Once again on what is exactly attorney regulation (and any other occupational regulation) - protection of the public or protection of attorneys from competition? And are courts regulating attorneys acting as administrative agencies, after all?

Often, truth about games government plays and lies it tells the public comes out when competing interests of various economic groups clash and when, in the zeal to promote one "cause", the government overlooks that it exposes its own lie regarding another important issue.

For example, the U.S. Congress has enacted a statute, 8 U.S. Code § 1621 called "Aliens who are not qualified aliens or nonimmigrants ineligible for State and local public benefits".

That statute includes into public benefits professional licenses:

"(c) “State or local public benefit” defined

(1) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3), for purposes of this subchapter the term “State or local public benefit” means—

(A)

any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license provided by an agency of a State or local government or by appropriated funds of a State or local government".

Now, what would be wrong about that?

What is wrong is that regulations of professions is claimed to the public to be necessary for protection of the CONSUMERS, of the PUBLIC, not of the licensed professionals.

If that is true, a license is a restriction, not a "public benefit" for the licensed professionals.

What is also interesting, specifically in connection with regulation of attorneys is that 8 U.S. 1621(c)(1)(A) talks, as about public benefits, about professional licenses "provided by an agency of a State or local government".

Attorneys are regulated by the judiciary branch that, when I challenged it in federal court pointing out that attorney regulation is an administrative function and attorney disciplinary proceedings are administrative in nature, claimed to the federal court (and the federal court agreed) that such proceedings are judicial in nature.

Yet, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division 2nd Department agreed, on June 3, 2015, with the New York State Attorney General asserting, on behalf of an illegal alien seeking to be admitted to the bar, that a law license is a "public benefit" within the meaning of 8 U.S.C. 1621(c)(1)(A).

New York State Attorney General is representing in New York everybody in town - all three branches of the government, including the prosecutorial, investigative and decision-making side in attorney disciplinary proceedings.

So, the New York State Attorney General was arguing to the 2nd Department reviewing a case of application for admission to the bar to the 2nd Department's attorney disciplinary committee while arguing to both that they are an "agency" within the meaning of a federal statute, and that what they give (law licenses) is a state agency giving out a public benefit to the holder of the law license.

The same New York State Attorney General is arguing to federal courts, repeatedly, that Appellate Divisions and attorney disciplinary committees are not administrative agencies, but are members of the judiciary branch.

Those two arguments are mutually exclusive, and, thus, frivolous and fraudulent.

But, who is going to discipline the New York State Attorney General when he represents all judges in the State of New York, and when he represents all attorney disciplinary investigators and prosecutors in New York who can easily yank law licenses from all judges in federal courts sitting in New York, thus subjecting them to impeachment - while judges are reviewing civil rights actions where New York State Attorney General is opposing such civil rights lawsuits, and is advancing these mutually exclusive, and thus, fraudulent arguments?

Once again, who is going to discipline the New York State Attorney General for making fraudulent arguments to the court while representing regulators of the judges' own law licenses?

Yet, while the New York State Attorney General can continue to lie all he (and his staff) wants to courts in view of their apparently impunity, it is quite apparent that, conceptually, the same law license cannot possibly serve BOTH as a measure of protection of the public, AND as a "public benefit" given by the state to lawyers, from whom the state government is protecting the public by means of that same law license.

Moreover, when the New York State Attorney General acknowledges that a law license is a "public benefit provided by a State agency" in one setting, it is then fraudulent to assert that courts and their attorney disciplinary boards do not operate in attorney regulation as agencies (executive branch), but operate as courts (judiciary branch), in order to obtain benefits for the government that is available to the judicial branch and is not available to the executive branch.  That's another "chameleon" argument by the New York State Attorney General that is inherently incompatible.

Had New York State Attorney General been consistent in its argument that attorney regulation is for protection of the public and that the regulating court is not acting as an agency, but as a court, it would have advanced two arguments in the Matter of Vargas that it did not advance:

1. 8 U.S.C. 1621 is not applicable to attorney regulation because a law license is not a public benefit to the attorney, but is a measure of protection of the public, not attorneys;
2. 8 U.S.C. 1621 is not applicable because the regulator in the proceedings is not a "State agency", but a court.

None of these arguments were advanced, instead, the N.Y.S. Attorney General wholly endorsed both points:

1. that a law license is a public benefit to the attorney and not a measure of protection for the public (because it cannot be both); and
2. that the regulating court that issues and revokes licenses it a "State agency".

I understand that, given the absolute impunity from any discipline or accountability, and the ability to have "independent" federal judges (licensed attorneys regulated by private attorney disciplinary boards sitting in secret) rule in their favor, no matter what the law says - one and the same thing, the law license and regulation, cannot be used to provide benefits to both sides - to protect the consumers from attorneys, and to provide a benefit to the attorney.

As I said, truth sometimes seeps out inadvertently.