Monday, July 26, 2010

Coincidence? JJ reports, you decide.

The Mississippi Bar does not publish sanctions against wayward lawyers on its website per se. However, if one were to dig through the online editions of its house organ, the Mississippi Lawyer, one could find the sanctions that are published in each edition. JJ published four posts in December reporting sanctions listed in the Mississippi Lawyer. It is the position of this website that the legal profession is in much need of greater transparency and sanctions should be published online by the Bar.

However, if one were to go looking on the Bar's website for recent issues, one would be searching for a very long time as the bar has not posted its most two recent editions of the Mississippi Lawyer on its website (It is published bi- or tri-monthly.). Ok, there are excuses. They were overwhelmed at work. Someone might have quit. Someone was on vacation. The server was down. Well, the most recent online edition is the January/ February issue. It has published no sanctions. Nada. Zip. Zero. The same issue from a year earlier published said sanctions. So is it a coincidence the Bar suddenly didn't include sanctions in the issue it published immediately after JJ started posting them from its online editions and then quit issuing an online edition altogether? It doesn't matter if its a coincidence or not, JJ is obtaining copies of the publication and will start posting more sanctions from the Mississippi Bar even if the Mississippi Bar does not want you to know which lawyers got in trouble.

Stay tuned.

Note: If you want to read sanctions published on this website, there is a section on the right side of the page...... at the bottom. See also this earlier post criticizing the Bar.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks KF....

Also, will u please consider endorsing a state requirement that all lawyers MUST carry Errors and Omissions insurance with reasonable policy limits.

This has to be changed! No lawyer should be able to practice without insurance!

Anonymous said...

The Butler Snow mafia is after the Fairview again...

Anonymous said...

KF- you went to law school. Why aren't you a member of the Bar? We could make you a commissioner and maybe you could change it internally.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Dicky Scruggs still has his heavy hand on our FINEST. Keep 'um running for cover. You are doing a great job.

Anonymous said...

I went to school with Kingfish, but I don't think he ever took the bar exam.

Anonymous said...

" It is the position of this website that the legal profession is in much need of greater transparency and sanctions should be published online by the Bar."

I'll go one further and add that private sanctions should go away. If you get in trouble with the bar, the following information should be available to the public: your name, bar #, firm's name, violation, punishment administered and number and type of previous violations, if any.

IMO, anything less is just an organization by lawyers and for lawyers, screw looking out for Joe Public. Oh wait....

Anonymous said...

The basis for the Mississippi Board of Nursing putting the information out there is to assist in protecting the public from wrongdoers, so why not the Ms Bar Association? C'mon boys and girls in the Bar Association, put your big girl panties on and straighten out your own profession. That's what professionals do.

Anonymous said...

The basis for the Mississippi Board of Nursing putting the information out there is to assist in protecting the public from wrongdoers, so why not the Ms Bar Association? C'mon boys and girls in the Bar Association, put your big girl panties on and straighten out your own profession. That's what professionals do.

Anonymous said...

There is a difference, in my opinion, between a professional mistake and a deliberate, fraudulent act.

The first should be handled with discretion, until the behavior becomes a pattern (continued negligence, for example).

The second should be public, and made part of the public record.

Why should private reprimands be issued? Because people make mistakes. Once restitution is paid, and perhaps another form of punishment is given (additional CLE), the parties should move on. One honest mistake shouldn't end the career of an attorney.

Fraud, repeated negligence, criminal conduct - should be dealt with quickly and severely. The public has a right to know about blatant, intentional conduct of an attorney.

Mixed emotions on required E&O insurance. I might support a minimum policy amount. But clearly real estate attorneys should carry more than a criminal attorney, for obvious reasons.

Anonymous said...

i agree that some sanctions should be public while others should not. some matters do not affect the public interest while others do. all lawyers should have E&O coverage for the same reason all drivers should have car insurance - it's the responsible thing to do.

but there is a difference between a nurse mistake, a doctor mistake and a lawyer mistake. no one dies when a lawyer makes a mistake. as long as Mississippi recognizes legal malpractice as a cause of action, whatever you lost by virtue of the lawyer's mistake can be recouped from the lawyer himself, if it was truly malpractice. also, everyone sees doctors and nurses and not everyone needs a lawyer. i've never needed a lawyer, and i am a lawyer. i've seen numerous doctors and nurses in my life but i've never been in the hospital.

it's apples and oranges.

Anonymous said...

I am a lawyer as well and have not needed a lawyer until this year. I am not young, shall we say. It is due to the lack of ethics of another lawyer and I hope he is held accountable by the bar. If not-there is always the civil suit.

Anonymous said...

I have to ask the attorney population out there. When you have an attorney that is "ethically" unsound, do you as a community share this amongst yourselves? AND appropriately black ball them? Do you do the right thing and report them? Or, in my observation, do you leverage them?

Never know when a favor would come in handy.

I generally and wholeheartedly believe that the legal profession is made up of fine professionals. It is the small faction that haunts the halls around this town (riding Harley's and filing a bunch of frivolous lawsuits, sanction-able lawsuits, both criminal and civil) that tends to give you all a bad name.

KaptKangaroo said...

Fact: There are a few lawyers who are dirt bags.

Fact: Good, ethical, compassionate attorneys have witnessed said dirt bags commit champerty.

Fact: Attorneys will give advice that you can consult the Bar when it is their OBLIGATION to report said champerty to the Bar themselves. Said attorneys are no better than dirt bag.

Rationale: Fear of getting dragged down into the same mud hole.

While initially, I was full of angst over this observation, I in the end relented to the same reality of the law; the law is blind. Until it sees wrong, it will not do anything. Deaf, dumb and blind is a reality. If conflict is too complex to attempt, justice stands still, waiting. Justices allows the slow grind to expose truth/wrong or too many times, forget.

Anonymous said...

to 9:42. yes, lawyers talk about other lawyers and know who is who in the legal community. lawyers thrive on reputation. that said, there really is no way to blackball, so to speak. the reason is that you don't get to choose your adversary. it is who it is and when it is, we have obligations to cooperate and exercise professional courtesy. when you represent someone in a case, that is not the time to wage a personal crusade against the lawyer. you have to put personal differences aside and do your job. in my experience, lawyers typically only talk about other lawyers with respect to legal related events like 'listen to what mr. x did at trial.." but do not necessarily discuss other lawyers' private matters like marital issues, affairs, drinking problems, etc. if a lawyer plays fast and loose though other lawyers will stop referring cases to them.

Anonymous said...

Those licensed as securities professionals are required to have EVERY complaint added to their record with FINRA, whether true or not, with the end result also listed.

Why are attorneys not held to at LEAST that same standard.

Anonymous said...

try getting info about your doctor. lawyers are held to a higher degree of accountability and it's not brain surgery

Kingfish said...

BS. I can go to the SOS website, SEC, or FINRA and find out if a broker or "investment adviser" has gotten in trouble and what the nature of the violation was.



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