Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, August 25, 2006 12:36:46 PM
Last evening, as I was stumbling around the internet to find links for the last post, I happened onto an
article about the Civil Rules Committee and the Rules of Criminal Procedure Committee.
Those two committees propose court rules to the state supreme court. As I guessed, its members are all lawyers and judges. I was surprised to see the following comment "Members of the public also may submit an application to serve on the Committee, although no one ever has."
The words "although no one ever has" were almost like waving a red flag in front of me. If I really do want to reform the legal system in small and big ways, and I really do, I have an obligation to apply.
Here is a copy of the body of the letter to the Chief Justice that I am dispatching today:
-----
Your Honor:
I wish to apply to serve as a public member of the Civil Rules Committee and the Rules of Criminal Procedure Committee. I note that those committees have never had a public member but that members of the public can apply, though none have.
I have unique qualifications, as you will discover. You may consider them disqualifications, and if so, so be it.
I have a blog, which I sign off as "notlegalroadkillyet." It is at collandp.townhall.com. It is new enough that the legal community most likely hasn't discovered it, which is fine for now.
While my blog is probably as critical of the legal ethics system as any public discussion you may ever see, I hope that you will come to agree that it is a reasonably accurate assessment of the current state of Colorado ethics law. Because your Court administers all aspects of ethics rule making and enforcement, it can not and will not escape criticism. I also intend to be critical of certain of your Court's rulings and actions, some of which I view as morally unethical. Since you make the rules, they are not legally unethical, of course.
I have an active lawsuit, nearly seven years old. I have received an extensive and expensive education from a judge and an attorney as to how impotent the court and ethics rules can be. At this point, I am just going through the motions. If the public records are any indication, the Defendant has successfully put his assets out of the court's reach, so even if I could get disclosure and proceed to trial, a judgment of any size would be meaningless, and attempts to collect just another drain on my assets. As my blog already states, I have lost hope that the judge will treat me fairly and any fear of the consequences of making him angry.
It is my belief that the court rules are partially to blame for what has happened to me. Neither the judge nor the attorney seem to have any fear of violating them, which means they are not self enforcing, or at least not effectively self enforcing. Further, I have discovered that they prevent a litigant from protecting himself from obviously unethical conduct by an attorney. You have no safety valve in your system.
This experience might make me a valuable member of your Committees.
You might choose not to select me because I hope eventually to submit an initiative to amend the state constitution to strip your Court of much of its rule making and enforcement powers, leaving your Court to do only judicial review. It is a conflict of interest, in my opinion, to have members of the legal profession able to make rules that protect lawyers while leaving the public unprotected, and that is exactly what you have done, intentionally or not.
I also will be writing a post promoting term limits for judges. I hadn't intended to do so, or even vote for them, but the local retention commission decided that since my judge is "an asset to the community," they didn't need to inform the public of the events or the implications of the events in my lawsuit. Your entire profession is out of control and no mechanism exists to protect the public, not even retention commissions.
This is a serious application. I will be most happy to provide a short resume and references, as well as submitting to an interview, if you decide not to disqualify me based on this letter or my blog. I probably should tell you that I am far more laid back in person than my writing might indicate.
/signed/