In America, It’s YOUR choice.
Fundamental to our American way of life is law and order. No one including the legal profession is above the law. For years the legal profession has set itself up as a self-policing branch of government and purports to determine for the rest of society what is “legal†and “not legal†supposedly rationally applying the law of the land as established by our Constitution and legislatively established statue law. This worked in a righteous society were the honorable and ethical outnumbered the unrighteous, but that has changed. Few realize how the legal profession makes its own rules and case law that serves attorney interest more than public interest.
Take heed: Millions of Americans including several in the US legislature and one presidential candidate profess the following to be the word of GOD: “And now behold, I say unto you, that the foundation of the destruction of this people is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your lawyers and your judges.†– Alma 10:27
With America’s taming of the West power shifted from might-is-right to law. If the arena of power is in law, a theoretical good, the structure of power is in the legal profession, the top of the food chain – and therein lays the potential for mischief. Lawyers could be called this country’s Nomenklatura, and the rest of us the Proletariat.
Our American laws were derived from English law and that from Roman law based in Judeo-Christian teachings. We now have over 34 million laws and are still grinding them out; yet we haven’t improved on the Ten Commandments. James Madison observed “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.â€Â
Law reflects, but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society…. The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven, there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb…. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.†– Grant Gilmore, The Age of Anxiety published in the Yale Law Journal (1975)
We have created our own living HELL. Modern law ought to be a science, but has become a hocus pocus quagmire, masquerading behind an elaborate sham in which nearly any preconceived opinion can be found, justified, or accommodated. Laws encircle us all; but, like locked doors, seem to be most effective against the honest; they are what the innocent abide by and the guilty manipulate. Dickens observed “the one great principle of the…law is to make business for itself.â€Â
Over the history of America, the fundamental religious principles of equity, fairness and justice have become totally perverted by self-serving attorneys that feed on contention and specializes in finding perverted meaning in words. Attorneys live in a world so divorced from reality that they can argue over the meaning of any word. Recall the arguments Bill Clinton, a Yale Law School graduate, offered regarding the meaning of the word “is.†When the Constitution and statute law are nothing but words and words are meaningless we have a serious problem.
Man’s law as determined by our current legal system has become simply meaningless with justice defined not by law but rather by emotion, empathy, political correctness and wealth. Mountains of contradictory case law rulings have evolved over the past two century and leave a judge to simply do as they please and play Humpty Dumpty.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I chose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” -Lewis Carroll
God offered his law in the Ten Commandments sufficiently brief to be carved on two stone tablets. It’s notable that GOD didn’t provide an attorney to interpret them and found no reason to promote a profession dedicated to asking, “What do you want these words to mean?â€Â
The present level of government domination of private affairs violates the principles this country was founded upon. The historic proposition that people are the masters and government is the servant has been reversed. Only summary, or shotgun-justice, is typically found within it. The only difference between law and politics is the spelling. This trend can and must be reversed.
For years the belief that the consequences of exposing corrupt judges and attorneys was not in the best interest of the public as it would undermine public confidence has supported the concept that the judiciary should police itself. Public exposure of a corrupt judge or prosecuting attorney would bring into question all previous cases involving them. This argument may have merit, but the time has come for change when even the dogs on the street are aware of the corruption and attorney jokes are more true than funny. The public outcry of obvious self serving prosecution in the Duke Lacrosse Case has brought this issue to the forefront.
What can be done to reestablish honesty, integrity and general moral character to the legal profession? The American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct that have been adopted as state supreme court procedural rules in most all states with few alterations to insure the legal profession operate in an ethical manner. It contains two basic parts establishing a code of conduct for judges as well as attorneys. It provides that judges are primarily to police the attorneys and their peers. The supreme court rules generally provide also for a “disciplinary counsel to receive complaints directly from the public regarding unethical attorney behavior, but this counsel refuse to investigate unethical behavior condoned by the judge hearing any given litigation. Herein lies a significant problem as the judge is likely a friend of the very attorneys and other judges he is required to police. It’s a classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop.
If the Model Rules were enforced, to the same extent as parking violations, it would correct many of the ills that plague society including the family courts. Unfortunately judges are not politically in a position to effectively police attorneys, much less other judges. If we continue to ignore the problem the result will be societal collapse with resulting anarchy.
Nothing but public apathy and ignorance prevent this code of professional conduct from being changed from supreme court procedural rules to statue criminal law with public funded investigation and enforcement. Removing the secrecy of prosecution of corrupt legal professionals and the very knowledge of scrutiny will have a significant positive effect.
I checked the Missouri Constitution and find that Article 5, Section 5 assures the Legislature the authority superior to the Judiciary and its Supreme Court Rules. Article 5 Section 5 of the Missouri Constitution states, “Any rule may be annulled or amended in whole or in part by a law limited to the purpose.†The public, not the state Bar CAN determine how and when attorneys and judges are prosecuted for ethical violations.
The simple act making false representation of material fact by attorneys has no meaning to a group that can’t define the word “is.†It is the stock and trade of the legal profession. The public is left to pay someone to misrepresent or distort facts with immunity when a witness or pro se litigant is subject to prosecution for perjury. It gives the legal profession an unfair advantage in any legal proceeding where a party lacks counsel. The more skillful the misrepresentation of fact, the more an attorney is worth.
This neglects the presumption of attorney’s and the court’s knowledge of the law. How often an attorney, especially when dealing with a pro se litigant, will knowingly argue law contrary to that accepted and the judge, though knowing it to be incorrect will accept it because no one objects. A person unaware of the law and perhaps more often the court rules are unable to act without an attorney and are therefore at the attorney’s mercy with no assurance that they are acting ethically with do diligence.
No where are attorney ethics more abused than in family law and other courts of equity or civil matters. Years ago I was personally criminally prosecuted and found my self appealing a criminal conviction only to have the presiding appellant judge ask the prosecutor why he had chosen to prosecute me rather than others far more guilty of the same offense. The prosecutor replied that I had expressed direct and open contempt for the ruling in a civil proceeding. The words of the presiding appellant judge were almost unbelievable. He expressed that after years on the bench, he had little other than outright contempt for most of what he had witness in civil proceedings and proceeded to ask the assistant district attorney if he planned to trump up criminal charges against him for expressing what he know to be true. Prosecutors like Mike Nifong and Don Hymer aren’t interested in justice or ethical behavior, rather they are interest in self-serving gratification and politically correct public support.
Let’s review the ABA’s Rule 8.4 offering a general statement of misconduct.
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another;
(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;
(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;
(e) state or imply an ability to influence improperly a government agency or official or to achieve results by means that violate the Rules of Professional Conduct or other law; or
(f) knowingly assist a judge or judicial officer in conduct that is a violation of applicable rules of judicial conduct or other law.
Most would find Model Rule 8.4 sufficient to define legal ethics independent of the additional few hundred words composing the balance of the Model Rules. NOT Attorneys! They are so adapted to making work for themselves by arguing that it apparently takes “highly educated†men years to understand all of the possible perverted meanings of a few hundred words. The public would not have much of a problem deciding innocence or guilt based on these words.
Is it not fundament to religious teachings that contention is the work of the devil? We are to strive to avoid contention and forgive rather than pursue a “sue the bastard†mentality so promoted today. Was this not the rational behind the ethical prohibition of attorney advertizing common for most of the 20th century?
Don’t you love those “We make ‘em pay†TV ads where the law firm of Dewey, Cheetam and Hough, advertizes that they have recovered damages “in excess of a billion dollars for clients†without mention of what portion the billion dollars they keep? If the legal profession had ethics it would charge fees based on services rendered, not what they can extort by threaten or protracted litigation.
A good physician certainly deserves a good living for doing his best to save someone’s life, but his charge today represents twice what he requires, with half going to the legal profession as insurance against his error. Is it justified? Attorneys won’t sue just the physician committing the error, but insist on suing everyone involved with the hope of more money from “deeper pocketsâ€Â. Is this in public’s best interest?
Consider the amount of this country’s Gross Domestic Product that is represented by the legal profession. Billions of dollars are earned annually by a profession that can’t agree on anything and thrives in contention producing nothing of tangible value for the nation. This “service†is actually counter productive to the businesses that actually do produce tangible goods that expand our nation’s wealth. How long can the nation survive when more is spent arguing legal matters and shuffling paper than producing things of value? Can a productive society exist when attorneys have substituted, “caveat venditor,†let the seller beware for “caveat emptor,†let the buyer beware.
A fool that chooses to use his power lawn mower to trim his toenails and his attorney are assured a financial reward should the manufacture not post a prominent warning that the mower that it is not to be used to trim toenails. It’s surprising that we manufacture or do anything in this litigious environment.
The university chemist department where I formerly worked has been stripped of almost all chemicals and instruments out of fear that they are “dangerous†and may promote ligation. Learn chemistry by computer simulation is the rule of the day. Sorry it doesn’t work. Life is dangerous and self-serving attorneys attempting to defy natural selection of the least fit will breed a nation of fools that can’t survive.
Currently Missouri Supreme Court rules requires attorney ethics violations be prosecuted by their appointed Chief Disciplinary Counsel before the supreme court en banc. When the legal ethics violations must be tried before the state supreme court, the odds are highly against many successful prosecutions as for all involved, the words are all but meaningless.
I believe the Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel has fourteen full time attorneys to investigate and prosecute attorney ethics violations in Missouri. They must spend their full time responding to public complaints by telling the public that what they perceive to be ethics violations don’t exist as almost never does the media report an ongoing ethics investigation.
It’s past time the public regain control over the legal profession and insist on public trials of ethics violations. If there ever were justification for government intervention and wage control in a free enterprise society, it would include first and foremost the legal profession.
The family destruction and separation of children from their parents promoted by the family law industry is likely to go down in history as equivalent to the German holocaust. From biblical times the family has been the fundamental unit of society and seen by early philosophers to be the greatest obstacle to tyrannical government control. Today unethical attorneys for personal gain wallow in our personal lives destroying the last barrier to the totalitarian state.
I read one state ethics ruling finding that an attorney’s moral character has nothing to do his professional character. Apparently, a thirty-something mini-skirted, bimbo with a “bar card†that is sleeping with a judge is ethically qualified to be appointed as a guardian-ad-litem and make decisions on your children’s future. Like the prostitute she is, just pay her the going price for a custody decision. Heaven help the father that doesn’t see his daughter’s pole dancing interest to be a healthy expression of her “sluttyness†as a positive value. How long can society tolerate this?
Custody has become merely a commodity for sale to the highest bidder. Family law as legislated has become totally irrelevant as case law has promoted “judicial discretion†to judicial omnipotence. Ask your state legislature why they bother to enact family law when it is totally subordinate to judicial discretion.
I encourage all to contact their legislators and demand legislation regulating the legal profession. A simple start is to establish the ABA code of Ethical Conduct as criminal law.
If society can afford meter maids to enforce parking violations, it can surly afford a police force to enforce legal ethics and not leave the fox guarding the chicken coop. It is surprising how many law enforcement officers are also appalled by the legal profession. The media is there with dash cam video to insure the law enforcement officers every action is ethical. Perhaps it’s time for court room and judicial chambers surveillance A/V cameras to confirm what really happens behind closed doors.
