D.C. Bar disciplinary counsel’s  mission is to “(1) protect the public and the courts; (2) maintain the integrity of the legal profession; and (3) deter attorneys from engaging in misconduct.”  This often involves bringing charges based on alleged violations of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct. In an earlier post this month, I touched on the problem of partisan enforcement of the rules on lawyers who represented Donald Trump.

When the D.C. Bar disciplinary counsel’s prosecution is successful, a lawyer can receive punishment ranging from a mild reprimand to disbarment. It is essential that the process as well as the staff executing it be perceived as unbiased, independent and objective. Do those ill-considered tweets by a senior disciplinary official mean that he, or worse, his office, is not to be trusted to perform the key task of policing this supposedly self-regulating profession fairly? No, not necessarily. Signal seems to think so, however, stating…

“Here’s Metzler’s problem: It’s hard for him to credibly argue that all these posts are First Amendment-protected personal commentary detached from his job as a D.C. Bar senior assistant disciplinary counsel—a leadership position within the office.  First, look at the timestamps on many of his posts, they occurred during normal business hours. (Does this constitute fraud, waste, or abuse for him to while away his day like this on social media? Is posting on X or Bluesky part of his official job description? If not, why was Metzler spending his time like this?)  If it is part of his job to post on social media, that’s an even bigger problem. And regardless, a casual observer could be forgiven for not separating out his personal from professional posting. After all, during the course of his posting, he mentions his role as an ethics official and his role in enforcing ethics rules for lawyers. And he even intimates how he views certain behavior that might come before him.” 

There is a formula for lawyers with potential “personal” conflicts of interest: they must get a waiver from their clients who are affected as well as reasonably believe the bias involved won’t interfere with their ability to represent the affected clients ethically. But the D.C. Bar, in my (long) experience with it, is itself biased against the political Right and blatantly partisan. The organization is Metzler’s client: it isn’t going to fear being disadvantaged because of his social media posts suggesting that Donald Trump is an aspiring dictator. Metzler himself, like most of the knee-jerk progressives I encounter, probably considers himself to be rational and correct, not partisan.

Then there is this:

“But here’s where things get really problematic and where Metzler himself arguably violated ethics rules and disqualified himself (and maybe the entire office) from pursuing certain charges against certain individuals, particularly those associated with President Trump or the Trump administration. First, he approvingly reposted a statement from Matthew Stiegler, who works for controversial Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, where Stiegler said that “There’s a point where I think all of us, senators to nobodies, have a decision to make. If we use whatever voice we have, whatever power we have, to oppose what’s happening now, it might damage our future. Might land us in a prison. We accept that risk, or we don’t. I submit that point is here.” This post alone calls into question whether Metzler will fairly and impartially pursue bar disciplinary sanctions or whether he will use “whatever power [he has]” to punish those with whom he disagrees politically—particularly those associated with Trump.”

As we have seen before, it is difficult to prove that reposting someone else’s social media statement is necessarily an endorsement of it. Signal is also clearly wrong to suggest that the whole Office of Disciplinary Counsel could be disqualified by a single lawyer’s own personal conflict: the Rules specifically state otherwise.

That small consolation doesn’t change the reality that for someone in Metzler’s position of trust to post extreme partisan statements on social media is spectacularly stupid and irresponsible. It also drags my mind back to this post from last year, where I reported on my mysterious dismissal as the D.C. Bar’s legal ethics CLE trainer after 30 years. I have been pooh-poohing the suggestion of almost everyone I know, and every lawyer I know, that my firing was obviously political….after all, I’ve been fired a lot. But I wonder….just as lawyers fingered for discipline in D.C. after representing certain clients may wonder.

The whole Signal article is here.