I hope your Mother’s Day was as sunny, warm and fuzzy as mine, which
included a rare joint appearance in the city of my birth, by all three of
mother dog
testing the depth…
snow-melt river
To my amazement, I spent an entire weekend without thinking or talking
about anti-consumer bar association chicanery — until I noticed a tiny blurb in
the Rochester, NY, paper this morning. It said the Monroe County Bar Ass’n
was releasing new “advertising guidelines” today that would help maintain the
image of the profession, and would also start a campaign to educate the public
on how to choose a lawyer. My trustbuster genes were immediately activated,
but I had to ignore than until returning home this afternoon. I have now located
the new Guidelines for Lawyer Advertising, and accompanying Press Release
(May 9, 2005). (see the NYS Code of Lawyer Ethics, DR 2-101).
My rusty-but-trusty antitrust opinion: MCBA, which is a voluntary bar group,
whose conduct is considered to be “joint” or “concerted” activity under antitrust
law, is running the risk of violating those laws with subjective and overly-restrictive
guidelines, especially by linking them to a compliance-and-monitoring system. . . .
— read the rest of the lawyer ad story here —
As usual, my trip to Rochester has inspired me to find a few good haiku
by Tom Painting (an amazingly easy task)) So, here we go:
drama class
the novice
botches a death scene
the gardener’s sleeves
rolled to the elbow
spring equinox
dry heat
a hawk corkscrews
the sky
credits: “gardener’s sleeves”: frogpond XXIV:2;
“dry heat” from from Walking the Same Path; Heron’s Nest VI:4
“drama class” – frogpond XVII:3 (2004)
potluck
Brad Wendel at Legal Ethics Forum asked today whether there are any
good hooks for seeking bar discipline when a lawyer acts like a jerk in public, outside
of the practice of law. The story started at Eric Muller’s website Is that Legal?
and revolves around a silly, insulting comment sent by lawyer David L. Gearhart,
J.D., CPA, MBA, who is a member of the Illinois and Indiana bars, and a 2001
graduate of John Marshall Law School. [Brian Leiter first suggested referring
Gearhart to the Illinois Grievance Committe.] As I commented at LSF, this seems to
be an instance where e-shaming — letting the world discover David Gearhart’s
conduct through Google, Yahoo! et al — is both sufficient and appropriate.
One thing I will say for Gearhart: he at least was willing to put his
name to his email statement — that’s a couple steps up the maturity and
evolutionary ladder from the lawyer (and law student) worms who
slur and insult others anonymously.
