Imagine that you sue somebody for something wrong done to you, let's say, an assault upon you, or a battery, or fraud.
Imagine that you hired an attorney who represents you in that lawsuit, paid that attorney, and that attorney made good advances for you in litigation, and your position in litigation, because of services of that attorney, is promising.
Imagine that, in the middle of your litigation, the person you are suing takes your attorney's license, and thus you find yourself without an attorney and with a necessity to find another attorney, paid him or her again, get him or her familiarized with your case again, and, possibly, lose all the progress gained by your attorney, because in many cases progress made by attorneys is also based on attorney's record in litigation and experience in particular proceedings, which might not be matched by the new attorney.
You think it is not possible?
It is, if your opponent in litigation is the government.
That is exactly the situation my clients are now.
I sued the State of New York on behalf of one set of clients in federal court.
I represented a client sued by the State of New York in federal court.
On November 17, 2015 was my deadline to file a motion for sanctions against the State of New York and its various public officials, for frivolous conduct in two federal courts. The lawsuit was on behalf of a client.
On November 13, 2015, four days before the deadline to ask a federal court to sanction the State of New York for frivolous conduct, State of New York as a licensing authority suspended my law license and gained advantage in litigation against all my clients.
So, as you see, the State of New York as a party-opponent to my clients in litigation can simply take the law license of their attorney and deprive them of effective legal services this way - after I provided those services for those particular clients for YEARS, and after it will cost them dearly to replace me as an attorney, because a new attorney will have to be explained everything that happened in the YEARS of prior litigation, and read the record of the prior litigation - which, at the average trial attorney's hourly rate, looks like a punishment of my clients for opposing the State of New York in litigation.
That is exactly why I have been advocating for years that regulation of attorneys by the government while attorneys may have a duty to oppose the government, sue the government, investigate the government, challenge misconduct of the government - is completely unconscionable, unconstitutional, undemocratic, undermines independence of the legal profession and deprives people of truly effective and independent representation in court.
So, next time you try to hire somebody to sue the State of New York, or in defense of a lawsuit against you by the State of New York, note why you will have a difficulty finding an attorney willing to represent you.
Because they wouldn't want to lose their law license and livelihood in the middle of that representation, if the State of New York chooses to gain advantage in litigation this way, yet again.
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