Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 10:34:31 AM
Judge William Lucero is the Presiding Disciplinary Judge. His court is established by a State Supreme Court Rule. He is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. His pay is set by that court, and he is paid out of funds that that court controls. His court's rulings are appealable only the the State Supreme Court. To my knowledge, he is the only judge in Colorado not subject to retention hearings, or at least I can't find that he is.
In short, he is isolated from the people of Colorado and their interests. Whenever someone springs the "independent judiciary" argument on me, I respond with this man as an example of how the courts and lawyers claim to want an independent judiciary, except when it comes to attorney discipline or practicing law without a license. Then, they want a very tame system totally controlled by the legal establishment.
I recently called his court structurally the nearest thing to a Kangaroo court in America. I was very careful to include the word "structurally" for two reasons. The first is, of course to avoid giving Judge Lucero the opportunity to sue me for defamation.
The second may surprise you. While I haven't read all of his court's rulings carefully, my sense is that they are a big improvement over what came before.
Before he came on the scene, case law suggests that the disciplinary process was extremely lax. If a lawyer avoided damaging a child or stealing funds from a client, he could avoid meaningful punishment, even for serious infractions, simply by claiming "remorse." His claim was duely noted in the case law, and in some areas of case law, more than half of the attorneys claimed remorse and got off with a "public censure."
While I stand by my Kangaroo court assertion, fairness demands an acknowledgement of Judge Luceros record.
Trust me, though, this is the last nice thing I will say about Attorney Regulation.
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This will be used as a replacement building block post for my first attempt. which was long on editorial and short on information, the opposite of what I intend a building block post to be.
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Edited, Nov 13. My praise of Judge Lucero was misplaced.