Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:00:10 -0500
From: bobhunt@erols.com
Subject: [lpaz-repost] (fwd) Complain about a lawyer at your own risk of peril
To: Individual-Sovereignty@egroups.com, mg4u@oasis.net ("MG"), lpaz-repost@yahoogroups.com
anyone to defend lawyers???
bh
On Mon, 26 Mar 2001 16:24:56 -0500, "Alexandra H. Mulkern" <amulkern@Radix.Net> wrote:
[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 3.26.2001]
SPOTLIGHT: Complain about a lawyer at your own risk of peril
Beware: Accusing your lawyer of wrongdoing soon could be even more
intimidating. It could land you in court, running up a legal bill to
defend yourself against a defamation lawsuit.
Next month, Georgia's lawyers will get to comment on rules that would
allow them to sue you if you file a complaint against them with the
State Bar of Georgia. To win, a lawyer would have to prove the
complaint or something said while it was being investigated was a lie.
Now, those statements are privileged and cannot be the basis of a libel
or slander action.
Proving you made a false statement would mean going to court to let a
judge decide. So, these rule changes could allow lawyers to intimidate
complainants just by threatening to sue. And that would be costly, even
if the judge ultimately ruled in your favor.
The state Supreme Court will make a final decision on the rules.
Lawyer discipline is a government function delegated to the bar. As
part of the process, complaints aren't public record until there's
evidence of wrongdoing and the case reaches action at the state Supreme
Court.
But under the proposed rules, you could be sued for statements that are
"intentionally false," even if they were made confidentially to just a
handful of people. And even if the complaint resulted in discipline,
there would be nothing preventing that lawyer from suing anyway.
Which brings it all back to a judge.
The idea of defending yourself in court against the lawyer you just
accused -- a lawyer who knows the law and could have deeper pockets and
more connections --
would discourage complaints in a system the public already doesn't quite
trust.
"Damned straight it would have a chilling effect on me,"
said Dennis Phillips of Griffin, who accused a lawyer last year of
misconduct, fraud and lying. His case was dismissed as not falling
within the bar's jurisdiction.
"Who wants to get involved in a bigger mess? . . . Why open yourself
to a lawsuit when the chances are, they aren't going to act on your case
anyway?"
In fact, three cases out of four last year never made it to the bar's
investigative panel. After an initial investigation another 16 percent
were dismissed.
For David Lipscomb, who is pushing the changes as vice chairman of the
bar's disciplinary committee, the dismissal rate means the new rules are
needed. He thinks they might discourage what he believes are a large
number of "frivolous" complaints. The bar, he says, spends $2 million a
year handling the claims.
"I represent lawyers and have for many years," he says.
"I've handled some cases where people have phonied up documents and they
look genuine. It takes a lot of work on our part to rebut those
documents and prove they are lying."
But the process for a complaint already seems rigorous enough to weed
out false claims and lying.
The bulk of the complaints are dismissed right off the bat. And much of
the discipline is meted out in private letters of "admonition" or
reprimands.
More serious cases -- about
5 percent of all complaints
-- are passed on to the state Supreme Court and are resoved publicly
through reprimands, disbarments or suspensions.
James Elliott, an Emory law school associate dean, says the rule changes
would give the public another reason to be skeptical of lawyers. "I
think this is not going to eliminate those complaints that are untrue.
They are going to be filed anyway,"
Elliott said. "This is going to eliminate hundreds that are true."
Elliott chaired a panel appointed by the Supreme Court in 1997 to look
into lawyer discipline. The group found that the process took too long,
is not user-friendly and is controlled too much by lawyers.
The reality is lawyers in Georgia have been allowed since 1964 to police
their own ranks rather than have the government do it. No other
licensed profession in the state gets that luxury. Insurance agents,
doctors and 34 other professions are licensed by state agencies.
"This is part of what you give up when you want to be a self-regulating
body," Elliott said. "You have to bend over backwards to show you are
protecting the public.
Anything that makes it more difficult on the public, should be a matter
of suspicion right off the bat."
Lipscomb, who says 16 other states have some version of the rules
proposed here, believes the issue boils down to a tug-of-war over two
philosophies.
"One is you allow a few lies to encourage people to file complaints,"
Lipscomb said. "And the other is you should hold people to a standard
of truth, and if that chills some of the complaints, then that's a price
we are willing to pay."
But who exactly is that "we" -- the lawyers who are regulating
themselves, or the public the system is supposed to be protecting?
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