at least, quotes. I'm not totally sure he knew what he had, but I love the article because it lends itself to being picked apart one line at a time.
Quoting:
But the head of the Regulation Council said their inquiry into Chambers' conduct is warranted. "Based on our investigation, Mr. Steiner did absolutely nothing wrong," John Gleason said. "He had a professional obligation to report what he felt was misconduct by Mrs. Chambers."
It may not be in the ethics rules yet, but I hope eventually to see a requirement that an attorney who misleads the public in a public capacity be subject to the same sanctions as an attorney who misleads a judge. Mr Gleason is safe on two accounts. Attorneys who mislead judges don't get punished and there is no such rule.
Over the past several years, I have read both the ABA Model ethics rules and the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct numerous times. I've looked for this kind of obligation and never found it. I'd like to find it. I'm not even sure it is a good idea, though.
For example: I provided the local retention commission with 200 pages of documents and have been told by the chairperson that every member examined it. That includes four attorneys. If there were a "professional obligation to report. . . misconduct," each of them had an obligation to report some, if not all of the 15 allegations I made against opposing counsel and each now has an obligation to report the other three because they failed to meet their "professional obligation." It would be a giant snowball. Shakespeare was wrong. You don't have to kill the lawyers to create chaos. It would be much more fun to let them live and spend their lives reporting each other. That would be chaos enough!
While lawyers do not appear to have the professional obligation to report misconduct, judges do.
BANG! you are a wisp!