f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

The Washington Post reported yesterday (6/18/03) that Chief Judge Rufus G. King III, of D.C. Superior Court, had “ordered stricter requirements and heightened scrutiny aimed at preventing guardians from neglecting or victimizing residents they were appointed to protect.”

The new rules are a quick response to WashPost investigative reporting, which we covered here earlier this week, and which should have shamed the court and the bar.  According to the Post, in an article by Carol Leonnig and Lena Sun, the rules would go into effect immediately and would:

• bar attorneys from being paid for work until they certify they have recently checked on their clients’ health and fully accounted for their money.
  
• prohibit attorneys from receiving new appointments if there are any pending ethical complaints against them.

The article added that “the court would begin to keep better track of attorneys who are failing in their duties and that the court would send auditors to nursing homes and banks to spot-check attorneys’ work.”  In addition, the Register of Wills, who runs the probate division, would be asked “to perform random audits, including calling relatives, as a way to more quickly catch abuses or dishonest lawyers.”

The Post also quotes Kelly Bagby, senior attorney for University Legal Services, an advocacy group for the mentally ill and retarded: “If people are going to put their law license on the line by neglecting their clients and their duties, there’s nothing to say their sworn declarations are truthful either.”  Bagby added, “And how would the register of wills, who has failed to notice for six years when an attorney filed no reports, track a list of attorneys with problems?”

For now, ethicalEsq? has more faith in the Washington Post‘s willingness and ability to play an active and effective watchdog role than in the Court and Probate officials.  One big remaining question, of course, is just what the D.C. Bar’s ethics counsel plans to do about this scandal.