Lawyers behaving badly

[Maybenaut]

Maybe it’s me, and maybe I’m old school, but I don’t even rely on the head notes or Shepherds.

For the uninitiated: head notes are found in Lexis and Westlaw (legal research databases), and they provide a brief blurb synopsizing the issue you’re searching. Like any database query, the better the query, the more likely you are to find what you’re looking for. Shepherds is a separate database that supposedly tells you whether the case you want to cite is still good law.

I’ve had instances where the head note doesn’t accurately describe the holding, and where Shepherds has been wrong about the continuing validity of a particular case.

When lexis returns a case in response to my query, I read the case itself, and not just the head notes. It takes a little more time but not much. And to find out whether a case is still good law, I enter the cite directly into the search bar and read the most recent cases that cited to that case.Again, doesn’t take much time.

These guys were supposedly using Fastcase, which is horrible, so I’m not at all surprised he wanted a shortcut. I get it free from the Virginia Bar. One of them said they had a billing issue and as a result didn’t have “Federal access.” Since I get it free (yay? coz it sux), I wondered about New York. According to the New York State Bar Association, they get New York stuff free, but NY attorneys can get the Fastcase Nationwide library for $195 a year.

If I was the judge I’d want to see paperwork on that billing issue.

[Walt Tuttle]

Hey, I recognize a name at 18:15.

[chancery]

https://twitter.com/Eodyne1/status/1668348802757976087

Dan
@Eodyne1
Guess what's coming tomorrow:

[Image of transcript order form for the sanctions hearing in Mata v. Avianca]

[chancery]

The Mata v. Avianca sanctions hearing transcript, courtesy of Dan (@Eodyne1), who paid for it and posted it.



Edit: click on the little pop-out box on the upper right for a display that includes a link for downloading the pdf.

[raison de arizona]

More at link.

Eleven years ago, I witness the harassment, threatening, and murder of innocent Afghan locals by my former platoon leader. Now, he's applying for the state bar in Oklahoma to attempt to practice law. I'm going to object on moral fitness and character. This is a thread.

I understand that Clint was pardoned by TFG, but his pardon was only achieved after years of pushing blatant disinformation and attacking those of us who spoke out against the criminal acts that we witnessed. We were threatened by his supporters and attacked by him personally.

[RTH10260]

Doesn't a pardon still imply guilt in the underlying cause?

[RTH10260]

New York lawyers sanctioned for using fake ChatGPT cases in legal brief

By Sara Merken
June 26, 202310:28 AM GMT+2Updated 15 hours ago

NEW YORK, June 22 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday imposed sanctions on two New York lawyers who submitted a legal brief that included six fictitious case citations generated by an artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT.

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan ordered lawyers Steven Schwartz, Peter LoDuca and their law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman to pay a $5,000 fine in total.

The judge found the lawyers acted in bad faith and made "acts of conscious avoidance and false and misleading statements to the court."

Levidow, Levidow & Oberman said in a statement on Thursday that its lawyers "respectfully" disagreed with the court that they acted in bad faith.

"We made a good faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth," the firm's statement said.


https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york- ... 023-06-22/

[raison de arizona]

"We made a good faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth," the firm's statement said.

...and they STILL aren't taking responsibility...

[RTH10260]

or:

...and they STILL aren't learning about science and technological progress...

[RTH10260]

California bar suspends 1,600 attorneys for violating rules set up after Tom Girardi allegedly stole millions

BY SUMMER LINSTAFF WRITER
JULY 28, 2023 1:56 PM PT

More than 1,600 attorneys have been suspended by the California State Bar for violating rules about client trust accounts that were set up after disgraced L.A. attorney Thomas Girardi allegedly stole millions of dollars from his clients.

The Client Trust Account Protection Program, which went into effect last year, requires attorneys to register their client trust accounts annually with the state bar, complete a yearly self-assessment of their practices managing client trust accounts and certify with the state bar that they comply and understand the requirements for safekeeping funds.

After the reporting component is fulfilled, the state bar will then begin compliance reviews and investigative audits when appropriate.

Originally, more than 1,700 attorneys were found in violation of the rules and enrolled as “inactive” with the bar, meaning they’re not legally allowed to practice law. As of Thursday afternoon, that number has dropped to 1,641 after some of the attorneys fulfilled their requirements, according to Special Counsel Steven Moawad, who works for the bar’s attorney discipline system.

Moawad emphasized that the suspension is administrative and not disciplinary; none of the nearly 1,600 attorneys who were suspended were found to have been stealing money from their trust accounts.

“The noncompliance with the rules is simply the reporting for now,” he said. “It may be that people declined to report because they were stealing money from their trust accounts and they didn’t want to be found out.”




https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... di-scandal

[raison de arizona]

Oh my. That’s a lot of attorneys. Although I wonder how many attorneys total are admitted to the CA bar.

[Ben-Prime]

I'm wondering how this affects the overall average of the CA Bar for discipline, given all stuff we've discussed in the past on this board about how slow they are to act.

[chancery]

I'm wondering how this affects the overall average of the CA Bar for discipline, given all stuff we've discussed in the past on this board about how slow they are to act.

It's not discipline, really. It's a sharp crack of the whip to get some record-keeping done.

[bob]

Oh my. That’s a lot of attorneys. Although I wonder how many attorneys total are admitted to the CA bar.

There are around 200,000 active attorneys presently. At least another 100,000 inactive, including dead ones. (NADT.)

So fewer than one percent of active lawyers were placed on inactive status due to this change in compliance rules.

My WAG is this affected mostly solo/small-firm practitioners.

[somerset]

Oh my. That’s a lot of attorneys. Although I wonder how many attorneys total are admitted to the CA bar.

There are around 200,000 active attorneys presently. At least another 100,000 inactive, including dead ones. (NADT.)

So fewer than one percent of active lawyers were placed on inactive status due to this change in compliance rules.

My WAG is this affected mostly solo/small-firm practitioners.

Although sadly, this requires that the solo practitioner actually have a client trust account, which leaves out our favorite example of CA attorney malpractice.

btw, is Orly Taitz disbarred yet?

[bob]

btw, is Orly Taitz disbarred yet?

Taitz, who is in good standing (and has been licensed for over 20 years!), is a good example of who this new rule might snare: people who don't really practice but keep an active license for vanity/personal purposes.

[northland10]

btw, is Orly Taitz disbarred yet?

Taitz, who is in good standing (and has been licensed for over 20 years!), is a good example of who this new rule might snare: people who don't really practice but keep an active license for vanity/personal purposes.

She would have to click "no" twice, which may be above her abilities. That said, he has managed to keep her license current and I assume that means she has to at least report something on professional development credits, or whatever they call continuing education credits in that world.

[chancery]

Attorneys in New York State are required to submit a registration statement every two years, certifying that they have completed 24 hours of continuing legal education during the previous two years and paying a $375 fee. Every couple of years, each of the four appellate divisions (NYS's intermediate appellate courts) issue an order suspending thousands of attorneys who have failed to comply with the biennial registration requirement. I think you need to be delinquent for more than one cycle before you're likely to be suspended.

So long as you're no longer practicing, there aren't any consequences from being suspended, and I assume that lots of people listed in those orders have in fact gone on to other careers. Occasionally you see big firm attorneys on the list, usually lawyers admitted in other states who no longer care about NYS bar admission. But sometimes it's the result of an unfortunate but familiar pathology, (a surprising number of successful lawyers can't bring themselves to file tax returns either). It's an oddity though, because, after a couple of embarrassing incidents (see below), most big firms abandoned the honor system and started actively tracking the admission status and CLE activity of their attorneys.

Law Firm Partner Never Applied to Bar

Jan. 11, 1997. A partner at one of New York's premier corporate law firms resigned this week after the firm discovered that he had never been admitted to the bar even though he had graduated with honors from a top law school and had passed the bar exam.

In a turn of a New York success story that people who know him say is unfathomable, Jonathan D. Bassett, 41, resigned from Willkie Farr & Gallagher after he was confronted with information that showed he had never submitted an application for admission to the bar.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/11/nyre ... =url-share

I just looked up Jonathan Bassett. It turns out that he successfully applied for admission to the bar the year after he left Willkie Farr and started a small law firm. But he was suspended in 2006 for failure to to comply with the biennial registration requirement. Possibly a sad story, or maybe he found something else to do.

[bob]

Attorneys in New York State are required to submit a registration statement every two years, certifying that they have completed 24 hours of continuing legal education during the previous two years and paying a $375 fee. Every couple of years, each of the four appellate divisions (NYS's intermediate appellate courts) issue an order suspending thousands of attorneys who have failed to comply with the biennial registration requirement. I think you need to be delinquent for more than one cycle before you're likely to be suspended.

The Cal. bar has something comparable. But CLE (continuing legal education) requirements are basically on the honor system. A small percentage of people are audited to see if they actually complied, but most just certify their compliance, and the bar doesn't verify.

For those without trust accounts, certifying compliance should be very easy, but I'm not surprised many couldn't be bothered.

[RTH10260]

another bad apple - another FL man - the story is already a bit older

Seminole lawyer accused of stealing more than $840K from 16 personal injury victims, Pinellas sheriff says

By FOX 13 News staff
Published February 27, 2023

SEMINOLE, Fla. - A Seminole lawyer was arrested on multiple charges of money laundering and grand theft after stealing more than $840,000 from more than 15 personal injury victims, investigators say.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference Monday afternoon that PCSO's economic crimes unit arrested Christopher Michael Reynolds, 44. He said Reynolds was operating a personal injury law firm in Seminole, targeting victims who were seeking help.

"They're licensed to practice law, they've got the boxes checked, they've got the credentials, they've got the credibility that goes with that, and they're really just a thief who is ripping them off," Sheriff Gualtieri said.

Once the personal injury victims retained Reynolds as their lawyer, he would settle their cases with insurance providers, but didn't pay the victim's medical bills or provide the victims their settlement money, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said.

Detectives said the Seminole lawyer would get the settlement money from insurance providers for his own benefit.

Sheriff Gualtieri said investigators were notified in October 2022 by one of the victims who had been represented by Reynolds after they were injured in a car accident. She said Reynolds abruptly stopped speaking with them and never paid their medical bills or received compensation.

The victim found out that her case was settled months prior from the insurance company, which led to her contacting the sheriff's office.

Economic crimes detectives said they also found out the Florida Bar received multiple complaints about Reynolds and were conducting their own investigation into systemic theft by the lawyer.



https://www.fox13news.com/news/seminole ... eriff-says

[bob]

Well, lawyer-to-be:

[pipistrelle]

Lawyer-to-be who doesn’t understand law. Brilliant.

[John Thomas8]

Last week I spent $4,000 with a lawyer to find out I spent $3,000 with a lawyer with the same qualifications as a rabid gerbil.

And still got fucked by an absolutely unqualified to sit on a Romper Room court "family law" judge.

[RTH10260]

Is this law student aspiring to become a lawyer for mobster bosses, attempting to overthrow the legal world? He seems to ignore the fact that some lawyers find themselves in court cause they tried to sell fairy tales as fact. I bet this person is a heavy user of quotes minedby AI bots

[RTH10260]

Former Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby convicted of perjury about Florida retirement homes
Mosby also faces separate charges of mortgage fraud. A trial date on those charges hasn’t been set.

Nov. 9, 2023, 10:52 PM CET / Source: The Associated Press
By The Associated Press

GREENBELT, Md. — A former top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore was convicted on Thursday of charges that she lied about the finances of a side business to improperly access retirement funds during the pandemic, using the money to buy two Florida homes.

A federal jury convicted former Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby of two counts of perjury after a trial that started Monday.

Mosby served two terms as state’s attorney for Baltimore. A federal grand jury indicted her on perjury charges before a Democratic primary challenger defeated her last year.

James Wyda, a lawyer for Mosby, declined to comment, citing a gag order. The U.S. Attorney’s office won’t have a comment on the verdict, said spokeswoman Marcia Lubin.

Mosby gained a national profile for prosecuting Baltimore police officers after Freddie Gray, a Black man, died in police custody in 2015, which was Mosby’s first year in office. His death led to riots and protests in the city. None of the officers were convicted.

Mosby declined to testify before her attorneys rested their case on Wednesday. After the verdict, she said, “I’m blessed. I don’t know what else to say,” as she left the courthouse and entered a waiting car.

Mosby also faces separate charges of mortgage fraud. A trial date for those charges hasn’t been set.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Mosby withdrew $90,000 from Baltimore's deferred compensation plan. She received her full salary, about $250,000 that year.
.
Mosby’s 2022 indictment accused her of improperly accessing retirement funds by falsely claiming that the pandemic harmed a travel-oriented business that she had formed. She used the withdrawals as down payments to buy a home in Kissimmee, Florida, and a condominium in Long Boat Key, Florida.

Prosecutors argued that Mosby wasn’t entitled to access the funds under provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. They said her business, Mahogany Elite Enterprises, had no clients or revenue and didn’t sustain any “adverse financial consequences” from the pandemic.