Thursday, February 11, 2016
A disciplinary complaint was filed against the Texas State Attorney General
An attorney filed a disciplinary complaint against the Texas State Attorney General.
As I wrote on this blog, the use of attorney discipline on elected public officials is controversial - just look how it is used as a tool of retaliation on Pennsylvania State Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
What complicates matters is that the Texas Attorney General, same as any other state Attorney General REPRESENTS both the regulating Disciplinary Board and the court that is supposed to rule on his discipline, making the situation decidedly wrought with irreconcilable conflicts of interest.
The conflict of interest thickens when it is obvious that the Texas bar, same as all other bars, state and federal, within the United States, failed to comply with federal antitrust laws and continue "self-regulation" - which is, in fact, an admission to regulation as a criminal antitrust cartel, in violation of federal criminal and civil federal antitrust law, The Sherman Act.
And when the Texas Attorney General, same as the PA Attorney General, same as all State Attorney Generals and the U.S. Attorneys, who are sworn to uphold state and federal laws, must PROSECUTE those violating federal antitrust laws, while other laws requires them to REPRESENT the same public officials as attorneys.
And, of course, the Texas AG - same as the Pennsylvania AG Kathleen Kane, by the way, same as New York AG Eric Schneiderman, same as all other state AGs - continues to allow local governments to defy federal antitrust laws by allowing the legal profession to be run as a criminal cartel.
After all, the AGs are themselves licensed attorneys and expecting them to prosecute the regulators is requiring from them a self-sacrifice that they might not be capable of.
But, the complaining attorney also brought up an interesting - even though not new - point that the Texas bar is white-washing politically connected attorneys and do not discipline them.
We'll see whether the Texas bar disciplinary board will dare to prosecute its own attorney.
Stay tuned.
Albany Law School legal ethics Professor Brescia inadvertently acknowledges the dirty little secret of the legal profession - the regulation of the legal profession by the government, allegedly to protect the public, is a fake
Professors of legal ethics are supposed to teach about legal ethics.
And while teaching about legal ethics they are supposed to be ethical themselves.
Yet, a legal ethics professor who testified before the New York State Commission for Attorney Discipline told the Commission that it is unnecessary to teach students about the workings of attorney disciplinary system, because if they would know of its shortcomings, they may engage in unethical conduct.
The professor thus demonstrated a lot of faith in the legal profession as a whole and in the integrity of his student body in particular. Apparently, the only way to have a future lawyer to behave ethically is to deceive him and not to give him information about how to defend himself if charged with an ethical violation.
Albany Law School Professor Ray Brescia continued in Professor Mills and Gilberts' footsteps of making deliriously inadequate public statements - by attempting to teach non-regulated professions how to pretend to be regulated, in order to avoid real regulation by the real, neutral, watchful and efficient (his word is "intrusive") agency of the government.
In an article published yesterday in Huffington Post, named "How to Regulate the Sharing Economy? Look to the Law Governing Lawyers", Professor Brescia makes some interesting points.
He started his article benignly enough, by stating this:
"Whether it is ride-hailing services, the opportunity to rent a spare room for a short-term stay, the chance to participate in an on-line auction for Star Wars memorabilia, or the excuse to purchase artisanal jewelry, Sharing Economy platforms are connecting consumers to providers in new and technology-enabled ways, making life easier, more convenient, less expensive, and maybe a little more interesting."
So, Professor Brescia, a professor of legal ethics, suddenly became interested in providers of services who invade a turf of licensed service providers - such as licensed taxi drivers vs. Uber.
The interest of a legal ethics professor to the "Sharing Economy" and giving the UNREGULATED "sharing economy" trades an unsolicited advice as to how to regulate themselves is already an interesting choice of topic.
While being a professor of legal ethics (which are governed by lawyer-invented rules for lawyers), Professor Brescia is not an expert on occupational regulation at large, does not have business, economic or management education and is definitely treading upon the turf where he has no expertise.
He is doing it "coincidentally" at the time when the American Bar Association has issued a Resolution 105 grudgingly conceding to not fight too much if states start to allow "non-traditional legal service providers" to provide legal services - and did that against the resistance of the New York State Bar Association fighting the unbundling of legal services into provision of information - separately, and legal services - separately, and fighting it viciously and in completely uncivilized (and unethical) language.
Professor Brescia is fully aware of the "disruption" of the legal profession by emerging potential new service providers - he even cautiously welcomed it in his recent article, and here is the abstract of the article:
====
The legal profession is in the midst of a disruption: a monumental, transformative shift in shape and focus that will change the practice of law forever. Some lament this phenomenon. Some worry that it signals the end of Big Law, and that it will have ripple effects throughout the legal industry. Many assess the impact of these disruptions on the delivery of services to wealthier clients and corporations, who, in many instances, are the only ones able to afford lawyers in the U.S. legal market in the first place.
Clayton Christensen has coined the term the "Innovator’s Dilemma" for the phenomenon of business disruption, through which high-end producers of goods and services are "disrupted" by those entering the market on the lower end. Those disruptors are first ignored by incumbents and then those entrants find ways to serve a larger and larger segment of the market, eventually displacing the incumbents. If this theory is to be believed, true change in the market for the provision of legal services will not come from those serving wealthier clients, where many today look for the impacts of disruptive techniques and technologies. Instead, true disruption is likely to come from those serving the "lower end" of the market: the solo practitioners, legal services lawyers, and "low bono" providers of legal services. It is innovation in these corners of the market where pathbreaking disruption will take place, mostly out of necessity. What’s more, it is the low end of the market that is actually quite robust: i.e., there is a desperate need for legal services, just an inability to pay for them.
Disruption of the legal services industry has the potential for bringing real benefits to low- and moderate-income consumers of legal services. What this Article attempts to do is identify ways that disruption can occur in the provision of legal services to improve access to justice, particularly for low- and moderate-income individuals and families. While many recent entrants into the market for legal services risk running afoul of charges of unauthorized practice of law, those who are providing free services through the internet appear to be acting in compliance with lawyer rules of professional responsibility. This Article will review both the for-profit and non-profit models of technology-enabled legal assistance and assess the extent to which each may comply, or not comply, with unauthorized practice of law requirements. It will then review current efforts of non-profits to deliver technology-enabled services, and describe one initiative in detail that involved the creation of a web-based application to assist homeowners facing foreclosure in New York State.
Given the need in low- and moderate-income communities for affordable legal services, perhaps disruption in this market has its benefits: at a minimum, it offers a way to improve access to justice for communities and individuals underserved by the present — and expensive — modes of delivering legal services in the United States. This article explores those benefits, but also highlights some of the concerns that arise when technology is used to improve access to justice.
====
Professor Brescia is even aware of the "justice gap" where too many law graduates do not have jobs while too many Americans cannot afford an attorney.
Professor Brescia's solution for that? (Remember, Professor Brescia is not an economist) - More funding for "legal aid" services, which, of course, should come out of the pockets of the same American taxpayers who cannot afford those legal services directly in the first place.
Yet, Professor Brescia, not being a specialist in business or economics, does get interested in certain business theories - such as the theories of "disruptive innovators".
Apparently, Professor Brescia is aware of the work of a Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, of his concept of "disruptive innovation" that was coined in 1995 as a general theoretical term of business development and not in connection with legal services, but reaching the legal profession in earnest only now, with the rapid proliferation of information technologies that take away from lawyers the monopoly to disperse legal information (for a hefty fee), a disruption that got NYS Bar Association President David Miranda all fired up.
With that background on Professor Brescia in mind, let's see where his interesting interest in what has nothing to do with the legal profession led him, and his amateurish, but self-interested advice as to how to regulate unregulated businesses that have nothing to do with the legal profession.
"Self-interested" because Professor Brescia is also a licensed attorney, and thus is not a neutral expert on issues of regulation of the legal profession.
In his article, Professor Brescia, in fact, attempts to fight against encroachments upon his own turf as a licensed attorney - whether such fight promotes and prolongs the justice gap he laments about or not.
After all, Professor Brescia is educated in the elite Fordham University and in the elite Yale School of Law and is very far away from the economic and civil rights reality of the justice gap, while his own livelihood is, of course, important to him and trumps any justice gap issues.
Professor Brescia mentions in his article that "what companies in this Sharing Economy are doing is disrupting incumbent industries, upending regulatory schemes, and challenging the legal infrastructure and the governments that oversee it" and indicates that governments, from Europe to the U.S., take "wildly different" approaches to regulation of such emerging and unregulated service providers.
Then, Professor Brescia pays lip service to the declared purpose of governmental regulation over professions: "Regulation in many of the industries where Sharing Economy platforms are thriving serves an important consumer protection purpose", and points out that people who engage in earning a living do it - gasp! - for a profit! That is something new, isn't it? ("Even though Sharing Economy companies strive to serve the common good, they are also out to make a profit.")
I wonder if Professor Brescia works without compensation at Albany Law School.
I also wonder whether Professor Brescia was paid for his article about regulating the "Sharing Economy" providers, and if he was, then who was his sponsor and how much he was paid.
Professor Brescia then (remember, he is NOT an expert in occupational licensing) tries to teach the poor sillies in the unregulated market to embrace the government regulation as a way to gain "more economic activity":
"When it comes to regulation, however, what many are saying is "trust us, don't regulate us." But what Sharing Economy platforms don't seem to understand is that regulation can actually lead to trust, which can foster more economic activity."
Let's remember that statement for the future. Professor Brescia thinks that occupational regulation "can lead to trust", and that the trust created by occupational regulation "can foster more economic activity" for the regulated profession.
Because after advising the poor sillies of the "Sharing Economy platform" to embrace regulation, Professor Brescia drops a bomb - like this:
"There is another industry that has, for centuries, operated under the notion that some regulation is actually good for business, but it opts to regulate itself as a way to fend off more onerous regulation. Let us regulate our profession ourselves says this industry and stay out of our business model. Malpractice lawsuits on the periphery, for the worst cases of abuse, are fine, but, leave the regulation of the profession to the profession. That industry is the legal services industry."
By the way, Professor Brescia explores his interesting claims even in more depth in his forthcoming new article.
What is wrong about Professor Brescia's claims?
Let's start.
As I said above, Professor Brescia is NOT an expert in occupational regulation as a whole, and he is NOT an expert in business, he does not have either a Masters or a PhD in business management or economics (by way of disclosure, I have a Masters degree in business management and I have been conducting research of occupational regulation as a whole for years and am writing a book on the subject).
Yet, Professor Brescia IS an expert on legal ethics and MUST know the law governing the regulation of the legal profession.
And that law includes federal antitrust law.
Professor Brescia MUST know, as an expert in legal ethics and professional discipline of lawyers, that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled A YEAR AGO in North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission that when market players regulate their own profession without supervision from a neutral governmental source, that is a violation of federal antitrust laws that is not entitling such regulators to immunity from antitrust liability.
And Professor Brescia MUST know that the Federal Trade Commission does not recognize supervision of market players by other market players (even if temporarily removed from the practice of the profession - like judges supervising lawyers are) as a neutral supervision that would absolve market-player-regulation of federal antitrust liability.
Let's backtrack to the beginning of Professor Brescia's article where he pays the lip service for the declared need for regulation:
"Regulation ... serves an important consumer protection purpose".
Right. But, see later in the same article by Professor Brescia:
"some regulation is actually good for business"
and
"leave regulation of the profession to the profession" where the legal profession "opts to regulate itself as a way to fend off more onerous regulation".
So, is the regulation about protection of consumers?
Or, is the regulation (of lawyers) a pretense that lawyers are regulated by the government, when in reality lawyers are SELF-regulated (in violation of federal laws) and SELF-regulated in order to avoid a "more onerous regulation".
But, Professor Brescia, you've just admitted - on behalf of the legal profession, while being an expert in legal ethics and attorney discipline - that there is NO REGULATION BY THE GOVERNMENT of the legal profession.
Than what constitutes attorney licensing? Self-regulation? Isn't the law license given to attorneys by the government?
Isn't practicing without a license given by the government a crime prosecuted also by the government?
Does licensing by the government and punishing for unlicensed practice also by the government sounds like SELF-regulation to you?
Or does Professor Brescia, in his rush to advise the unregulated silly "disruptive innovators" from other industries, admitted that the regulation of attorneys ostensibly by the government IS A FAKE meant to skip the REAL regulation for the protection of consumers, so that in reality the profession would be self-regulated (in violation of federal antitust laws), which is "good for business", and so that the profession would avoid a "more onerous regulation" - by a neutral government body, which is what the regulation MUST be about.
The legal profession, "coincidentally", is the only profession regulated by the judicial branch of the government, and not by the executive branch of the government that handles regulation of all other professions. Why? Because the judicial branch consists of market players, too.
When the judicial branch provides judicial review of license revocation of a doctor or a taxi-driver, it does not regulate its own profession.
When the judicial branch revokes (without any judicial review) a law license of a lawyer (like Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, for daring to investigate and expose judicial misconduct, misconduct of the regulators of the legal profession), the judicial branch is market players regulating market players for purposes of market players, not to protect consumers.
I recently filed an antitrust complaint about this peculiar way to regulate the legal profession, as compared to all other professions, with the Federal Trade Commission.
Professor Brescia actually insists that the legal profession "self-regulates" so that the government would not intrude into independence of attorney's performance for their clients:
"For the most part, the regulation of lawyers has proceeded under the belief that too much state intervention gets in the way of the lawyer doing his or her job. "
In fact, that is exactly what is the purpose of THIS blog - to show that the EXISTING REGULATION of attorneys BY THE GOVERNMENT DOES INTERFERE into the lawyer's independence in serving her client.
When the government who is a defendant in a civil action removes the law license of its opponent's attorney, as the State of New York did with my license when I was suing the State of New York on behalf of a client, I would call it "too much" of "state intervention" that "gets in the way of lawyer doing her job".
Right, Professor Brescia?
Yet, Professor Brescia continues to insist that regulation of attorneys by the government does not exist - even though he himself has a license to practice law FROM THE GOVERNMENT,
which is the ultimate evidence of at least pretended government regulation:
"Against the backdrop of this freedom from regulation are a number of means of ensuring lawyers do not take advantage of their clients..."
"Freedom from regulation". Professor Brescia, are you admitting to professional incompetence?
After Professor Brescia, a licensed attorney, claimed that there is a "freedom from regulation" for attorneys, he listed the following as "self-regulation":
Now, Professor Brescia, let's start from your last statement.
Who - if the profession is SELF-regulated - "strips" attorneys "of the right to practice", and are you so sure that such stripping occurs only "in the event of egregious violations of trust", or rather, as a measure to quash competition or retaliate against critics of misconduct.
Can you honestly and in good faith continue to keep you head in the sand as to the use of attorney discipline as a political tool of retaliation and of private vengeance, as well as a tool to eliminate competitors? And continue to keep your law students (myself included, I was your law student) in the dark as to volatility of their investment into the legal profession and law license which can be taken away on a whim of a disgruntled judge whose misconduct a lawyer would expose AS IS HER DUTY TO HER CLIENT?
You misled me, Professor Brescia, by not providing to me that vital piece of information in your "legal ethics class", didn't you?
As you apparently continue to mislead law students, class after class.
And now are striving to mislead even professions outside of the legal profession.
But, most importantly for the essense of Professor Brescia's argument that the legal profession is "SELF-regulated" - who then strips an attorney of his or her "right to practice". The tooth fairy? Or the government? And isn't that stripping called regulation BY THE GOVERNMENT?
Let's go on.
Barriers to entry.
What does "moral fitness" has to do with regulation of a profession, and shouldn't morality (which is a subjective concept and for many, a religious concept) be left outside of GOVERNMENTAL regulation of a DUE PROCESS right to earn a living?
And what this subjective "moral fitness" has to do with ability to provide quality services to customers?
Furthermore, isn't it the GOVERNMENT that issues those "codes", and isn't it the GOVERNMENT that checks "fitness" of lawyer candidates to practice law, and isn't it the GOVERNMENT, and isn't it the GOVERNMENT that disciplines attorneys?
And isn't malpractice NOT part of attorney regulation? Isn't it a common law cause of action where the aggrieved party simply sues an attorney, same as an aggrieved party would sue any other service provider in whose services the party is not satisfied - like a doctor, a plumber, or a construction worker?
Don't you, as an expert in legal ethics, Professor Brescia, have to know this much?
Professor Brescia insisted on his professional incompetence more and more, by stating this:
"In the end, though, we regulate lawyers through a "light touch" approach that provides some degree of guidance and oversight, but also gives lawyers the latitude to practice their craft outside the watchful and intrusive eye of the state. "
Really?
Now, who are "we" who regulate lawyers "through a light touch"?
The "we" that are not "the watchful and intrusive eye of the state"?
If it is not the state, then who?
And what is this "light touch", Professor Brescia, can you enlighten us on this one, please? Might it be the non-prosecution of politically connected attorneys, relatives, friends and employees of judges, former judges and their political sponsors and connections? Why did you not mention that the "light touch" has an important exception for critics of judicial misconduct? Than the "light touch" becomes a "vicious strangle", doesn't it? Or do you not mention that to your law students, because otherwise you will not have your lucrative and well-paid position in Albany Law School, funded by these mysterious "self-regulators" entitled to the "light touch" "outside of the watchful and intrusive eye of the government".
Well, at least you recognize that regulation by the government must be watchful and intrusive, and that regulation of attorneys (with the judicial critics exception) is neither watchful nor intrusive (effective).
Professor Brescia puts his foot even further into his own mouth by stating this:
"Some argue that the Sharing Economy shares the legal profession's need for such light touch oversight. If a driver for Lyft or Uber had to follow the same licensing requirements as taxi drivers in many cities face, it is unlikely that any would sign up to work within the platform."
Once again, the UNREGULATED drivers of Uber are equated by Professor Brescia with the REGULATED legal profession.
Moreover, Professor Brescia states that if an unregulated driver (which is the same as a regulated lawyer for Prof. Brescia) was to follow the REAL licensing requirements of taxi-drivers (no equivalent in the legal profession for the REAL licensing requirements, I guess), it is unlikely that the Uber drivers would agree to work under such conditions.
Interesting.
In Professor Brescia's opinion, "Sharing Economy companies are trying to create new, peer-to-peer economic models that are, like the attorney-client relationship, difficult to regulate."
Once again, Professor Brescia is comparing UNREGULATED economic models with FIERCELY REGULATED legal profession - to the point of making it a FELONY to practice law without a STATE-ISSUED license - like you have, Professor Brescia, remember?
And now comes the sermon.
Professor Brescia advises the UNREGULATED "disruptive innovators" of other industries the following:
"The Sharing Economy should embrace the components of the law governing lawyers: self-regulation through the imposition of meaningful barriers to entry and the promulgation of robust codes of conduct for Sharing Economy providers; recourse through the courts for significant violations of consumer interests, including holding Sharing Economy platforms liable and not just providers; and dispute resolution mechanisms, including the courts, that can offer the opportunity to remove providers from Sharing Economy platforms for significant violations of consumer trust. "
Now, Professor Brescia, are you advising to the "Sharing Economy" providers to do the same as lawyers do - come together as criminal cartel, violate federal antitrust law by the admitted "SELF-regulation" (regulation exclusively by market players without supervision by "the watchful and intrusive eye of the state").
You are advising the Sharing Economy providers to violate civil and criminal federal antitrust laws?
And why such an interest in "Uber" or "AirBnB"? They have nothing to do with the legal profession, other than being an analogy to the disruptive innovators OF the legal profession - Nolo, LegalZoom and similar companies?
Why not simply say: Nolo and LegalZoom, stop being silly and, finally, agree to regulations BY US - regulation by us is so good, it is so "light touch", you won't even notice it. You will simply die in your sleep from suffocation.
Then Professor Brescia criticized Uber for having a code of conduct for its drivers that contains only 592 words (for Professor Brescia, obviously, the length of the code of conduct is a criteria of its worth), and as to AirBnB that has no "code of conduct" for the private homeowners that use that platform as a clearing house to rent their houses to strangers.
Professor Brescia concludes his article by resoundingly pushing his foot even further into his mouth:
"What Sharing Economy platforms should learn is what the legal profession learned a long time ago; regulate yourself or someone else will do the regulating for you. "
Professor Brescia did not spare the poor American Bar Associations, and exposed it this way:
"As an American Bar Association report stated in the 1980s, if lawyers did not band together to combat a perceived lack of professionalism in the bar "far more extensive and perhaps less-considered proposals may arise from governmental and quasi-governmental entities attempting to regulate the profession." The report continued: "The challenge remains. It is up to us to seize the opportunity while it is ours."
So, SELF-regulation of the legal profession under the pretense of the regulation (and in violation of civil and CRIMINAL federal antitrust laws) is a concerted action, directed by the American Bar Association as a way of "seizing the opportunity while it was theirs" to AVOID regulation from the government.
Then, again, WHAT ARE those law licenses issued allegedly BY THE GOVERNMENT? Including Professor Brescia's law license?
Can you enlighten us on that one, Professor Brescia?
I doubt, that Professor Brescia will enlighten us why, right after the ABA's quirky resolution 105 made in a lame attempt to "seize the opportunity while it is still theirs", and while the opportunity for monopoly over the market of the legal services is definitely slipping, Professor Brescia engaged in this incompetent sermon.
Why he repeatedly claimed that the legal profession is "self-regulated" and not regulated by the government.
Isn't it misleading the public?
Isn't it unethical for a licensed attorney to say that from the pulpit of the Albany Law School, as a legal expert?
Isn't it unethical for attorney Brescia to give this legal advice to the "Sharing Economy platforms"?
"The challenge for Sharing Economy platforms is clear, and it is a challenge the legal profession has long embraced. Accept some form of regulation, including meaningful self-regulation, or someone else is going to do it for you."
Thank you, Professor Brescia.
Your article will make a very nice addition to my complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. From the lips of an expert - an admission that regulation of the legal profession WAS DESIGNED to violate federal antitrust laws, civil and criminal.
Good job.
And while teaching about legal ethics they are supposed to be ethical themselves.
Yet, a legal ethics professor who testified before the New York State Commission for Attorney Discipline told the Commission that it is unnecessary to teach students about the workings of attorney disciplinary system, because if they would know of its shortcomings, they may engage in unethical conduct.
The professor thus demonstrated a lot of faith in the legal profession as a whole and in the integrity of his student body in particular. Apparently, the only way to have a future lawyer to behave ethically is to deceive him and not to give him information about how to defend himself if charged with an ethical violation.
Albany Law School Professor Ray Brescia continued in Professor Mills and Gilberts' footsteps of making deliriously inadequate public statements - by attempting to teach non-regulated professions how to pretend to be regulated, in order to avoid real regulation by the real, neutral, watchful and efficient (his word is "intrusive") agency of the government.
In an article published yesterday in Huffington Post, named "How to Regulate the Sharing Economy? Look to the Law Governing Lawyers", Professor Brescia makes some interesting points.
He started his article benignly enough, by stating this:
"Whether it is ride-hailing services, the opportunity to rent a spare room for a short-term stay, the chance to participate in an on-line auction for Star Wars memorabilia, or the excuse to purchase artisanal jewelry, Sharing Economy platforms are connecting consumers to providers in new and technology-enabled ways, making life easier, more convenient, less expensive, and maybe a little more interesting."
So, Professor Brescia, a professor of legal ethics, suddenly became interested in providers of services who invade a turf of licensed service providers - such as licensed taxi drivers vs. Uber.
The interest of a legal ethics professor to the "Sharing Economy" and giving the UNREGULATED "sharing economy" trades an unsolicited advice as to how to regulate themselves is already an interesting choice of topic.
While being a professor of legal ethics (which are governed by lawyer-invented rules for lawyers), Professor Brescia is not an expert on occupational regulation at large, does not have business, economic or management education and is definitely treading upon the turf where he has no expertise.
He is doing it "coincidentally" at the time when the American Bar Association has issued a Resolution 105 grudgingly conceding to not fight too much if states start to allow "non-traditional legal service providers" to provide legal services - and did that against the resistance of the New York State Bar Association fighting the unbundling of legal services into provision of information - separately, and legal services - separately, and fighting it viciously and in completely uncivilized (and unethical) language.
Professor Brescia is fully aware of the "disruption" of the legal profession by emerging potential new service providers - he even cautiously welcomed it in his recent article, and here is the abstract of the article:
====
The legal profession is in the midst of a disruption: a monumental, transformative shift in shape and focus that will change the practice of law forever. Some lament this phenomenon. Some worry that it signals the end of Big Law, and that it will have ripple effects throughout the legal industry. Many assess the impact of these disruptions on the delivery of services to wealthier clients and corporations, who, in many instances, are the only ones able to afford lawyers in the U.S. legal market in the first place.
Clayton Christensen has coined the term the "Innovator’s Dilemma" for the phenomenon of business disruption, through which high-end producers of goods and services are "disrupted" by those entering the market on the lower end. Those disruptors are first ignored by incumbents and then those entrants find ways to serve a larger and larger segment of the market, eventually displacing the incumbents. If this theory is to be believed, true change in the market for the provision of legal services will not come from those serving wealthier clients, where many today look for the impacts of disruptive techniques and technologies. Instead, true disruption is likely to come from those serving the "lower end" of the market: the solo practitioners, legal services lawyers, and "low bono" providers of legal services. It is innovation in these corners of the market where pathbreaking disruption will take place, mostly out of necessity. What’s more, it is the low end of the market that is actually quite robust: i.e., there is a desperate need for legal services, just an inability to pay for them.
Disruption of the legal services industry has the potential for bringing real benefits to low- and moderate-income consumers of legal services. What this Article attempts to do is identify ways that disruption can occur in the provision of legal services to improve access to justice, particularly for low- and moderate-income individuals and families. While many recent entrants into the market for legal services risk running afoul of charges of unauthorized practice of law, those who are providing free services through the internet appear to be acting in compliance with lawyer rules of professional responsibility. This Article will review both the for-profit and non-profit models of technology-enabled legal assistance and assess the extent to which each may comply, or not comply, with unauthorized practice of law requirements. It will then review current efforts of non-profits to deliver technology-enabled services, and describe one initiative in detail that involved the creation of a web-based application to assist homeowners facing foreclosure in New York State.
Given the need in low- and moderate-income communities for affordable legal services, perhaps disruption in this market has its benefits: at a minimum, it offers a way to improve access to justice for communities and individuals underserved by the present — and expensive — modes of delivering legal services in the United States. This article explores those benefits, but also highlights some of the concerns that arise when technology is used to improve access to justice.
====
Professor Brescia is even aware of the "justice gap" where too many law graduates do not have jobs while too many Americans cannot afford an attorney.
Professor Brescia's solution for that? (Remember, Professor Brescia is not an economist) - More funding for "legal aid" services, which, of course, should come out of the pockets of the same American taxpayers who cannot afford those legal services directly in the first place.
Apparently, Professor Brescia is aware of the work of a Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, of his concept of "disruptive innovation" that was coined in 1995 as a general theoretical term of business development and not in connection with legal services, but reaching the legal profession in earnest only now, with the rapid proliferation of information technologies that take away from lawyers the monopoly to disperse legal information (for a hefty fee), a disruption that got NYS Bar Association President David Miranda all fired up.
With that background on Professor Brescia in mind, let's see where his interesting interest in what has nothing to do with the legal profession led him, and his amateurish, but self-interested advice as to how to regulate unregulated businesses that have nothing to do with the legal profession.
"Self-interested" because Professor Brescia is also a licensed attorney, and thus is not a neutral expert on issues of regulation of the legal profession.
In his article, Professor Brescia, in fact, attempts to fight against encroachments upon his own turf as a licensed attorney - whether such fight promotes and prolongs the justice gap he laments about or not.
After all, Professor Brescia is educated in the elite Fordham University and in the elite Yale School of Law and is very far away from the economic and civil rights reality of the justice gap, while his own livelihood is, of course, important to him and trumps any justice gap issues.
Professor Brescia mentions in his article that "what companies in this Sharing Economy are doing is disrupting incumbent industries, upending regulatory schemes, and challenging the legal infrastructure and the governments that oversee it" and indicates that governments, from Europe to the U.S., take "wildly different" approaches to regulation of such emerging and unregulated service providers.
Then, Professor Brescia pays lip service to the declared purpose of governmental regulation over professions: "Regulation in many of the industries where Sharing Economy platforms are thriving serves an important consumer protection purpose", and points out that people who engage in earning a living do it - gasp! - for a profit! That is something new, isn't it? ("Even though Sharing Economy companies strive to serve the common good, they are also out to make a profit.")
I wonder if Professor Brescia works without compensation at Albany Law School.
I also wonder whether Professor Brescia was paid for his article about regulating the "Sharing Economy" providers, and if he was, then who was his sponsor and how much he was paid.
Professor Brescia then (remember, he is NOT an expert in occupational licensing) tries to teach the poor sillies in the unregulated market to embrace the government regulation as a way to gain "more economic activity":
"When it comes to regulation, however, what many are saying is "trust us, don't regulate us." But what Sharing Economy platforms don't seem to understand is that regulation can actually lead to trust, which can foster more economic activity."
Let's remember that statement for the future. Professor Brescia thinks that occupational regulation "can lead to trust", and that the trust created by occupational regulation "can foster more economic activity" for the regulated profession.
Because after advising the poor sillies of the "Sharing Economy platform" to embrace regulation, Professor Brescia drops a bomb - like this:
"There is another industry that has, for centuries, operated under the notion that some regulation is actually good for business, but it opts to regulate itself as a way to fend off more onerous regulation. Let us regulate our profession ourselves says this industry and stay out of our business model. Malpractice lawsuits on the periphery, for the worst cases of abuse, are fine, but, leave the regulation of the profession to the profession. That industry is the legal services industry."
By the way, Professor Brescia explores his interesting claims even in more depth in his forthcoming new article.
What is wrong about Professor Brescia's claims?
Let's start.
As I said above, Professor Brescia is NOT an expert in occupational regulation as a whole, and he is NOT an expert in business, he does not have either a Masters or a PhD in business management or economics (by way of disclosure, I have a Masters degree in business management and I have been conducting research of occupational regulation as a whole for years and am writing a book on the subject).
Yet, Professor Brescia IS an expert on legal ethics and MUST know the law governing the regulation of the legal profession.
And that law includes federal antitrust law.
Professor Brescia MUST know, as an expert in legal ethics and professional discipline of lawyers, that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled A YEAR AGO in North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission that when market players regulate their own profession without supervision from a neutral governmental source, that is a violation of federal antitrust laws that is not entitling such regulators to immunity from antitrust liability.
And Professor Brescia MUST know that the Federal Trade Commission does not recognize supervision of market players by other market players (even if temporarily removed from the practice of the profession - like judges supervising lawyers are) as a neutral supervision that would absolve market-player-regulation of federal antitrust liability.
Let's backtrack to the beginning of Professor Brescia's article where he pays the lip service for the declared need for regulation:
"Regulation ... serves an important consumer protection purpose".
Right. But, see later in the same article by Professor Brescia:
"some regulation is actually good for business"
and
"leave regulation of the profession to the profession" where the legal profession "opts to regulate itself as a way to fend off more onerous regulation".
So, is the regulation about protection of consumers?
Or, is the regulation (of lawyers) a pretense that lawyers are regulated by the government, when in reality lawyers are SELF-regulated (in violation of federal laws) and SELF-regulated in order to avoid a "more onerous regulation".
But, Professor Brescia, you've just admitted - on behalf of the legal profession, while being an expert in legal ethics and attorney discipline - that there is NO REGULATION BY THE GOVERNMENT of the legal profession.
Than what constitutes attorney licensing? Self-regulation? Isn't the law license given to attorneys by the government?
Isn't practicing without a license given by the government a crime prosecuted also by the government?
Does licensing by the government and punishing for unlicensed practice also by the government sounds like SELF-regulation to you?
Or does Professor Brescia, in his rush to advise the unregulated silly "disruptive innovators" from other industries, admitted that the regulation of attorneys ostensibly by the government IS A FAKE meant to skip the REAL regulation for the protection of consumers, so that in reality the profession would be self-regulated (in violation of federal antitust laws), which is "good for business", and so that the profession would avoid a "more onerous regulation" - by a neutral government body, which is what the regulation MUST be about.
The legal profession, "coincidentally", is the only profession regulated by the judicial branch of the government, and not by the executive branch of the government that handles regulation of all other professions. Why? Because the judicial branch consists of market players, too.
When the judicial branch provides judicial review of license revocation of a doctor or a taxi-driver, it does not regulate its own profession.
When the judicial branch revokes (without any judicial review) a law license of a lawyer (like Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, for daring to investigate and expose judicial misconduct, misconduct of the regulators of the legal profession), the judicial branch is market players regulating market players for purposes of market players, not to protect consumers.
I recently filed an antitrust complaint about this peculiar way to regulate the legal profession, as compared to all other professions, with the Federal Trade Commission.
Professor Brescia actually insists that the legal profession "self-regulates" so that the government would not intrude into independence of attorney's performance for their clients:
"For the most part, the regulation of lawyers has proceeded under the belief that too much state intervention gets in the way of the lawyer doing his or her job. "
In fact, that is exactly what is the purpose of THIS blog - to show that the EXISTING REGULATION of attorneys BY THE GOVERNMENT DOES INTERFERE into the lawyer's independence in serving her client.
When the government who is a defendant in a civil action removes the law license of its opponent's attorney, as the State of New York did with my license when I was suing the State of New York on behalf of a client, I would call it "too much" of "state intervention" that "gets in the way of lawyer doing her job".
Right, Professor Brescia?
Yet, Professor Brescia continues to insist that regulation of attorneys by the government does not exist - even though he himself has a license to practice law FROM THE GOVERNMENT,
which is the ultimate evidence of at least pretended government regulation:
"Against the backdrop of this freedom from regulation are a number of means of ensuring lawyers do not take advantage of their clients..."
"Freedom from regulation". Professor Brescia, are you admitting to professional incompetence?
After Professor Brescia, a licensed attorney, claimed that there is a "freedom from regulation" for attorneys, he listed the following as "self-regulation":
- "there are barriers to entry to the profession that strive to admit into the profession only those individuals with the requisite skill and moral fitness to practice law;
- there are codes of conduct that lawyers must follow;
- lawyers are disciplined and
- subject to malpractice lawsuits when they engage in improper conduct and take advantage of clients; and
- lawyers can be stripped of the right to practice law in the event of egregious violations of trust".
Now, Professor Brescia, let's start from your last statement.
Who - if the profession is SELF-regulated - "strips" attorneys "of the right to practice", and are you so sure that such stripping occurs only "in the event of egregious violations of trust", or rather, as a measure to quash competition or retaliate against critics of misconduct.
Can you honestly and in good faith continue to keep you head in the sand as to the use of attorney discipline as a political tool of retaliation and of private vengeance, as well as a tool to eliminate competitors? And continue to keep your law students (myself included, I was your law student) in the dark as to volatility of their investment into the legal profession and law license which can be taken away on a whim of a disgruntled judge whose misconduct a lawyer would expose AS IS HER DUTY TO HER CLIENT?
You misled me, Professor Brescia, by not providing to me that vital piece of information in your "legal ethics class", didn't you?
As you apparently continue to mislead law students, class after class.
And now are striving to mislead even professions outside of the legal profession.
But, most importantly for the essense of Professor Brescia's argument that the legal profession is "SELF-regulated" - who then strips an attorney of his or her "right to practice". The tooth fairy? Or the government? And isn't that stripping called regulation BY THE GOVERNMENT?
Let's go on.
Barriers to entry.
What does "moral fitness" has to do with regulation of a profession, and shouldn't morality (which is a subjective concept and for many, a religious concept) be left outside of GOVERNMENTAL regulation of a DUE PROCESS right to earn a living?
And what this subjective "moral fitness" has to do with ability to provide quality services to customers?
Furthermore, isn't it the GOVERNMENT that issues those "codes", and isn't it the GOVERNMENT that checks "fitness" of lawyer candidates to practice law, and isn't it the GOVERNMENT, and isn't it the GOVERNMENT that disciplines attorneys?
And isn't malpractice NOT part of attorney regulation? Isn't it a common law cause of action where the aggrieved party simply sues an attorney, same as an aggrieved party would sue any other service provider in whose services the party is not satisfied - like a doctor, a plumber, or a construction worker?
Don't you, as an expert in legal ethics, Professor Brescia, have to know this much?
Professor Brescia insisted on his professional incompetence more and more, by stating this:
"In the end, though, we regulate lawyers through a "light touch" approach that provides some degree of guidance and oversight, but also gives lawyers the latitude to practice their craft outside the watchful and intrusive eye of the state. "
Really?
Now, who are "we" who regulate lawyers "through a light touch"?
The "we" that are not "the watchful and intrusive eye of the state"?
If it is not the state, then who?
And what is this "light touch", Professor Brescia, can you enlighten us on this one, please? Might it be the non-prosecution of politically connected attorneys, relatives, friends and employees of judges, former judges and their political sponsors and connections? Why did you not mention that the "light touch" has an important exception for critics of judicial misconduct? Than the "light touch" becomes a "vicious strangle", doesn't it? Or do you not mention that to your law students, because otherwise you will not have your lucrative and well-paid position in Albany Law School, funded by these mysterious "self-regulators" entitled to the "light touch" "outside of the watchful and intrusive eye of the government".
Well, at least you recognize that regulation by the government must be watchful and intrusive, and that regulation of attorneys (with the judicial critics exception) is neither watchful nor intrusive (effective).
Professor Brescia puts his foot even further into his own mouth by stating this:
"Some argue that the Sharing Economy shares the legal profession's need for such light touch oversight. If a driver for Lyft or Uber had to follow the same licensing requirements as taxi drivers in many cities face, it is unlikely that any would sign up to work within the platform."
Once again, the UNREGULATED drivers of Uber are equated by Professor Brescia with the REGULATED legal profession.
Moreover, Professor Brescia states that if an unregulated driver (which is the same as a regulated lawyer for Prof. Brescia) was to follow the REAL licensing requirements of taxi-drivers (no equivalent in the legal profession for the REAL licensing requirements, I guess), it is unlikely that the Uber drivers would agree to work under such conditions.
Interesting.
In Professor Brescia's opinion, "Sharing Economy companies are trying to create new, peer-to-peer economic models that are, like the attorney-client relationship, difficult to regulate."
Once again, Professor Brescia is comparing UNREGULATED economic models with FIERCELY REGULATED legal profession - to the point of making it a FELONY to practice law without a STATE-ISSUED license - like you have, Professor Brescia, remember?
And now comes the sermon.
Professor Brescia advises the UNREGULATED "disruptive innovators" of other industries the following:
"The Sharing Economy should embrace the components of the law governing lawyers: self-regulation through the imposition of meaningful barriers to entry and the promulgation of robust codes of conduct for Sharing Economy providers; recourse through the courts for significant violations of consumer interests, including holding Sharing Economy platforms liable and not just providers; and dispute resolution mechanisms, including the courts, that can offer the opportunity to remove providers from Sharing Economy platforms for significant violations of consumer trust. "
Now, Professor Brescia, are you advising to the "Sharing Economy" providers to do the same as lawyers do - come together as criminal cartel, violate federal antitrust law by the admitted "SELF-regulation" (regulation exclusively by market players without supervision by "the watchful and intrusive eye of the state").
You are advising the Sharing Economy providers to violate civil and criminal federal antitrust laws?
And why such an interest in "Uber" or "AirBnB"? They have nothing to do with the legal profession, other than being an analogy to the disruptive innovators OF the legal profession - Nolo, LegalZoom and similar companies?
Why not simply say: Nolo and LegalZoom, stop being silly and, finally, agree to regulations BY US - regulation by us is so good, it is so "light touch", you won't even notice it. You will simply die in your sleep from suffocation.
Then Professor Brescia criticized Uber for having a code of conduct for its drivers that contains only 592 words (for Professor Brescia, obviously, the length of the code of conduct is a criteria of its worth), and as to AirBnB that has no "code of conduct" for the private homeowners that use that platform as a clearing house to rent their houses to strangers.
Professor Brescia concludes his article by resoundingly pushing his foot even further into his mouth:
"What Sharing Economy platforms should learn is what the legal profession learned a long time ago; regulate yourself or someone else will do the regulating for you. "
Professor Brescia did not spare the poor American Bar Associations, and exposed it this way:
"As an American Bar Association report stated in the 1980s, if lawyers did not band together to combat a perceived lack of professionalism in the bar "far more extensive and perhaps less-considered proposals may arise from governmental and quasi-governmental entities attempting to regulate the profession." The report continued: "The challenge remains. It is up to us to seize the opportunity while it is ours."
So, SELF-regulation of the legal profession under the pretense of the regulation (and in violation of civil and CRIMINAL federal antitrust laws) is a concerted action, directed by the American Bar Association as a way of "seizing the opportunity while it was theirs" to AVOID regulation from the government.
Then, again, WHAT ARE those law licenses issued allegedly BY THE GOVERNMENT? Including Professor Brescia's law license?
Can you enlighten us on that one, Professor Brescia?
I doubt, that Professor Brescia will enlighten us why, right after the ABA's quirky resolution 105 made in a lame attempt to "seize the opportunity while it is still theirs", and while the opportunity for monopoly over the market of the legal services is definitely slipping, Professor Brescia engaged in this incompetent sermon.
Why he repeatedly claimed that the legal profession is "self-regulated" and not regulated by the government.
Isn't it misleading the public?
Isn't it unethical for a licensed attorney to say that from the pulpit of the Albany Law School, as a legal expert?
Isn't it unethical for attorney Brescia to give this legal advice to the "Sharing Economy platforms"?
"The challenge for Sharing Economy platforms is clear, and it is a challenge the legal profession has long embraced. Accept some form of regulation, including meaningful self-regulation, or someone else is going to do it for you."
Thank you, Professor Brescia.
Your article will make a very nice addition to my complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. From the lips of an expert - an admission that regulation of the legal profession WAS DESIGNED to violate federal antitrust laws, civil and criminal.
Good job.
The historic vote in Pennsylvania Senate not to oust PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane - the bell continues to toll the doom of attorney licensing
Yesterday, Pennsylvania Senate voted whether to oust the state Attorney General Kathleen Kane for having her law license suspended. They did not have enough votes to oust Kathleen Kane, so now the unique situation where an Attorney General continues to direct her office while having her law license suspended, continues.
I already wrote in this blog about Kathleen Kane whose license was suspended as a preliminary matter, because Kathleen Kane who poked the hornet's nest of the "good ole boys club" in the state judiciary and prosecutor's offices who used taxpayer-funded e-mail system to send pornographic and women-demeaning e-mails.
I wrote how easy the attorney disciplinary system can be used as a tool of retaliation - and even as a tool of removal of an elected public official, bypassing the cumbersome procedure of impeachment.
The local establishment was trying to have Kathleen Kane resign by first bringing criminal charges against her after she started to expose judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in her state - which was her job as the State Attorney General, and especially in view of the fact that the state of Pennsylvania already disgraced itself by failing to discipline judges who were selling kids for cash for kickbacks into for-profit juvie prisons until the feds caught them and put them in jail for decades as convicted felons.
Kathleen Kane refused to resign.
The establishment then had an attorney disciplinary proceeding brought against Kathleen Kane.
In the parallel universe, in New York State, no disciplinary proceedings were brought in New York against NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the NYS Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos when they were charged with federal crimes - and even now, when they are both convicted for federal felonies for public corruption, they remain listed as licensed attorneys with "no record of public discipline", even when a felony conviction in New York must result in an automatic disbarment.
The same Pennsylvania Supreme Court that suspended the law license of Kathleen Kane - as a preliminary matter, while her disciplinary proceedings were pending, and while she was only charged with a crime and presumed innocent - only "temporarily suspended" (at first) Judge Marc Ciavarella, the "hero" of the Kids for Cash scandal, and suspended him only after his criminal conviction, but not when the FEDERAL criminal charges were brought against him, because the state court system refused to criminal charge their own judges - like Kathleen Kane was going to do.
Here is a scan from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court registry of suspensions:
Even now, Judge Ciavarella remains only SUSPENDED, not DISBARRED, after being convicted for federal felonies and sentenced to serve 28 years in federal prison.
The date of Ciavarella's suspension is May 7, 2012.
Ciavarella was convicted by a federal jury on February 18, 2011 and sentenced to 28 years in prison as a felon on August 11, 2011.
Yet, it took Pennsylvania a year to "suspend" his law license - after his conviction.
As a contrast, an attorney who was also involved in the scheme with Ciavarella, but was not a judge, was disbarred, and disbarred "retroactively" to 2009.
For Kathleen Kane it was an "emergency temporary suspension" - I wonder, what was the "emergency", that she was about to criminally prosecute some prosecutors and judges? So, the regulators struck before she had a chance to prosecute them?
We have a race of criminal defendants and a prosecutor to the courthouse now as to who will get whom first? Apparently, attorney disciplinary system provides an ample opportunity for criminal defendants to disable their prosecutors like they tried to do with Kathleen Kane.
I do believe that the PA Senate did not get enough votes to oust Kathleen Kane because the esteemed Senators were afraid of riots in the streets if they would vote for such an ouster, despite an overwhelming public support of Kathleen Kane in Pennsylvania.
It is a historic moment that the use of attorney discipline as a tool of retaliation, to discredit and ruin an attorney for doing her job for the public, was stalled because of public support.
And it is a great start for deregulation of the legal profession.
Kathleen Kane does not need a law license to do her job properly.
Neither do defense attorneys, civil rights attorneys and other attorneys raising sensitive issues of misconduct against well-connected private individuals and public officials.
Their law licenses are an impediment for independent representation of clients and not a protection of clients.
Law licenses in Pennsylvania are useful, apparently, only as gags on attorneys not to report judicial misconduct, and are of no use to protect the public and ensure quality of legal services.
But, the historic PA Senate vote continues the process of deregulation of the legal profession that already started - and is powered by the grass roots movement in Pennsylvania in support of its Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
The regulation of a profession should be stopped when it does nothing but stifling independent representation of the public in court and operates to impede independent actions of elected public officials to weed out public corruption among the regulators of the legal profession.
I already wrote in this blog about Kathleen Kane whose license was suspended as a preliminary matter, because Kathleen Kane who poked the hornet's nest of the "good ole boys club" in the state judiciary and prosecutor's offices who used taxpayer-funded e-mail system to send pornographic and women-demeaning e-mails.
I wrote how easy the attorney disciplinary system can be used as a tool of retaliation - and even as a tool of removal of an elected public official, bypassing the cumbersome procedure of impeachment.
The local establishment was trying to have Kathleen Kane resign by first bringing criminal charges against her after she started to expose judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in her state - which was her job as the State Attorney General, and especially in view of the fact that the state of Pennsylvania already disgraced itself by failing to discipline judges who were selling kids for cash for kickbacks into for-profit juvie prisons until the feds caught them and put them in jail for decades as convicted felons.
Kathleen Kane refused to resign.
The establishment then had an attorney disciplinary proceeding brought against Kathleen Kane.
In the parallel universe, in New York State, no disciplinary proceedings were brought in New York against NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the NYS Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos when they were charged with federal crimes - and even now, when they are both convicted for federal felonies for public corruption, they remain listed as licensed attorneys with "no record of public discipline", even when a felony conviction in New York must result in an automatic disbarment.
The same Pennsylvania Supreme Court that suspended the law license of Kathleen Kane - as a preliminary matter, while her disciplinary proceedings were pending, and while she was only charged with a crime and presumed innocent - only "temporarily suspended" (at first) Judge Marc Ciavarella, the "hero" of the Kids for Cash scandal, and suspended him only after his criminal conviction, but not when the FEDERAL criminal charges were brought against him, because the state court system refused to criminal charge their own judges - like Kathleen Kane was going to do.
Here is a scan from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court registry of suspensions:
Even now, Judge Ciavarella remains only SUSPENDED, not DISBARRED, after being convicted for federal felonies and sentenced to serve 28 years in federal prison.
The date of Ciavarella's suspension is May 7, 2012.
Ciavarella was convicted by a federal jury on February 18, 2011 and sentenced to 28 years in prison as a felon on August 11, 2011.
Yet, it took Pennsylvania a year to "suspend" his law license - after his conviction.
As a contrast, an attorney who was also involved in the scheme with Ciavarella, but was not a judge, was disbarred, and disbarred "retroactively" to 2009.
For Kathleen Kane it was an "emergency temporary suspension" - I wonder, what was the "emergency", that she was about to criminally prosecute some prosecutors and judges? So, the regulators struck before she had a chance to prosecute them?
We have a race of criminal defendants and a prosecutor to the courthouse now as to who will get whom first? Apparently, attorney disciplinary system provides an ample opportunity for criminal defendants to disable their prosecutors like they tried to do with Kathleen Kane.
I do believe that the PA Senate did not get enough votes to oust Kathleen Kane because the esteemed Senators were afraid of riots in the streets if they would vote for such an ouster, despite an overwhelming public support of Kathleen Kane in Pennsylvania.
It is a historic moment that the use of attorney discipline as a tool of retaliation, to discredit and ruin an attorney for doing her job for the public, was stalled because of public support.
And it is a great start for deregulation of the legal profession.
Kathleen Kane does not need a law license to do her job properly.
Neither do defense attorneys, civil rights attorneys and other attorneys raising sensitive issues of misconduct against well-connected private individuals and public officials.
Their law licenses are an impediment for independent representation of clients and not a protection of clients.
Law licenses in Pennsylvania are useful, apparently, only as gags on attorneys not to report judicial misconduct, and are of no use to protect the public and ensure quality of legal services.
But, the historic PA Senate vote continues the process of deregulation of the legal profession that already started - and is powered by the grass roots movement in Pennsylvania in support of its Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
The regulation of a profession should be stopped when it does nothing but stifling independent representation of the public in court and operates to impede independent actions of elected public officials to weed out public corruption among the regulators of the legal profession.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Congratulations, Alecia Bracci, attorneys Lauren Carlson, Richard McVinney, on Alecia Bracci acquittal in the jury trial. Shame of Delaware County establishment for persecuting Alecia Bracci and her mother for corrupt reasons.
I am happy to announce that Alecia Bracci, the young lady who was persecuted by the Delaware County (New York) local government for the only reason of having her mother report the former judge Carl F. Becker's misconduct in a murder trial - was acquitted of fabricated criminal charges against her.
Criminal charges against her and derivative criminal charges against her mother were leaked to the press through an unofficial press-release of the Delaware County Sheriff's Department.
I guess, now, the Delaware County Sheriff's Department owes Alecia Bracci and her mother an apology at the very least, for all the stress, heartache and financial losses they have caused them - including for Derek Bowie's and his uncle's employer's attempt to have their dog euthanized through a court proceeding.
I described the dirty circumstances surrounding the arrest on this blog before. You can search the previous coverage of these cases by putting "Alecia Bracci" and "Barbara O'Sullivan" in the search window on the right.
Criminal charges against both Alecia Bracci and her mother Barbara O'Sullivan were fabricated by the perpetrator of vehicular assault upon Barbara O'Sullivan, police officer Derek Bowie, nephew of Delaware County District Attorney's investigator Jeff Bowie.
Derek Bowie was not charged with attempted murder using a vehicle when he tried to smash the tablet in Barbara O'Sullivan's hands WITH A MOVING POLICE CAR - to destroy evidence of his misconduct.
Instead Derek Bowie was allowed to remain on the investigation of both mother and daughter after his vehicular assault on the mother (for which he is being sued), and was allowed to bring criminal charges against both the mother and the daughter.
Another conflict of interest is that the Acting Delaware County District Attorney John Hubbard is the former law partner of judge Becker who retaliated against Alecia Bracci and her mother by taking from her the custody of her child.
John Hubbard and the Delaware County DA's office should have stayed far away from this case, and especially because John Hubbard deceived Barbara O'Sullivan and agreed to an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal of a criminal charge against Ryan J. Adams brought against him for the death threat against Barbara O'Sullivan.
Judge Carl Becker punished Alecia Bracci for the criminal charges brought by Delhi Village police against Ryan J. Adams for the death threat he made on the phone against her mother Barbara O'Sullivan by taking her child away and imposing extremely inconvenient and costly conditions of out-of-state child visitation, even though it was not her initiative to take the child away from the state, and even though she had no money to finance those trips.
The father was since using his alleged U.S. Marine status to cart the child all over the country in order to get her away from the mother - first from New York to Pennsylvania, then, when Pennsylvania gave custody back to Alecia Bracci, to North Carolina, and then, when North Carolina court held him in contempt of court for denying Alecia Bracci visitation, further to Ohio.
Trial-level judges of Pennsylvania and North Carolina unanimously ruled in favor of Alecia Bracci, holding Ryan Adams in contempt of court (North Carolina) and ruling that it was the worst case of parental alienation in the judge's 14-year judicial career (Pennsylvania).
Yet, Adams was able to use Becker's corrupt, retaliative and self-serving decision in many courts to hurt Alecia Bracci.
He was behind the criminal charges fabricated against her for allegedly resisting arrest.
It is interesting to note that, even though he was allegedly the witness of the events that led to criminal charges - and used criminal charges against Alecia Bracci wherever he could to get her stripped of any visitation rights with her child - he did not appear to testify against her at the trial. I do not think for one second that it was done because he did not want to put the mother of his child in jail. He wanted to do that very much, there is enough evidence of that.
But, first of all, there was enough impeachment evidence to have him charged with perjury if he would dare to testify, and this U.S. Marine is a coward.
He was brave enough to assault his child's grandmother while in full uniform, and was sued for that.
He was brave enough to make a death threat against his child's grandmother over the phone.
He was brave enough to orchestrate criminal charges against the mother of his child.
He was brave enough to lie to his charge that her mother abandoned her and does not want to see her, even when his child's mother was desperately trying to get some contact, any contact, with her child.
From a New York court.
From a Pennsylvania court.
From a North Carolina court.
Ryan J. Adams is brave only to parade his military uniform and status to disregard the mother's statement to him that the child is getting prepared for the journey back to him, could not wait an hour to get the child prepared, instead he went to court, obtained an illegal arrest warrant signed by a judge who acknowledged he had no jurisdiction and who quickly recused from the case afterwards, and had the mother dragged out of the house in handcuffs in front of the hysterical child who hid under furniture while Derek Bowie was threatening her grandmother with a taser and roughing up her mother - for no legitimate reason.
But, at the trial, Ryan Adams was afraid to show up his face and let Derek Bowie testify against Alecia Bracci alone.
Derek Bowie, by the way, was reportedly quietly let go by the Delaware County Sheriff's Department and testified today at Alecia Bracci's trial, reportedly, in civilian clothing.
The presiding Judge Richard Gumo whose dirty footsteps are all over this case, too (I will report on his involvement later, after Barbara O'Sullivan's trial) reportedly blocked off any questions to Derek Bowie as to termination of his employment by Delaware County Sheriff's Department, blocked off any objections of Alecia Bracci's assigned counsel Lauren Clarkson and shut down Alecia Bracci's second chair, the Hon. Richard McVinney (part-time judge of Oneonta City Court).
To attorney McVinney Gumo reportedly, rudely stated that he must sit down and not advance any legal arguments, because he was only a "second chair".
I am happy that the jury saw through the bullshit of these criminal charges.
I congratulate the team of lawyers, Lauren Carlson of Oneonta, NY and Richard McVinney, of Oneonta, NY and Alecia Bracci for this acquittal, it is quite an accomplishment, and a lot of work went into trial preparation, and especially it was quite an accomplishment against the odds the team was facing in this case where they were up against a team of corrupt officials from Delaware County, village and town of Delhi and the court system.
But, these charges should not have been brought in the first place, should not have been accepted by Judge Gumo who recuses himself from all cases where the Bracci family members (Alecia Bracci's cousins) are involved because of conflicts of interest, should not have been prosecuted by the Delaware County DA's office, disqualified by multiple conflicts of interest in this case.
It is a waste of limited taxpayer-funded resources. It is abuse of power in order to retaliate against two women for the only reason that they had the audacity to report misconduct, FOIL public officials, sue public officials, including the same Judge Becker, and insist on their rights.
It is dirty.
It is disgusting.
It was uncalled for.
And now, the acquittal in Alecia Bracci's case severely undermines validity of charges against her mother Barbara O'Sullivan, also prosecuted by the disqualified Delaware County DA's office - instead of prosecuting Derek Bowie for vehicular assault on Barbara O'Sullivan and attempted murder against her.
If the arrest warrant with which Derek Bowie came to Barbara O'Sullivan's property to arrest her daughter, was not even valid (and it wasn't, it was fabricated by Bowie and Judge Gumo, I have documentary evidence on file clearly suggesting that).
Derek Bowie was merely a trespasser on Barbara O'Sullivan's property on September 18, 2014 who came to her house at night to get her and her daughter out of the house, lock them up in jail, kill her dog and search their house, now cleared of animals and people, to search for and destroy the tablet that he could not destroy when he attempted to smash Barbara O'Sullivan with his vehicle while she was videotaping his roughing up of her daughter.
There is evidence in the case indicating that the dog accidentally got out from behind Barbara O'Sullivan, and did not mean to harm officers at all - but was beaten up, tasered, shot by a taser arrow through his jaw, because officers planned to kill the dog before they approached the house, and their conspiracy is documented in a tape.
We will see what Barbara O'Sullivan's counsel Attorney Joseph Ermeti, of Sidney, will do with this evidence of Alecia Bracci's acquittal to help his client fight the disgusting fabricated charges of corrupt Delaware County officials who colluded with no less corrupt judicial system in retaliation for Barbara O'Sullivan's efforts as a citizen to expose judicial misconduct.
I will continue to cover the People v O'Sullivan case. Stay tuned.
Criminal charges against her and derivative criminal charges against her mother were leaked to the press through an unofficial press-release of the Delaware County Sheriff's Department.
I guess, now, the Delaware County Sheriff's Department owes Alecia Bracci and her mother an apology at the very least, for all the stress, heartache and financial losses they have caused them - including for Derek Bowie's and his uncle's employer's attempt to have their dog euthanized through a court proceeding.
I described the dirty circumstances surrounding the arrest on this blog before. You can search the previous coverage of these cases by putting "Alecia Bracci" and "Barbara O'Sullivan" in the search window on the right.
Criminal charges against both Alecia Bracci and her mother Barbara O'Sullivan were fabricated by the perpetrator of vehicular assault upon Barbara O'Sullivan, police officer Derek Bowie, nephew of Delaware County District Attorney's investigator Jeff Bowie.
Derek Bowie was not charged with attempted murder using a vehicle when he tried to smash the tablet in Barbara O'Sullivan's hands WITH A MOVING POLICE CAR - to destroy evidence of his misconduct.
Instead Derek Bowie was allowed to remain on the investigation of both mother and daughter after his vehicular assault on the mother (for which he is being sued), and was allowed to bring criminal charges against both the mother and the daughter.
Another conflict of interest is that the Acting Delaware County District Attorney John Hubbard is the former law partner of judge Becker who retaliated against Alecia Bracci and her mother by taking from her the custody of her child.
John Hubbard and the Delaware County DA's office should have stayed far away from this case, and especially because John Hubbard deceived Barbara O'Sullivan and agreed to an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal of a criminal charge against Ryan J. Adams brought against him for the death threat against Barbara O'Sullivan.
Judge Carl Becker punished Alecia Bracci for the criminal charges brought by Delhi Village police against Ryan J. Adams for the death threat he made on the phone against her mother Barbara O'Sullivan by taking her child away and imposing extremely inconvenient and costly conditions of out-of-state child visitation, even though it was not her initiative to take the child away from the state, and even though she had no money to finance those trips.
The father was since using his alleged U.S. Marine status to cart the child all over the country in order to get her away from the mother - first from New York to Pennsylvania, then, when Pennsylvania gave custody back to Alecia Bracci, to North Carolina, and then, when North Carolina court held him in contempt of court for denying Alecia Bracci visitation, further to Ohio.
Trial-level judges of Pennsylvania and North Carolina unanimously ruled in favor of Alecia Bracci, holding Ryan Adams in contempt of court (North Carolina) and ruling that it was the worst case of parental alienation in the judge's 14-year judicial career (Pennsylvania).
Yet, Adams was able to use Becker's corrupt, retaliative and self-serving decision in many courts to hurt Alecia Bracci.
He was behind the criminal charges fabricated against her for allegedly resisting arrest.
It is interesting to note that, even though he was allegedly the witness of the events that led to criminal charges - and used criminal charges against Alecia Bracci wherever he could to get her stripped of any visitation rights with her child - he did not appear to testify against her at the trial. I do not think for one second that it was done because he did not want to put the mother of his child in jail. He wanted to do that very much, there is enough evidence of that.
But, first of all, there was enough impeachment evidence to have him charged with perjury if he would dare to testify, and this U.S. Marine is a coward.
He was brave enough to assault his child's grandmother while in full uniform, and was sued for that.
He was brave enough to make a death threat against his child's grandmother over the phone.
He was brave enough to orchestrate criminal charges against the mother of his child.
He was brave enough to lie to his charge that her mother abandoned her and does not want to see her, even when his child's mother was desperately trying to get some contact, any contact, with her child.
From a New York court.
From a Pennsylvania court.
From a North Carolina court.
Ryan J. Adams is brave only to parade his military uniform and status to disregard the mother's statement to him that the child is getting prepared for the journey back to him, could not wait an hour to get the child prepared, instead he went to court, obtained an illegal arrest warrant signed by a judge who acknowledged he had no jurisdiction and who quickly recused from the case afterwards, and had the mother dragged out of the house in handcuffs in front of the hysterical child who hid under furniture while Derek Bowie was threatening her grandmother with a taser and roughing up her mother - for no legitimate reason.
But, at the trial, Ryan Adams was afraid to show up his face and let Derek Bowie testify against Alecia Bracci alone.
Derek Bowie, by the way, was reportedly quietly let go by the Delaware County Sheriff's Department and testified today at Alecia Bracci's trial, reportedly, in civilian clothing.
The presiding Judge Richard Gumo whose dirty footsteps are all over this case, too (I will report on his involvement later, after Barbara O'Sullivan's trial) reportedly blocked off any questions to Derek Bowie as to termination of his employment by Delaware County Sheriff's Department, blocked off any objections of Alecia Bracci's assigned counsel Lauren Clarkson and shut down Alecia Bracci's second chair, the Hon. Richard McVinney (part-time judge of Oneonta City Court).
To attorney McVinney Gumo reportedly, rudely stated that he must sit down and not advance any legal arguments, because he was only a "second chair".
I am happy that the jury saw through the bullshit of these criminal charges.
I congratulate the team of lawyers, Lauren Carlson of Oneonta, NY and Richard McVinney, of Oneonta, NY and Alecia Bracci for this acquittal, it is quite an accomplishment, and a lot of work went into trial preparation, and especially it was quite an accomplishment against the odds the team was facing in this case where they were up against a team of corrupt officials from Delaware County, village and town of Delhi and the court system.
But, these charges should not have been brought in the first place, should not have been accepted by Judge Gumo who recuses himself from all cases where the Bracci family members (Alecia Bracci's cousins) are involved because of conflicts of interest, should not have been prosecuted by the Delaware County DA's office, disqualified by multiple conflicts of interest in this case.
It is a waste of limited taxpayer-funded resources. It is abuse of power in order to retaliate against two women for the only reason that they had the audacity to report misconduct, FOIL public officials, sue public officials, including the same Judge Becker, and insist on their rights.
It is dirty.
It is disgusting.
It was uncalled for.
And now, the acquittal in Alecia Bracci's case severely undermines validity of charges against her mother Barbara O'Sullivan, also prosecuted by the disqualified Delaware County DA's office - instead of prosecuting Derek Bowie for vehicular assault on Barbara O'Sullivan and attempted murder against her.
If the arrest warrant with which Derek Bowie came to Barbara O'Sullivan's property to arrest her daughter, was not even valid (and it wasn't, it was fabricated by Bowie and Judge Gumo, I have documentary evidence on file clearly suggesting that).
Derek Bowie was merely a trespasser on Barbara O'Sullivan's property on September 18, 2014 who came to her house at night to get her and her daughter out of the house, lock them up in jail, kill her dog and search their house, now cleared of animals and people, to search for and destroy the tablet that he could not destroy when he attempted to smash Barbara O'Sullivan with his vehicle while she was videotaping his roughing up of her daughter.
There is evidence in the case indicating that the dog accidentally got out from behind Barbara O'Sullivan, and did not mean to harm officers at all - but was beaten up, tasered, shot by a taser arrow through his jaw, because officers planned to kill the dog before they approached the house, and their conspiracy is documented in a tape.
We will see what Barbara O'Sullivan's counsel Attorney Joseph Ermeti, of Sidney, will do with this evidence of Alecia Bracci's acquittal to help his client fight the disgusting fabricated charges of corrupt Delaware County officials who colluded with no less corrupt judicial system in retaliation for Barbara O'Sullivan's efforts as a citizen to expose judicial misconduct.
I will continue to cover the People v O'Sullivan case. Stay tuned.
A complaint was filed about misconduct of judges Michael Coccoma, Christina Ryba and Karen Peters
I filed a complaint with New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct requesting to take off the bench Albany Supreme Court judge Christina Ryba for defrauding the voters in her election campaign and misusing her position as counsel to Chief Judge of the Appellate Division 3rd Department Court Karen Peters (Ryba was quietly fired for unethical conduct just before the election).
I also requested to discipline Chief Administrative Judge for Upstate New York Michael V. Coccoma for hiring Ryba and wasting taxpayer money on an unethical attorney who was just fired for ethical conduct. I pointed out to the Commission that Coccoma's move may have protected Ryba from attorney discipline by sending a message to disciplinary authorities not to touch a person under Judge Coccoma's protection.
As to Karen Peters, I requested to investigate her negligent supervision of Ryba while Ryba misused the court system's e-mail and prestige of her employment position for her personal gain, the untimely secret termination of Ryba, made in such a way that it would not affect her election, and failure of Peters, who heads one of 4 attorney licensing courts in New York, to discipline Ryba, or disciplinary attorneys, employees of the court, recently involved in misconduct, Steven Zayas and Peter Torncello.
Holding my breath as to what the Commission will find.
I also requested to discipline Chief Administrative Judge for Upstate New York Michael V. Coccoma for hiring Ryba and wasting taxpayer money on an unethical attorney who was just fired for ethical conduct. I pointed out to the Commission that Coccoma's move may have protected Ryba from attorney discipline by sending a message to disciplinary authorities not to touch a person under Judge Coccoma's protection.
As to Karen Peters, I requested to investigate her negligent supervision of Ryba while Ryba misused the court system's e-mail and prestige of her employment position for her personal gain, the untimely secret termination of Ryba, made in such a way that it would not affect her election, and failure of Peters, who heads one of 4 attorney licensing courts in New York, to discipline Ryba, or disciplinary attorneys, employees of the court, recently involved in misconduct, Steven Zayas and Peter Torncello.
Holding my breath as to what the Commission will find.
The three unaccountable giant human rights violators - the U.S., Russia and China
It is truly a trick question - name one very large country that repeatedly engages in violation of human rights, nationally and internationally, and refuses to be held accountable by international courts.
It is the United States of America, the land of the free.
United States did not consent to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or to the jurisdiction of the United Nations Court on human rights.
This way, the U.S. does not allow itself to be accountable for international war crimes - think Vietnam, think drone strikes on civilians, think invasion of Iraq on false pretenses and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians there, think Abu Graib, think Guantanomo, think using other countries for torture or assassinations of people by executive orders.
As to violations of human rights inside its own country, think starving inmates, think wrongful convictions and executions, think executions by torturous drugs, think police brutality, think social services' fascism, think judicial and prosecutorial misconduct, think blocking remedies for human rights violations at the very first level by a variety of judge-invented "immunities, abstentions" and other bars.
And, think unavailability to Americans whose human rights are violated, such a remedy (available to people in other countries) as suing the United States in the United States human rights court where United States is participating in judging other countries for human rights violations, but does not allow to sue itself - by refusing to fully ratify the International Convention of Political and Civil Rights.
The other two large countries similarly engaged in violations of human rights and similarly refusing to consent to jurisdiction of international courts are Russia and China.
To be sure, until recently, Russia did consent to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. That consent was part of being considered to join the European Union.
And, under the jurisdiction of ECHR, awards of the court against Russia would make many Americans who have suffered constitutional violations (which are violations of human rights) envious - because their claims are dumped, often with sanctions against the victims, and no similar remedy, such as ECHR, is available to Americans.
I wrote about ECHR and awards of ECHR against Russia and other countries giving complainants remedies for human rights violations that are unavailable to Americans.
Now such awards are unavailable to Russians, too.
Russia has followed our "land of the free" (made in its arguments not to ratify the International Convention for Political and Human Rights), and refused to comply with orders of ECHR - because, in the view of Russian government, such orders contradicted the Russian Constitution.
Of course, no Constitution (not Russian, not the U.S.) should allow human rights violations - which is what the U.N. human rights court and the ECHR are prosecuting - but that argument was lost in the avalanche of words justifying the unjustifiable.
And, the topic that led Russia to defy ECHR and refuse to consent to its jurisdiction is - guess what - an order of ECHR ruling that Russia violated human rights of its citizens by allowing spying (electronic surveillance) on them.
The sad irony of this is that Russia gave an asylum to Edward Snowden who has fled from the U.S. after leaking information that the U.S. was engaged in an identical human rights violation against its own citizen - and, of course, that human rights violation is not subject to judicial review of any international courts, the U.S. government has made sure of that.
And, after Snowden's leaks, no criminal proceedings were brought against any U.S. government officials involved in illegal surveillance of Americans.
Russia, China and the U.S. are fiercely implanting into their citizenry the ideas of patriotism and equate that idea with loyalty to the government - the same government that spies on its own people, violates their human rights and refuses to be held accountable by the victims or to give the victims access to international courts, for at least a chance for impartial review of their claims.
And while this remains the main problem of the country - no remedies for the human rights violations of the ever-growing government, the country is more involved in the entertaining circus of the forthcoming presidential elections, where most candidates are pushing for even bigger government - of course, for everybody's good.
Right.
It is the United States of America, the land of the free.
United States did not consent to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or to the jurisdiction of the United Nations Court on human rights.
This way, the U.S. does not allow itself to be accountable for international war crimes - think Vietnam, think drone strikes on civilians, think invasion of Iraq on false pretenses and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians there, think Abu Graib, think Guantanomo, think using other countries for torture or assassinations of people by executive orders.
As to violations of human rights inside its own country, think starving inmates, think wrongful convictions and executions, think executions by torturous drugs, think police brutality, think social services' fascism, think judicial and prosecutorial misconduct, think blocking remedies for human rights violations at the very first level by a variety of judge-invented "immunities, abstentions" and other bars.
And, think unavailability to Americans whose human rights are violated, such a remedy (available to people in other countries) as suing the United States in the United States human rights court where United States is participating in judging other countries for human rights violations, but does not allow to sue itself - by refusing to fully ratify the International Convention of Political and Civil Rights.
The other two large countries similarly engaged in violations of human rights and similarly refusing to consent to jurisdiction of international courts are Russia and China.
To be sure, until recently, Russia did consent to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. That consent was part of being considered to join the European Union.
And, under the jurisdiction of ECHR, awards of the court against Russia would make many Americans who have suffered constitutional violations (which are violations of human rights) envious - because their claims are dumped, often with sanctions against the victims, and no similar remedy, such as ECHR, is available to Americans.
I wrote about ECHR and awards of ECHR against Russia and other countries giving complainants remedies for human rights violations that are unavailable to Americans.
Now such awards are unavailable to Russians, too.
Russia has followed our "land of the free" (made in its arguments not to ratify the International Convention for Political and Human Rights), and refused to comply with orders of ECHR - because, in the view of Russian government, such orders contradicted the Russian Constitution.
Of course, no Constitution (not Russian, not the U.S.) should allow human rights violations - which is what the U.N. human rights court and the ECHR are prosecuting - but that argument was lost in the avalanche of words justifying the unjustifiable.
And, the topic that led Russia to defy ECHR and refuse to consent to its jurisdiction is - guess what - an order of ECHR ruling that Russia violated human rights of its citizens by allowing spying (electronic surveillance) on them.
The sad irony of this is that Russia gave an asylum to Edward Snowden who has fled from the U.S. after leaking information that the U.S. was engaged in an identical human rights violation against its own citizen - and, of course, that human rights violation is not subject to judicial review of any international courts, the U.S. government has made sure of that.
And, after Snowden's leaks, no criminal proceedings were brought against any U.S. government officials involved in illegal surveillance of Americans.
Russia, China and the U.S. are fiercely implanting into their citizenry the ideas of patriotism and equate that idea with loyalty to the government - the same government that spies on its own people, violates their human rights and refuses to be held accountable by the victims or to give the victims access to international courts, for at least a chance for impartial review of their claims.
And while this remains the main problem of the country - no remedies for the human rights violations of the ever-growing government, the country is more involved in the entertaining circus of the forthcoming presidential elections, where most candidates are pushing for even bigger government - of course, for everybody's good.
Right.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Lawsuits by lawyers for online postings
A Chicago lawyer reportedly Moria Bernstein sued attorney rating service AVVO for allegedly violating Illinois state law and for allegedly usurping her rights to self-publicity.
Reportedly, the lawsuit also claims that by certain techniques, AVVO is trying to coerce Ms. Bernstein into purchasing marketing services from AVVO.
Yet, all information that AVVO provides and that aggravated Ms. Bernstein appears to be a matter of public record.
At the same time, a Florida appeals court affirmed a $350,000 award against consumers of legal services for publishing a critical online review against their attorney.
The reviews were posted on Yelp and on the same AVVO.
The divorcing couple accused the wife's attorney of "dramatically inflating fees", lied about her fees and falsified a contract.
Those were factual assertions that the court took an issue with.
Legal experts indicated that Florida has a lower (than in other states) burden of proof in defamation cases, so this case may not be easily transferrable to other states where, I am sure, former clients would also like to criticize their attorneys for their performance - sometimes, in good faith, sometimes, in order not to pay their legal fees.
And - lo and behold - a judge in a bench (non-jury) trial awarded $350,000 in PUNITIVE damages alone!
The Florida appellate court also made a distinction between non-media defendants (in that case) and media defendants who are entitled to higher protections.
Had the defendants passed the review through a media source, keeping themselves as a confidential source of a journalist, the result could have been different.
Yet, I doubt that any media source would entertain publishing what amounts to private fee disputes with an attorney.
Once again - WHY would anybody waive their right to a jury trial in favor of a trial by a judge?
Reportedly, the lawsuit also claims that by certain techniques, AVVO is trying to coerce Ms. Bernstein into purchasing marketing services from AVVO.
Yet, all information that AVVO provides and that aggravated Ms. Bernstein appears to be a matter of public record.
At the same time, a Florida appeals court affirmed a $350,000 award against consumers of legal services for publishing a critical online review against their attorney.
The reviews were posted on Yelp and on the same AVVO.
The divorcing couple accused the wife's attorney of "dramatically inflating fees", lied about her fees and falsified a contract.
Those were factual assertions that the court took an issue with.
Legal experts indicated that Florida has a lower (than in other states) burden of proof in defamation cases, so this case may not be easily transferrable to other states where, I am sure, former clients would also like to criticize their attorneys for their performance - sometimes, in good faith, sometimes, in order not to pay their legal fees.
And - lo and behold - a judge in a bench (non-jury) trial awarded $350,000 in PUNITIVE damages alone!
The Florida appellate court also made a distinction between non-media defendants (in that case) and media defendants who are entitled to higher protections.
Had the defendants passed the review through a media source, keeping themselves as a confidential source of a journalist, the result could have been different.
Yet, I doubt that any media source would entertain publishing what amounts to private fee disputes with an attorney.
Once again - WHY would anybody waive their right to a jury trial in favor of a trial by a judge?
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