This is disheartening, though not unexpected.

I have written about how thoroughly my colleagues in the legal ethics field are politicized, biased and frequently rendered unable to see the ethical issues through the fog of their peer-reinforced distortions. Yesterday, as my legal ethics expert listserv was buzzing with commentary on the judge’s “split the baby” response to Fulton County Fani Willis’s screaming conflict of interest, prosecutorial misconduct, race-baiting and stunning arrogance. One prominent lawyer in the field, a woman whose commentary is usually perceptive, wrote this in part…

The whole situation is infuriating to me because, based on my years as a prosecutor and trial attorney, I found the entire hullabaloo disingenuous and absurd. Hell, when I was at the Brooklyn DA’s Office Eugene Gold quietly left due to improper – illegal – sexual activity.

Consensual relationships among prosecutors and trial attorneys is a ho-hum event (present company excepted!), and here the manufactured basis for DQ was entirely off-base because both parties were on the same side of the “v” – I’m offended by the focus on Willis’s conduct because of the longstanding double standard.

But yes, it was idiotic to give the defendants any pretense for motion making.

Many will disagree, but negative comments about her demeanor and combative response to the nonsense are laden with  preconceptions about tough women, IMO.

I respect your divergent views, but mine is based on observations in the world of intense criminal litigation…

Again, disheartening: a “bias makes you stupid” smoking gun for the ages. This is a lawyer in the legal ethics field defaulting to rationalizations and tribalism. “Hullabaloo”? Willis was using a high profile, politically motivated prosecution to benefit her “lover boy” (that nickname has popped up in the conservative media–Bingo!) and his career, while possibly benefiting herself, both through making their adulterous relationship more attractive and by allegedly sharing in his excessive compensation for the job.

The fact that both Wade and Willis were on “the same side of the v” doesn’t mitigate the misconduct. What part of the prosecutor’s obligation of “independent conduct” is so hard to grasp? I don’t comprehend the reference to the Brooklyn DA’s office episode at all: is she saying “everybody does it”? What “double standard”? Is there really any legitimate question whether a white, male prosecutor who behaved as Willis did would have faced the exact same accusations? To suggest that is delusional or dishonest.

“Pretense for motion-making” is a deceitful description, suggesting that the pulsating conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety created by Willis’s incompetence—a competent DA doesn’t do this, ever, not once— was just a pretense to ask the judge to intervene. The writer—again, an ethics lawyer!— feels Willis was “idiotic” because she gave those evil MAGA types an opening to smear a good and dedicated prosecutor. What a despicable framing!

And then we get a “You go girl!” endorsement of arrogant, defiant and dishonest conduct as some kind of feminist solidarity. This is exactly what Willis was trolling for when she started playing victim, comparing herself to Martin Luther King and playing the race and gender cards like virtually every other black or female public official caught red-handed.

I don’t respect this “divergent view.” It’s embarrassing to me as a legal ethicist. And, I will add, that listserv doesn’t respect divergent views either, not if they don’t follow the Left’s narratives, which about 90% of the participants subscribe to. Evidence of that is that no one responded to that head-exploding post with the equivalent of what I just wrote; I sure won’t, because except for the lawyers who contact me off list to say “I agree with you, but it’s too dangerous for me to say so,” dissent from the progressive, Trump derangement norm isn’t tolerated.

What was the single response to that “Poor Fani, discriminated against because she’s tough woman in the world of ‘intense criminal litigation’..” entry? Another female legal ethics lawyer wrote, “Thank you for speaking out on behalf of DA Willis. I agree with you 100%.”