Settlement by an attorney without consent of a client may be unlawful, after all - the 2nd Circuit says

I recently had a case in front of Judge Robert Mulvey, the Chief Administrative Judge of the 6th Judicial District.

I filed that case on behalf of my client and friend, a retired police officer.

The lawsuit was, among other things, against my client's prior attorney who:

1) had a conflict of interest in the case and confirmed it to his client;

2) received a direct instruction from his client not to settle a case pending in the Supreme Court in downstate New York;

3) made statements against his client in a related proceeding, further disqualifying himself from representing him;

4) promised his client to not settle the case without his consent;

5) turned around and settled the case, without telling his client (his client at that point);

6) never notified his client of the stipulation;

7) when his client learnt of the stipulation through other people, blocked his client from seeing the file; and

8) argued in support of dismissal of his own client's claims against him that he had an authority to settle "within the limits of insurance policy", without regard to what his client tells him - and obtained a dismissal like that.

That was last year.

This year, on November 5, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in the case Manuel Gomez v City of New York, New York City Police Department, Case No. 14-3583, said the following:

1) there is a presumption that an attorney entering into a settlement has authority from his client to do so, in order to bind his client; but

2) that presumption is rebuttable, and the court should allow evidence in for rebuttal of that presumption.

It means to me that the case decided by Mulvey was decided - as I argued all along - incorrectly and the dismissal may be reopened.

Judge-Elect Ryba: booted from her position as advisor for Appellate Court for unethical behavior in her election campaign - what next?

I wrote recently about unethical conduct of Christine Ryba, special counsel to the Chief Judge of the Appellate Division 3rd Department Karen Peters and questioned validity of her election.

Today, Albany Times Union reported that Christina Ryba was fired from her job with the court for "unethical missteps", likely connected with her judicial election campaign and the use of her position in the court and court e-mail system to further her personal bid to be elected as a judge.

This is a unique situation.

An attorney who was the chief advisor to the top judge of a disciplining court, and who was a member of the NYS Statewide Commission on Attorney Discipline, gets booted for unethical conduct.

Will an attorney who was fired for ethical missteps connected with her judicial campaign be allowed to become a judge?

And will she be disciplined?

Or is her blood so blue from her employment for judges, whether she was booted or nor, that she is above the law - and discipline that she was advising Judge Peters to be imposed on others?

Stay tuned.

The Anthony Pacherille story, Part 1 - for judge Brian Burns of Otsego County Court, NY, justice is for sale

I will start from the end.

In May of 2015, the New York State Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of a young man from Otsego County, Anthony Pacherille, for attempted murder in the 2nd degree and his sentence, on a plea, for 11 years in prison.

Anthony Pacherille was 16 at the time the crime was committed.

There was a strong dissent in the decision, and I encourage my readers to read it fully.

I will post two first paragraphs of the dissent by Judge Jenny Rivera:

 

Essentially, what Judge Rivera said is that youthful offender status (which converts the criminal conviction into a Family Court adjudication, provides for no criminal record and allows maximum incarceration until the person turns 21) cannot be waived in a plea bargain.

Not only the YO status in Anthony Pacherille's conviction was waived, but, as his father claims on his website Cooperstown Hall of Shame, Anthony Pacherille, a young man with a diagnosed mental illness, was coerced into lying about his alleged racial motivation to shoot at the victim instead of being driven by the victim's alleged bullying of Anthony Pacherille at school.

The father claims that the youth was coerced to lie by DA John Muehl and by judge Brian Burns, as a condition of giving him "only" 11 years in prison, with the alternative of the maximum of 20 years in prison.  The scared youth accepted the plea deal.  I wonder who was his defense attorney at the time to allow all of that.   

I believe what the father is saying of the son being coerced to lie in a plea, is true.  It happened to my own adult client - even though he refused to enter a false plea, but Burns was pushing for my client, in court, on record, to disregard issues in the case and to settle with the government while knowing there was no legally sufficient case against my client.

The problem that Jenny Rivera and Jonathan Lippman (another dissenter) saw in such a conviction and super-harsh sentencing is that children should not be held criminally responsible for their actions on the same level as adults, and that is especially applicable to mentally ill children, while Anthony Pacherille was diagnosed, at the time of sentencing of having a mental illness.

The maximum security prison where the mentally ill young man is held as an adult, the Clinton Correctional facility, certainly does not help treat such a mental illness.

 The case was resolved by a plea bargain, so the case was never tried, and any plea bargaining impairs truth-finding.

Yet, what does appear from the plea bargain, as reported in the press at least, is that the presiding Judge Brian Burns took into consideration the boy's mental illness in accepting the plea, and then refused to consider that same mental status at sentencing where he had discretion to give the boy a YO status, and abused that discretion.

What is even more troubling is the reported insistence of DA Muehl, through a letter to the boy's defense counsel at trial level (see the same interlinked source), to prevent introduction of the evidence that Anthony Pacherille was bullied at school (as the father says, by the victim) as a factor of the boy's actions.

That is, my dear readers, preventing introduction of Brady material, of mitigating factors, and such letter in itself, as well as such a motivation, constitutes prosecutorial misconduct for John Muehl.

The question is - why did Brian Burns, the former assistant Otsego County District Attorney - followed what John Muehl wanted, even if what John Muehl wanted (preventing consideration as mitigating factors the boy's mental illness and being bullied by the victim) would be illegal at trial and abuse of discretion at sentencing on a plea bargain of a YO-eligible mentally ill boy?

Well, if what Anthony Pacherille's father reports of what the victim was doing to Anthony Pacherille is true, instead of coercing the boy into accepting a plea bargain for 11 years in prison, the boy could very well be entitled to a temporary insanity defense, especially based on his diagnosis for mental illness.

Why such a harsh treatment of a mentally ill 16-year-old whose victim survived, as opposed to an extremely lenient treatment of a rich old lady who killed a young woman and got 90 days in prison from the same Brian Burns?

Look at the comments of the victim's family about Bertsch' release from prison:

According to Pacherille's father's website, Sandra Bertsch is a rich old lady and a friend of the local rich lady Jane Clark, and that, and not anything else, is the reason for the lenient sentence.

According to my own research, Sandra K. Bertsch also was allegedly, according to the wedding announcement of her son in New York Times of all places, the executive vice president of Friends of Hyde Hall, "which operates a historic site in Cooperstown, N.Y." 

Friends of Hyde Hall apparently is a prominent local charity in Cooperstown, NY. 

Bertsch was represented in front of Brian Burns by two attorneys, one of those two was Stephen Coffey, the then member of the New York State Commission of Judicial Conduct.

Coffey was first appointed to the Commission in 1995 by the much embattled Bruno.

Coffey got booted off the Commission in 2011 when the controversy with the "blind truck driver" case and Coffey's illegal threats to have everybody who touches "his" bail money (which was not his as a matter of law) indicted for grand larceny - for which he had to have an agreement with Delaware County District Attorney Richard Northrup, now himself elevated to the position of a Delaware County Judge.

I wrote on this blog about Stephen R. Coffey's prior misconduct in coercing judges and bending them to his will, whether his demands were lawful or not, by apparent use of his position of the Vice-Chair of the Commission.

After he was fired from a job, Coffey sent letters to the Delaware County Treasurer, me, my husband, then an attorney, my client, the District Attorneys office and then Judge Carl Becker asserting his right to a criminal defendant's bail, to which he could not show entitlement since the bail receipt was not in his name - as the appellate court has ruled later.  Coffey plunged Delaware County into several years of litigation, Becker engaged in an ex parte communication with the then Delaware County Attorney Richard Spinney (Spinney's revelation was reflected in the record), and it was I who was sanctioned by Becker for pointing out potential corruption - and it is I who was turned by Becker into the disciplinary court for claiming corruption between Becker and Coffey in coercing Coffey's client to waive his right to sue Becker, Delaware County DA Northrup and state and federal law enforcement for their unlawful arrest and seizure of the defendant's property.

It is Coffey who had Becker accept such a plea and coerced his legally blind client to state, twice, that he was driving the truck where the alleged drugs were found, while another person was given a ticket for speeding as a pretext for stopping that same truck on that same occasion.

Very apparently, Coffey had Burns' fate in his hands, as he had Becker's before - he could allow complaints against Burns to proceed, or not to proceed, at his discretion, as he did with Becker.

And that implicit threat worked as a charm.

Coffey's position as the Vice-Chair of the Commission won his client Sandra Bertsch an extremely lenient plea bargain - something that Anthony Pacherille did not win, after all, he did not belong to a prominent and rich family, his father did not have rich friends, and his attorney did not hold the judge's fate in his hands.

So, the results of the two cases is different. 

Let's remember, Lippitt is alive.

One victim of Sandra Bertsch, Patricia Zacchagnino, a woman who will never be 38 and will never see her child grow, is dead.

Her 2-year-old child was gravely injured in that collision.

Burns did not allow to videotape the sentencing of Sandra Bertsch.

Yet, Patricia Zacchagnino's husband made a statement at that sentencing and reportedly said the following:

Doesn't seem like a lot of remorse to me from the defendant, and doesn't seem like she was entitled to any leniency.

Yet, Coffey made a speech asking Burns to consider Bertsch's participation in "good causes" - which Anthony Pacherille, due to his age and his family's financial status, was unable to participate in to earn Burns' similar regard.

And Bertsch's participation in Cooperstown Friends of Hyde Hall and Girl Scouts got her 90 days in jail for drunk driving and wreckage that killed one person, injured a young child and caused extensive damage to property.

Of course, Bertsch's request to tend her dogs first as a priority over tending to a young child injured in a car crash caused by Bertsch, trapped in a wrecked car with the body of her young mother killed by Bertsch, was not addressed by Burns in his sentencing to 90 days in local jail, and Bertsch was out in 60 days "for good behavior".

Of course, as Patricia Zaccagnino's grieving widower said that his family was poor and, apparently, did not deserve consideration such as the rich drunk killer did.

And Pacherille, a boy who was not from the local establishment, was reportedly, according to his father, first not protected by the school from bullying by Wes Lippit, and when, after the years of relentless and cruel bullying, he snapped, Burns and Muehl got to be "tough on crime" off the boy's misery.

Lippitt suffered a wound after, reportedly, he relentlessly bullied Anthony Pacherille, who was a boy of 16 at the time of committing the crime, and, according to the two top judges of the New York State Court of appeals, constitutionally children should be held to the same standard of criminal responsibility as adults.

Yet, for Judge Burns, the reverse is true.  

An adult who killed another adult and injured a child, is allowed to plea to an e-felony criminally negligent homicide, go to local jail for 90 days, have a 5-year probation and 500 hours of community service.  She violated even that, by drinking, but because of the lenient plea bargain, even such a violation garnered her no more than 2 1/2 years in prison.

A minor who wounded another minor after that minor reportedly taunted and cruelly bullied the minor defendant for years, with adults standing by and doing nothing to help, gets 11 years, from a judge who was pissed by the father's letter to him requesting compassion.

Because judge Brian Burns wanted his 5 minutes of fame and promotion of his career by making an example of an alleged hate crime by a white boy against an African American boy in a nearly all-white area?

That is, at the time when Brian Burns continues to convict a disproportionate number of minorities in that same nearly all-white community for felonies and pack them away to prisons?

And, how about the fact that Brian Burns refused to consider a YO status on personal grounds, in retaliation for a letter that the father of the young boy sent to Brian Burns' home?

So, Burns made the boy suffer for whatever perceived threat he felt in the letter of the father, while there was no threat in that letter at all - as determined by another court, where the father was charged with a crime based on Burns' deposition as a witness?

And, unfortunately, disqualification and bias of the judge were not mentioned as factors in the NY Court of Appeals decision interlinked above, while it is very clear that Burns should not have been anywhere near the boy's case if he felt the way he claimed he did - intimidated by the father's letter.

I will continue with a blog as to how Otsego County (NY) judge Brian Burns escaped responsibility through a civil rights lawsuit for using his power as a judge in pursuing his personal vendetta against Anthony Pacherille's father that cost the mentally ill young boy a YO status and landed him for 11 years in a maximum security adult prison, with a criminal record of a violent felon, instead of up to 4 years in a juvenile facility, with no criminal record.

I will continue with another blog about continued vendetta against the Pacherille brothers, father and uncle of the young boy Anthony Pacherille that Burns put in maximum security prison for snapping after he could not tolerate bullying any more, after adults from the school, the police and the DSS/Otsego County Attorney's office failed to protect him for years by failing to discipline Wesley Lippitt, or bring a PINs or juvenile delinquency proceeding against him.

Stay tuned.

Otsego County DA John Muehl gets case-fixing from former Michael Coccoma, former Otsego County DA

I wrote on this blog recently about what was likely case-rigging between the Otsego County DA John Muehl and the Otsego County Judge John Lambert in People v Norman Michaels, and that a large part of the appearance of impropriety was that Judge Lambert was Chief Assistant Otsego County District Attorney under John Muehl before he came to the bench in 2008 (Muehl was elected in 2003).

It looked like case-rigging because the case was legally insufficient and an indictment could only be obtained, and sustained, and reach trial, because the judge disregarded the law in favor of his former boss John Muehl.

Two other Otsego County judges, Michael Coccoma (now elected to the Supreme Court) and Brian Burns are no better than Lambert in fixing criminal cases for DA John Muehl and drumming up wrongful convictions or incarcerations for publicity sake, to exact retaliation against people for personal reasons and for career advancement.

Coccoma sent a person to prison for 1 1/3 to 4 years for violation of a sex offender related condition when he was not a sex offender.

John Muehl was the one who did not seek or obtain an indictment for a sex offense against that person.

John Muehl, thus, had no right to offer sex offender-related conditions of probation on a non-sex offender indictment, or to seek violation of such conditions afterwards.

Coccoma had no right to sentence a person who was never charged with a sex offense, to probation with conditions of probation branding him as a sex offender.

Nor did Coccoma have authority to violate that person because he did not fulfill a sex-offender-related condition of probation.
 
Yet, in court, Coccoma yelled at the defendant, on record, that "for Coccoma" the defendant was a sex offender - and sent him to prison for that.  Coccoma also yelled that it was obnoxious for defendant to say he was not a sex offender.

So, the obnoxious part was for the defendant to insist that the court should follow the law and should not punish him for what he was never charged.

Upon my information, prior to Coccoma's yelling, the defendant turned Coccoma into the Commission for Judicial Conduct for acting without jurisdiction and treating him as a sex offender when he was never convicted or even charged for a sex offense.

If Coccoma was so enraged at the defendant for turning him in, he should have immediately recused from the case.  That, of course, did not happen.

Instead, Coccoma used his assignment to that case to get his revenge against the complainant against him to the Judicial Conduct Commission by sending him to prison for violation of a completely illegal condition of probation that had nothing to do with the crime the person was charged with. 

Once again, the essence of violation of the condition of probation was that the defendant did not undergo a sex offender evaluation and treatment (which the government refused to pay for while the defendant was poor and the cost of treatment was $600) by a person who was never convicted or even charged for a sex offense.

Under the law - defendant wasn't a sex offender, but Coccoma did not care about the law, and for Coccoma - he was, that's the reason he was sent to prison.  

Coccoma was never punished for this and was, instead, elected as a Supreme Court justice, elevated to the position of Chief Administrative Judge of upstate New York, and, recently, at the State of the Judiciary Address, New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced his appointment of Coccoma as a chief administrative judge in charge of fiduciary appointments.   

Muehl was never prosecuted for this wrongful incarceration either, even though it was dishonest and illegal for Muehl to try to violate a non-sex offender as a sex offender.  

Yet, there is no statute of limitations for disciplinary actions against attorneys or judges, for either prosecutorial misconduct, nor judicial misconduct, and prosecution of both Muehl and Coccoma for this particular episode is thus possible.

Documentary evidence is there.

It clearly shows that both Coccoma and Muehl are dishonest and incompetent people who should not occupy positions of power they do occupy.

It is no trifle and no laughing matter when a judge who was a former DA in a County, gives his successor a completely illegal victory, in violation of the applicable laws both are supposed to uphold.

It was also clear that both Coccoma and Muehl were seeking publicity by sending the non-sex-offender to jail for not complying with a sex-offender specific conditions of probation, and while Coccoma called that person a sex offender in open court, on record.

The case was vastly publicized in Otsego County, and Coccoma sought advancement of his career through it.

Coccoma has got his advancement soon after.

The wrongful incarceration was ordered in May of 2008.

In the same 2008 Coccoma was appointed Chief Administrative Judge of the 6th Judicial District, and in 2009 Coccoma was appointed Chief Administrative Judge of upstate New York.

Apparently, incompetence and dishonesty of judges are rewarded in New York by career advancement.

It is like a test - can a judge abuse his power and be a "team player"?  Oh, he can, and in a bad way?  Then, more power to him.

To learn about a dishonest ruling aimed to gain publicity and career advancement by yet another judge of the Otsego County Court, Brian Burns, stay tuned for my next blogs about the case of Anthony Pacherille, about the resulting civil rights lawsuit against judge Burns by the defendant's father and how dishonestly Judge Burns had that case rigged and dismissed.

NYS Assistant Attorney General reminisces of rats - literally

When I was researching today on Twitter responses to the #LoveYourLawyerDay, I saw a tweet from NYS Assistant Attorney General Andrew Ayers, and visited his Twitter page.

Impressive.

Andrew Ayers is the New York State Assistant Attorney General who was given months of adjournments by the state judges whom Andrew Ayers represented in federal court (and both him and judges were disqualified from cases where Ayers continued to stubbornly appear and the judges continued to stubbornly rule), when he simply neglected to do his job when he was preparing his private book for publishing.  

Andrew Ayers is the one who claimed to the 2nd Circuit that I neglected two clients by not appearing at a deposition and by not answering a motion - two years after court documents were provided in the litigation that he was handling showing that at the time of deposition and motion I was not an attorney and could not possibly neglect clients as a lawyer at the claimed time.

Andrew Ayers is the one who obtained a dismissal of an appeal that challenged constitutionality of regulation of the legal profession (that Ayers acknowledges is in trouble and is crying for help) by filing an unsigned and unserved ex parte defective pleading claiming that the only reason my husband needs the page limit expanded is because his complaint (drafted by me) was "incoherent".  That was on September 21, 2015.  

Of course, 3 days later, on September 24, 2015 Andrew Ayers' clients filed a "Final Report and Recommendation" as members of the NYS Statewide Commission for Attorney Discipline freely adopting ideas that they just dismissed in the "incoherent" complaint as perfectly good and needed for reforming the system of attorney discipline.

And, Andrew Ayers and his colleague from the court below on the same case, NYS Attorney General Bruce Boivin, continue to file mutually inconsistent pleadings.

Boivin says that Mr. Neroni could raise all of his after-dismissal issues on appeal and asks to deny his Rule 60 motion to vacate because of that.

Ayers says that Mr. Neroni only needs to address the amended complaint and nothing else on appeal, and for this reason does not need an extension of page limit, without which Mr. Neroni would actually be unable to cover all issues on appeal, including what happened after dismissal.

I kept wondering, what is wrong with those two attorneys.

Are they habitually drunk when writing and e-filing what they write and e-file?

Are they habitually on drugs?

Do they not know their "duty of candor to the tribunal" - those same duties that they have to PROSECUTE in their positions of New York State Assistants Attorney General, not commit themselves?

As a taxpayer, I have a right to know how a public servant whose salary is paid by my tax dollars, is doing his job.

I've got my answers, at least somewhat, through Andrew Ayers' tweets.

Look.

Especially when avoiding work comes as a feeling of entitlement, after having been anointed as part of royal entourage, having been a law clerk to the now U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, which apparently absolves an attorney, for life, from doing his duty properly.

You are a public servant, Mr. Ayers, paid by taxpayers, including myself.

Either do not work on Sundays when you want to do something else, or do not catch yourself thinking "Eh, good enough".

When you see "pursuant to" in a brief, Mr. Ayers, please, look what it is pursuant to and do not fly into passion that somebody used a "lawyer-like" phrase.    Because too often you don't pay attention.

But here is the absolute best of the best.

In his book published in September of 2014 (when Ayers was working on the book while arguing to the court, where judges were his own clients, instead of doing his work on a case), Ayers claimed the honor of working in NYC for Judge Sonya Sotomayor.

Now, his reminiscences changed obviously, and instead of the honor of working for a judge in NYC, he now remembers about NYC missing the "feelings of disgust and alarm, mixed so poignantly with 'Wow, I'm really impressed" - by a rat dragging a piece of pizza down the stairs.

I am really impressed, too.

By the intellectual potential of our public servants.

So, now I need to think when reading Ayers' pleadings whether he was reminiscing of a rat or dreaming of making his life vivid and entrancing by avoiding work - again.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit continues discrimination against pro se civil rights plaintiffs - including through page limits

I wrote on this blog a lot about discrimination against pro se parties by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Recently, I ran a blog about shenanigans of the 2nd Circuit that accepted defective unsigned filing by NYS Attorney General Andrew Ayers served to the wrong address (not served, in other words) in opposition to the extension of page limit on appeal by my husband Frederick J. Neroni - where Mr. Neroni was trying to cover not only appellate issues, but issues occurring after dismissal covering misconduct of defendants through actions inconsistent with their positions in litigation and consistent with Mr. Neroni's position that the defendants had dismissed.

I will run a separate blog on work ethic of Andrew Ayers.  

Right now I would like to concentrate on Andrew Ayers' fight against Mr. Neroni's request to exceed the page limit of 30 pages in the appellant's brief set by the court rules of the 2nd Circuit.

Yet, I read today on Twitter that on October 26, 2015, NFL lawyers filed a 59-page brief with the same court.

I went to Pacer.gov, found the case, checked the docket file - and voila!  

No motions to extend page limit, no "notices of defective filings" - such as the ones that the 2nd Circuit court posted on Pacer for Mr. Neroni for filing a brief exceeding that page limit (but not to Andrew Ayers, former clerk of that court, for filing an unsigned and unserved document).

And, NFL never filed a motion for extension for page limit either.

Nothing like a little more proof of discrimination against pro se civil rights litigants discovered on a #LoveYourLawyerDay.

#LoveYourLawyerDay - the desperation sets in

The American Bar Association called for a #LoveMyLawyerDay to be celebrated on the first Friday of November - that was yesterday.

Many bar associations and law schools followed.

There is, of course, a fury of Tweets and Facebook postings on the subject, some of them pretty interesting.

Here they are.

By the way, this particular lawyer joke came from a real judge from Texas whose wife served in the U.S. Senate and in the White house.  In answer to a day established by the ABA to fight lawyer jokes, the judge posts a lawyer joke that says that the only people who need that day are lawyers themselves.

Great support.

This one comes from the NYS Assistant Attorney General Andrew Ayers, by the way.

By the way, I am not the only one who is questioning "the wisdom", as the Wall Street Journal politically-correctly put it, of this "plaintive plea" to "love me and my profession".

The whole idea of the #LoveYourLawyerDay was spawned by the American Bar Association, through this so-called document. 

So, the public thinks that lawyers' contribution to society is low - based on opinion polls.  The solution?  #LoveYourLawyerDay.

The public perception of lawyers "on honesty and ethics" is at 21%, which is "unsatisfactory" to the ABA.  Not because of whether public perception of lawyers is reasonable and based on facts of self-dealing and corruption by the legal profession, lawyers, prosecutors and judges, who block access to justice for the overwhelming majority of Americans by keeping access to the profession restricted, by fixing the rules favoring the profession and disfavoring pro se representation in litigation, by buying judges through campaign contributions and out-of-court boons like paid trips, speccing engagements and free drinks and meals at receptions, among others.

So, where public perception of a certain profession is that the profession is DIRTY and UNETHICAL, the solution for it is:

1. not to investigate whether the perception is right, but
2. paint a big pink heart upon the legal profession and tell everybody to just love those rascals for one day.

Because - you know what - they do pro bono hours.  Well, at least, some of them do.  Some hours.  Not many hours all in all.  Not as many hours as needed to close the "access to justice gap", which would not have existed in the first place if the legal profession would simply be deregulated.

Of course, those pro bono hours are like a band aid upon a ship wreckage.

Of course, those pro bono hours would not be needed if the legal profession is simply deregulated - and the public can then choose cheaper providers of legal services on their own.

Look at how arrogant the American Bar Association is in their little "make the public to love lawyers even if it has no reason for it" resolution.

Remember the polls?

That the perception of the public is quite opposite?  That the public believes the legal profession as a whole is dishonest and unethical - with plenty of evidence to support it.

So, the solution is to jam the love out of the public and to make the public celebrate the people the public distrusts and considers dishonest and unethical.

The solution is to make the public "express their gratitude" for the "affirmative contribution to the public good and the administration of justice" of those very people that the public considers dishonest and unethical.

Pro bono services are good, but they are a drop in the bucket of legal services which are overpriced and corrupt and they will never fulfill the unmet need of legal services that could be easily met by lower-priced service providers if deregulation occurs.

Moreover, I remember how my contracts law professor (a very good CONTRACTS law professor) was mentioning casually in a lecture that he was doing pro bono work in a criminal case.

I wanted to kill him.

Criminal procedure in New York, as in every state, is something you cannot casually walk in, do it and walk away.

In fact, a person who has no legal training, but is dedicated to this particular issue and reads on this particular issue, can provide a good representation, but I doubted that the busy contracts law professor was interested in criminal law to the degree of providing true expert representation in a criminal case.

People need in court not just a warm body with a license.  They know somebody who knows what is going on and whom they can trust not to sell them out, and, unfortunately, pro bono people usually do not go to trial, are there to get a limited number of hours under their belt and report it, and thus, often a person is better of on his or her own or represented by a knowledgeable neighbor who he can trust and who cares, rather than by such "pro bono" lawyers.

Supporting "charitable causes" is good, even though it is an optional activity for a lawyer as a citizen and is not part of the lawyer's duty to a client, so it should be celebrated as a trait of the legal profession, because it is not part of the job of a lawyer.

It is the same as celebrating the plumbers' profession for doing charitable things in your community. 

Now, plumbers is a profession as good as any, and plumbers can engage in charitable work as well as anybody else, yet, plumbers are not trying to promote their profession by a #LoveYourPlumberDay asking the public to celebrate charitable contributions of plumbers to society, because - guess what - it is business advertising.

As well as the #LoveYourLawyerDay.

It is a business advertising.

Of a sinking business overall.

Of a business that hurts the economy, prevents people from obtaining true remedies for real injuries, and advances corruption of public officials.

And, promoting the administration of justice that ABA calls for through #LoveYourLawyerDay is extremely problematic.  

Regulation of the legal profession by a branch of the government whose misconduct the legal profession must bring up in defense of their clients prevents proper discharge of duties by the legal profession and makes "promoting the administration of justice" impossible.

So, as NY Assistant Attorney General Andrew Ayers said in his tweet, the whole #LoveYourLawyerDay feels "a bit like a cry for help".

No, not "a bit".

This cry for help came at the time when occupational deregulation in general - and deregulation of the legal profession specifically - is seriously coming from the fringes into the mainstream of ideas.

And a plea for love by the rich-but-sinking ship of legal elite appears not just "a bit" like a cry for help.

It is a cry of desperation.

And - remember - regulation was done in the first place (allegedly) for the benefit of the public, for the benefit of consumers.

Of course, an offer of help to consumers should not come with strings attached, prohibiting at the same time free choice of service providers - which happened in the market of legal services.

And, the regulation is done actually by supermajorities of attorneys, and legal consumers are not allowed near that regulation, so the regulation is actually all a sham and federal antitrust criminal activity to quash competition and hurt consumers.

The quashing of competition is against small lower-cost service providers who actually cater for poorer people and more vulnerable populations, and attorneys for the rich and for large business habitually escape discipline through their political connections.

The best solution for the justice gap, to vastly expand the market of legal services, will be deregulation.  

And the only cost of such deregulation will be a cost to attorneys who went to expensive law schools and want a quick return on their investment expensive tuition.

Which is not a good reason for the consumers not to push for deregulation - because the regulation was meant to protect them, the consumers, not the lawyers' markets and high prices. 

So, love your lawyer, if you want.  Today, or every day of the year.

But, let's still deregulate the legal profession.