A law school will stand trial in a lawsuit for misrepresentation of employment statistics on graduation. What about misrepresentation of security of investment into a law degree because of customary judicial retaliation?

It has been reported today that a law school will stand trial on allegations of fraud in luring applicants by inflated claims of employment statistics on graduation.

I am waiting for the brave soul who will be the first to file a lawsuit against a law school for failure to reveal to its students that their investment into legal education - the three years spent in law school, tuition-room-board-books-fees-travel expenses, student loans etc. are, in essence an extremely volatile investment which can evaporate if, on graduation, a student simply does his or her duty, as his attorney's office requires, and criticizes misconduct of a judge which is rampant across the country.

Law schools do not teach that if students do exactly what they are taught to do - represent their clients diligently and competently and apply their knowledge and skilled developed in the REQUIRED Constitutional Law class - they may be sanctioned for frivolous conduct (as I and numerous other attorneys were so far) and their law license may be suspended by the very judges whose misconduct the law graduates criticize.

Law schools do not teach that, if their law licenses are so suspended, law graduates will be unemployable as clerks, law secretaries and paralegals, positions available to people who never had a law degree in the first place.

For example, Massachusets rules ensure that a lawyer may not be employed by a law office even as a janitor.

A janitor who is a high-school dropout can fix a toilet in a law firm, but an attorney-turned-janitor cannot.

That is how this nation is utilizing the skilled labor and brains of their most honest and courageous citizens, attorneys who are taking on judicial corruption.

I encourage law students and those who are considering law school in the future, to ask a lawyer or a professor of legal ethics what to do if you've found out a judge presiding over your client's case did something wrong - received a bribe, engaged in ex parte communication, etc.

Watch their facial expression and body language carefully.

Those law students I know how asked that question and reported to me, reported that law professors visibly shrink, uniformly advised them to "appease the judge at all costs", and to never raise misconduct in court proceedings, nor discuss or report it, orally or in writing, with authorities, colleagues, staff, clients, neighbors or friends.  

Because, the law professors told their law students, such a move would be a "career suicide".

But, those same professors did not say that out loud to an audience of law student, and said that in private, in hushed tones, one on one and looking (literally) around to verify if anybody else heard them.

Such is the honorable legal profession, the honorable professorate and the honorable judiciary that regulates that profession.

But, concealing the fact of just how volatile investment in legal education is, while knowing it - is a fraud.

And that fraud should be exposed the same way as fraud in employment statistics.

Because - if you did not get employed immediately, you can get employed at some point.

If you crash your law license by doing what the law school taught you to do in your mandatory Constitutional Law class - you won't be employed even as a janitor.

Gods may do what cattle may not - the legacy of Judith Kaye

There is a custom - about the dead, good or nothing.

Not so about dead public figures who claim to have made history.

History should not be sugar-coated or distorted.

So, on the death of Judith Kaye, the former Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals.

Of course, the mainstream media and especially the legal profession sing praises and express mourning on the passing of the "excellent" and "distinguished" and "honorable" jurist Judith Kaye.

I cannot join these praises.

First, as I already wrote on this blog, I care what the judge has in his or her mind and and heart, not what is below his or her waist, so I do not care if Judith Kaye was the first FEMALE Chief Justice of New York State Court of Appeals, even though I myself am a female.

Also, as just-changed rules of attorney discipline show, the Chief Judge can change those rules at any time, and practically in any way she or he wants.

The rules of attorney regulation and discipline, which Lippman changed after public hearings addressing the rules' unfairness and alleged inefficiency, were Judge Kaye's "legacy".

Judith Kaye retired in 2008 and was employed since then at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the law firm that is second-largest in the world for revenue and that, I am sure, derived a financial, business benefit from having a former Chief Judge as their employee.

Here is an interesting "coincidence" I found on the law firm's webpage.

On December 21, 2015 the law firm announced a "victory" in representation in California of - guess who - a class of 3,000 California judges for salary and pension increases.

That was while attorney Judith Kaye was still alive and was part of the law firm.

As to how underpaid California judges were or are, you can see in reporting on disbarment, incarceration and solitary confinement of 70-year-old Dr. Richard Fine who contested the payment scheme where Los Angeles County paid extra to the salary of California judges while appearing in front of them.

Such additions in pay were not allowed by law and constituted bribes (Dr. Fines opinion that I and many others share).

Moreover, the above interlinked report provides the following information about judicial salaries in California in 2010, that is 5 years ago:

"For the last decade, Fine has filed appeal after appeal against Los Angeles County's Superior Court judges. He says the judges each accept what he calls yearly "bribes" from the county worth $57,000. That's on top of a $178,789 annual salary, paid by the state. The county calls the extra payments "supplemental benefits" -- a way to attract and retain quality judges in a high-cost city."

So, the way to "attract and retain quality judges" is for a litigant in front of those judges to pay them a bribe.  At least authorities admitted that.

Now, Judith Kaye's law firm, when she was still alive and working for that law firm, announced as a big victory a judge's decision to raise pay for judges who, for years and decades, accepted bribes, disbarred and incarcerated their critic and were not prosecuted because lawyer-controlled California legislature gave them, incredibly, retroactive civil AND CRIMINAL immunity.

And, California judges rewarded California legislators for this illegal gift by a court decision awarding the legislators their own pay raises.

So, this is the class of honorable people that Judith Kaye's law firm won a lawsuit for, claiming their pay was now "inadequate", I guess, without the "supplemental benefits" that Dr. Richard Fine had taken from them, at the cost of his law license, livelihood and liberty.

The moral choices of the legal profession are very clear through Dr. Fine's case:

1. you stand up against judicial corruption - and your life is destroyed in every possible way; or
2. you employ retired judges and represent judges in a class action to get them pay raises for their "inadequate" salaries (see above the 2010 salary level for California judges) - and you will be good and nobody will dare to touch your license, livelihood or liberty

As I stated above, the "victory" of pay raises for the corrupt California judiciary was heralded by Judith Kaye's law firm on December 21, 2015.

In just 3 days' time, New York State "Commission" for judicial pay raise, appointed by lawyers and judges, and consisting of lawyers and judges, all people interested in the outcome of Commission's decision (in other words, a fully disqualified Commission), obviously inspired with the victory of the corrupt California judiciary delivered to them by Judith Kaye's law firm, granted pay raises to New York judges, raising their salaries to $193,000 to the Supreme Court judge (the lowest trial court of general jurisdiction in New York).

Of course, to win in Los Angeles Court (the court whose judges "suffered" by having being deprived from their yearly bribes of $57,000 because of Dr. Fine's fight against corruption) is the same as for a mafia underling to win before Al Capone a boon to benefit Al Capone.

Yet, Judith Kaye's law firm heralded their "victory" of that lawsuit just the same.   

During her retirement and employment with Skakken, Judith Kaye was called to an important duty by New York State Government, to whitewash Gov. Pataki of wrongdoing in a criminal investigation, when the then Attorney General (and now-Governor) Andrew Cuomo recused from the case.

Of course, it was the recused Andrew Cuomo who APPOINTED Judith Kaye to that position of an "independent investigator", which in itself defied the claim that she was an "independent" investigator.

Of course, Judith Kaye knew Pataki and Cuomo personally, making her also not an "independent" investigator.

Of course, Cuomo could not find any NON-LAWYER, to do the INVESTIGATION for which a law degree is not required.

Of course, only a person whose license and livelihood does not depend on government's good graces, can be independent, and Kaye, a licensed attorney, was not an independent INVESTIGATOR, not when investigating a governor who appoints appellate judges who, in their turn, held in their hands Kaye's own law license.

After all, it was only because of the courage of the domestic violence victim who was not a lawyer and who pressed her case through courts and the press, that misconduct of Pataki was even reported, a lawyer-victim would never have done that, reasonably fearing retaliation from the system.

Kaye passed the "team player with the government to drum up her law firm's business" test with flying colors, claiming that what was clearly a witness tampering scheme by Governor Pataki was a case of "bad judgment" and no crime, that is availability of the following voicemail:

"They're trying to make it look like I pressured you into dropping this court case. Please help me," the governor told Sherr-Una Booker, the ex-girlfriend of Paterson's aide David Johnson, in a voice mail."

Of course, at the time of her decision that Paterson committed no crime, Kaye was on payroll of a prominent and rich law firm that did not want any quarrels with New York State government elite, so, for Kaye to be kept on that payroll, it paid to be selectively blind to keep friends in high places.

Of course, as a judge of New York State Court of Appeals, Kaye affirmed many convictions which was, given her loose definition of "bad judgment" also only bad judgments and not crimes.

But, as we know, quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi, or "Gods may do what cattle may not".

Talking about titles of nobility and - Kaye left quite a legacy.

The legacy of the just-retired Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals - corruption and more corruption (just when I so wanted to be wrong!)

Just yesterday I wrote a blog about the so-called "legacy" of Jonathan Lippman, the just-retired Chief Judge of New York State Court of Appeals.

I wrote that Lippman created new rules of attorney discipline that served him in his position as a private lawyer on retirement, and that he fought to obtain pay raises for judges, during his tenure and on the eve of his retirement, to drum up his own pension and to appease the judiciary in front of whom he and his future employers will appear in court. 

While writing that, I thought - please, whoever may be up above, let me be wrong on this one, please, let Lippman show some class and just retire, and not get employed by some legal elite firm that he benefited with the new "criminal cartel" rules of attorney discipline.

I was quickly shown by up above that I was wrong.  

The very next day after my blog, not even a full week into his retirement, Lippman already joined Latham and Watkins, and I want to be wrong, but it is unlikely that negotiations of such an employment did not happen overnight, or after New Year and were held when Lippman was still on the bench.

"Coincidentally", Latham and Watkins is the world's biggest-grossing and highest-paying law firm.

"Coincidentally", the firm employs the husband of Dick Cheneys' daughter, former Solicitors General and the likes.

While the New York Times parades the law firm's ALLEGED pro bono hours, information that is (1) unverifiable and (2) self-serving and used in advertisement, the following information about the law firm's pro bono services is available:

out of it's claimed 2.5 mln pro bono hours since 2000 (about 75 hours per attorney per year), the firm "donated $3.2 million in legal services to Jay Bybee, a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, during an investigation into allegations of professional misconduct resulting from Bybee's work for the U.S. Justice Department under President George W. Bush".

Allegations of professional misconduct are actually that Jay Bybee, while being employed by the Bush administration, authored the infamous "Torture Memos".

Of course, instead of being disbarred, the dishonorable Jay Bybee was elevated to be the "Honorable" judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Of course, Latham and Watkins, as a global firm, must practice in Judge Bybee's court.

Of course, "donation" of legal services to Judge Bybee is part of "doing business", and for some scrupulous observers, may smack of corruption, the same kind of corruption as negotiating employment of the Chief Judge of New York State Court of Appeals on retirement while practicing in his court.

So, Lippman joined a law firm who provided pro bono services to the author of "Torture Memos" and heralds it as part of its "pro bono service" to the public.

And the mainstream media swallows this crap, regurgitates it and feeds it to the public.

Good journalism, New York Times.

Good job, Mr. Lippman.

Good job, Latham and Watkins.

Very obviously, judge Jay Bybee who earns over $203,000 a year, was far from poor, is himself an attorney and did not need pro bono services, and provision of such services was simply a pledge of loyalty to the judiciary in order to drum up more business.

You think, a law firm employing former Chief Judge of the highest State Court will be ever disciplined, no matter what it does?

Lippman's employment only highlights the meaning of attorney regulation in New York and across this great country - regulation of the legal elite to secure, enhance and protect the business of the legal elite -at all costs.

So why Richard Northrup, as Delaware County DA, did not prosecute Porter Kirkwood for aiding and abetting unauthorized practice of law?

Richard Northrup, Delaware County (NY) District Attorney until January 1, 2016, has been sworn as a judge of Delaware County and Family Court.

He ran his campaign together with his "twin brother" Porter Kirkwood, Delaware County Attorney who was, same as Northrup, supported by the now-retired corrupt judge Carl F. Becker.

Here is Northrup-Kirkwood election campaign flyer.

Yet, as of May 2015, reports were available from New York State Comptroller's office that Porter Kirkwood was engaged in aiding and abetting unauthorized practice of law, on a large scale.

Why?

Because Kirkwood, according to reports provided to me in answer to my FOIL request by NYS Comptroller's office only "reviewed" "some", but not all contracts, made by non-lawyers in Delaware County government.

That is, instead of DRAFTING those contracts for Delaware County, as the County Attorney, Kirkwood only "reviewed" and then approved of contracts drafted by non-lawyers, which constituted unauthorized practice of law, a crime.




By approving the practice of non-lawyers drafting contracts for the County instead of the County Attorney, Kirkwood aided and abetted unauthorized practice of law, a misdemeanor, and each contract of Delaware County not drafted by an attorney is one more count of aiding and abetting UPL by Kirkwood.


Yet, since Kirkwood was supported by his friend, the County judge Carl Becker, and by his friend and co-runner in judicial election campaign Richard Northrup, it was not profitable for Northrup to prosecute Kirkwood for these crimes.

I wonder if now the new Delaware County attorney will prosecute Delaware county officials and employees - including Kirkwood - for UPL and aiding and abetting UPL.
 

Jonathan Lippman's "legacy" - continued

In my previous blog of December 31, 2015, I started to cover Judge Jonathan Lippman's new rules of attorney discipline.

I mentioned that, as in previous rules, attorney regulation in New York is regulating what is not defined by law ("practice of law", "unauthorized practice of law"), so the whole regulation is a sham.

I also mentioned that the way it is done is a sham, too, because Judge Lippman's new rules (issued on December 29, 2015) perpetuated the scheme where unsupervised market players handle attorney regulation, which is a violation of civil and criminal Sherman Act, and the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Trade Commission made determinations about occupational regulatory schemes run this way in February of 2015 and in October of 2015, respectively.

Since (now retired) Judge Lippman imposed super-majority of unsupervised market players as regulators of their own legal profession as a uniform "court" rule, he openly defied federal law.  

Moreover, since consumers (whose alleged "protection" is heralded as a justification of attorney regulation in the first place) are not allowed any opportunity for a decisive vote in attorney regulation (because of super-majorities of attorneys on regulatory boards), attorney regulation is a sham for that reason, too.

It is simply an elaborate smoke screen, perpetuated by Lippman, to protect the legal protection, which Lippman was re-joining on retirement, from competition.





Lippman so far illegally formed a PAC (financed by the just-convicted Sheldon Silver's law firm) to advocate for the change of the New York State Constitution in order to add 10 years to his "service" on the New York State Court of Appeals - New Yorkers rejected that possibility at a referendum.

That was self-serving enough, and donations by leading lawyers and law firms to that PAC, in order to keep Lippman in power for 10 more years, looked pretty much like a bribe.

Now, Lippman issues rules that provides iron-clad protection for him as a now-private licensed attorney from competition.


As self-serving an act as you can expect from Lippman.

Of course, restriction of competition by private cartels hurts consumers.

Of course, Lippman acknowledged that 2 mln New Yorkers every year cannot afford an attorney.

Of course, Lippman claimed at every corner that if "we cannot close the justice gap, we should just as well close our courthouses".  I was at a law school graduation where Lippman personally delivered that adage with me as a witness, and he did it several times before that and several times, as far as I could find on the Internet, after that graduation.

I do not see courthouses closing, even though: 

1. the "justice gap" remains there for years and decades, even though 
2. attorney regulation continues while being
1. regulation of the vague and amorphous concept of  "practice of law" which is not defined in the law, 
2. regulation for purposes of restriction of competition, 
3. regulation that gives consumers absolutely no say in how they are "protected", or, rather, how the market of legal services is protected by representatives of big law firms who sit on disciplinary committees from their competitors, solo individual attorneys who provide legal services at a reduced price and pro bono.

Lippman also advocated for judicial pay raises and raised judicial salaries twice, while the previous salaries were more than adequate.

With this appeasement, Lippman is a hero of New York judiciary and can count on a lucrative post-retirement position, either as some "hearing officer", or "consultant", or "expert", or lecturer, or a partner in a law firm that will be touting him to get favorable decisions from courts - at a financial gain to Lippman, of course.

Lippman's "legacy" is also described here as an elaborate set of deals orchestrated through Lippman by his just-convicted buddy Sheldon Silver.

Yet, because of Lippman's high position from which he retired, of New York State Court of Appeals judge,  and because the necessity for members of the legal profession to brown-nose judges for survival, New York legal elite and judiciary, who received a boon from Lippman through judicial pay raises and the new rules issued on December 29, 2015, claim that Lippman is a great jurist who left behind himself a great legacy.

Yet, the only great legacy Lippman is leaving behind himself is a legacy of corruption and, same as his buddy Sheldon Silver, of making public service a private fiefdom.

In that Lippman excelled.

 

Why wasn't SDNY Judge Shira Scheindlin criminally prosecuted under 28 U.S.C. 454 or impeached?

There is a federal statute, 28 U.S.C. 454 that states:

"Any justice or judge appointed under the authority of the United States who engages in the practice of law is guilty of a high misdemeanor."

It is a criminal statute.

In provides for (1) criminal prosecution of a federal judge who practices law;  and, since engagement in "high crimes and misdemeanors" is grounds for impeachment, it provides for (2) impeachment of a federal judge who practices law.

In October 2013, and then in November 2013, by sua sponte order of the 2nd Circuit, it was established that Judge Shira Scheindlin did engage in the practice of law by giving legal advice to certain individual as to how to sue New York City, see my blog about that decision, with scans as to how exactly Judge Scheindlin advocated for the potential civil rights plaintiffs, here.

Yet, over two years down the road, Judge Scheindlin is still neither impeached nor criminally prosecuted and remains on the bench.

This is not "just" an ethical violation.

This is a judge who very obviously committed a crime - and still remains on the bench.

Why isn't Preet Bharara taking on investigating and prosecuting Judge Scheindlin?  Too scary for his law license?

And, by the way - some legal blogs commenting on Judge Scheindlin's removal from the case Floyd v New York City, incredibly, commented that the 2nd Circuit did not find any misconduct in what Judge Scheindlin did.

Even if the 2nd Circuit did not in so many words mention 28 U.S.C. 454, the order of removal from a case reciting Judge Scheindlin's legal advice to one party how to file an additional lawsuit against the other party, is undoubtedly the practice of law, forbidden to federal judges by statute.

So, committing a crime of practicing law by a federal judge is not misconduct in the eyes of legal commentator.

Nice.

Otsego County DA John Muehl, custodian of evidence in criminal cases

Sometimes you just need to give a person enough rope to hang himself.  Especially when that person has wallowed in impunity forever and got really sloppy.

Like John Muehl, the District Attorney of Otsego County, NY.

In our e-mail exchange when I asked him to step off the already botched-up investigation into the burglary and attempted arson in our home, Muehl told me, among other interesting things, the following:

1) that evidence in a criminal case "belongs" to him, as a prosecutor, for the pendency of the criminal proceeding; and

2) that in 20 years as a prosecutor, Mr. Muehl never lost a piece of evidence.

Here are scans from Mr. Muehl's e-mail to me:

Well, I was a criminal defense attorney for many years, and I know that evidence does not "belong" to the prosecutor.  

And, during those many years, I handled many criminal cases with Mr. Muehl, as a prosecutor, on the other side, and Mr. Muehl never told me that the evidence in the criminal case was in his custody, otherwise I would have immediately moved to dismiss felony cases brought on indictment for disqualification of Mr. Muehl and his office (a jurisdictional flaw when a disqualified prosecutor is present in the grand jury and especially when he directs the grand jury, as a prosecutor does).

And, Mr. Muehl has been, as a prosecutor, also the custodian of evidence in criminal cases, by his own admission, for 20 years, in two counties, Delaware and Otsego.

Based on his misguided perception that evidence in a criminal case "belongs" to a prosecutor until the end of criminal proceedings.

Since Mr. Muehl started his prosecutorial career, as far as I know, in Delaware County District Attorney's office under the supervision of the now-Delaware County judge Richard Northrup, all of felony convictions brought about by Judge Northrup are also subject for review of their validity.

So, I wonder, how many people did their time in state prison on invalid indictments muddled by John Muehl's handling of evidence in Delaware and Otsego Counties?

I will continue this investigation and report the results.

Stay tuned.