To first enhance the oath of office for lawyers - and then to break it: that's what you can expect from the "honorable" organized bar. The case of Arizona Bar's loyalty amendments and "Public Service Center"

In 2014 Princeton university conducted a study asking people which professions (and representatives of those professions) they trust more and which they trust less.

A chart from that study shows that the public considers lawyers as a variety of competent prostitutes:

Yet, lawyers continue to claim themselves to be "the honorable profession", and judges (who are also lawyers) continue to put the "Honorable" as a required job title, claiming a "presumption of integrity", at the same time as they claim absolute immunity for their malicious and corrupt acts on the bench.
Lawyers were some of the least-trusted professionals, according to the public opinion.

In June of this year I wrote about the joint letter written by the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, this letter.

In that letter the FTC and the US DOJ said this:

referencing their former comments to the American Bar Association back in 2002-2003:

And, in the ABA Comments in 2002-2003, FTC & US DOJ said, among other things (you can read the full comments of FTC & US DOJ to ABA here), the following:

So, the American Bar Association, a non-profit that participates in regulation of the legal profession by imposing educational standards of lawyers upon the states through certification of law schools, acknowledges, as FTC and US DOJ does, that "defining the practice of law has been a difficult question for the legal profession for many years".

Now, even if lawyers find it difficult - for many years - to define what the hell it is that they are doing for money -

1. how can an average citizen, untrained in the law (but presumed to know the laws - remember, lack of knowledge of the law is no defense in a criminal prosecution for unauthorized practice of law), know what the practice of law is, so that not to engage in "prohibited conduct" and so that not to commit a crime of unauthorized practice of law (UPL);

2.  How can the government regulate and issue licenses for the practice of law - if nobody can clearly define what is regulated; and

3. How can the government prosecute anybody for unauthorized practice of law - and UPL is vigorously prosecuted across the United States, and such prosecutions are driven, predictably, by LAWYERS, those same people who have a monopoly to practice law without knowing what the hell the practice of law means.

Which brings us back to the chart where people believe that lawyers are somewhat like competent prostitutes - but, if lawyers cannot even say what it is that they have the monopoly for and what it is that they are practicing and what it is that they are charging people for - the "competency" part goes out the door, too.

In the United States, lawyers are regulated either directly by the government (states with voluntary bar associations, New York is one of them), or by non-profit corporations, mandatory state bar associations to which state government delegate authority to regulate and license the practice of law.

Arizona is a state with a mandatory bar association.

Here is what the trustworthy and competent management of this non-profit corporation did recently - which, no doubt, greatly enhances public trust in the integrity of the legal profession.

First, the Arizona State Bar introduced amendments into the "Oath of Admission to the Bar" and the "Lawyer's Creed of Professionalism".

The changes the Arizona State Bar introduced are:

1) that it exposed attorneys in Arizona to discipline for challenging constitutionality of laws by requiring them to swear a loyalty oath to laws that may be unconstitutional and subject to THEIR challenge on behalf of clients:

2) it exposed attorneys in Arizona to discipline for maintaining lawsuits or defenses which the lawyer honestly believes to be debatable under the laws of the land - otherwise, it exposed attorneys in Arizona to discipline for CONSITUTIONAL CHALLENGES to laws:

3) allowed lawyers to discriminate against clients on personal grounds, and not to be disciplined for delaying cases for greed of malice:

As part of amended Lawyer's Creed, the Arizona State Bar:

1) mandated attorneys to allow adjournments of cases, even over opposition of their own clients

2) mandated lawyers to voluntarily exchange information, whether that information exchange is required or not by the formal rules of disclosure, and whether their client agrees to such exchange or not:

3) mandated lawyers to stipulate to facts for which "there is no genuine dispute" - again, without consent of client, and while what constitutes "genuine dispute" may be in itself an issue of fact; such a pledge is a violation of the client's state and federal constitutional right to try ALL, not just SOME issues of fact before a jury:

4) The new "Creed" exposed lawyers for discipline for "disrespect" to courts, where disrespect is usually loosely interpreted as any attempt at criticism of appearance of impropriety or misconduct of the judge or court personnel.  In other words, the lawyer must sign his or her own death sentence by signing this "Lawyer's Creed" in exchange for permission to earn a livelihood.

Both the oath and the creed also say a lot of lofty words about supporting "fair administration of justice" and providing services to those who cannot afford legal representation.

After saying all of that, the Arizona State Bar established a Public Service Center - while allowing, reportedly, only 2 minutes of comments from lawyers BEFORE the program was announced, and without any public bidding for the service that the third-party provider, Legal Services Link, LLC, was allegedly providing through that Public Service Center.

The Public Service Center was established - as declared by the Arizona State Bar  - for the noble cause of connecting the lawyers with the clients, and promoting pro bono service.

Yet, the "Public Service Center"

1) replaced a similar service of Arizona State Bar already in place, for which previously lawyers' money was expended (and, surely, all lawyers' costs were passed to clients in fees); and

2) competed with county lawyer referral services.

Moreover, while Arizona State Bar claimed that it will cost $300,000 for the Arizona State Bar to run the Public Service Center through the 3rd party provider, Legal Services Link LLC, Legal Services Link LLC reportedly announced on the website of the Public Service Center that, on the contrary, the "service" is free to Arizona State Bar and that Arizona State Bar will actually be paid revenues from operation of the Public Service Center, here is a comment about it by a reader of the Irreverent Lawyer blog:

So, with all the pandering to its members for candor and enhancing their trustworthiness, reinforced by "oaths" and "creeds", the management of Arizona State Bar demonstrated that it is a group of crooks, out to scam the ordinary members of the association.

The "public trust" chart was correct, it appears. 

With the exception of competence.