New York

Author (NOT Lawyer) Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Careless Aspirations

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
Well, she sure doesn't look like any lawyer I know...

Well, she sure doesn’t look like any lawyer I know…

The acclaimed author of “Prozac Nation” and “Bitch” graduated from Yale Law School while trying to figure out what she was going to do with her now rich and famous life. Elizabeth Wurtzel has yet to pass the NY bar exam successfully, however (she’s taken it at least once), which means she is not admitted to practice there or anywhere. Nonetheless, based on the fact that she was working as a paralegal at a law firm, Wurtzel gave an interview in which she arguably described herself as “a lawyer.”

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is. As discussed in the posts about Elizabeth Warren’s mysterious professional status, the unauthorized practice of law (UPL) is taken very seriously in the legal profession, and representing yourself as a lawyer when you aren’t is often enough to cross into UPL territory. Above the Law contacted two worthy legal ethics scholars who agreed that this did not constitute a professional ethics violation—that is, an inaccurate and sloppy remark in an interview, not designed to deceive, would not cause her trouble with the bar should she ever pass that pesky exam. A professional ethics violation is one that calls into question a lawyer’s integrity, honesty and trustworthiness sufficiently to raise questions about whether that lawyer should be allowed to practice law. The profs (Steven Lubet and Stephen Gillers) are right that Wurtzel’s puffery doesn’t reach that level. Continue reading →

Gross Abuse of the First Amendment: The Journal News’ Attack on Gun Owner Privacy

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments
"Here are the names and addresses of people with blood on their hands, Just thought you might be interested."

“Here are the names and addresses of people with blood on their hands. Just thought you might be interested in paying one of them a little visit.”

New York’s Journal News has published a map showing the homes of pistol permit holders in two New York counties. (They are acquiring data for a third.) Now, on the Journal News website, you can click on any of the dots indicating a permit holder and see his name and address—very useful, should you want to go to the owner’s home and kill him, since we all know gun owners have “blood on their hands” after the massacre in Newtown. The Journal News acquired the personal information through the Freedom of Information Act.

A story like this one renders me depressed, confused and lost. It should not be unnecessary for me or anyone to explain what is wrong with this conduct, and yet not only has a media organization done it, but many Americans undoubtedly will cheer them on. If people can’t figure out on their own what is wrong with this—the ethical offense is “publicizing citizens’ names and addresses in an attempt to intimidate them and expose them to harassment for exercising their legal, Constitutionally protected rights in a responsible fashion”— I suspect that it is a waste of time trying to enlighten them. Continue reading →

When Routine Deadens Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"Good boy!!!"

A Niagara County, New York coroner just resigned as he faces possible imprisonment after taking a fresh body part from the carnage of a local plane wreck and using it to train his personal cadaver-sniffing dog.

How, you may ask, could anyone, particularly a public coroner, be so callous and ethically numb? “Hey! Here’s a leg! What luck! Now I can train Rex!” How can a professional—or a human being— treat some grieving family’s loved one like a piece of meat?

I think it’s natural, really. Coroners, morticians, medical examiners, rescue workers, military commanders and doctors all have to detach themselves from the human beings whose deaths are a routine part of their daily work, or they risk being unable to do their work at all. Objectivity and independent judgment are crucial elements of professional conduct, and emotion, including sorrow, sympathy, and revulsion, is the enemy of objectivity. The danger is that in order to deaden one’s emotions through repetition and routine, one risks unplugging an ethics alarm. For these emotions are also part of the ethical value of caring.

The coroner might have been excellent at his job, but he lost all human connection to his work. The mangled body part that had once been a living, breathing, loving person seemed like a piece of meat, because to the coroner, like his dog, it was just a piece of meat.

When feeling gets in the way of a professional’s  duties, it is only normal for the professional to try to eliminate them, and even prudent, except that the absence of feelings can cause a deficit in ethics. Building those callouses over normal human emotions are matter of survival in some professions, but doing so creates what I call a “pre-unethical condition” requiring awareness and vigilance.

The Niagara coroner wasn’t sufficiently vigilant, and he fell into a career ending trap.

______________________________

Facts: WGRG New York

Graphic: Greenwich Roundup

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of  facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

An Unethical and Stupid Blue Line

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Officer Tasca, defying a police taboo

Police have a hard, crucial and dangerous job, so it is not surprising that the profession has developed a culture of rigidly enforced mutual support, the famous “blue line” that represents order against chaos, with police protecting society from the lawless and the predators, and making solidarity among the components of that line a key element in its strength. I understand why the culture has evolved to be what it is, and why an ethic of unconditional loyalty and trust thrives in police departments. There are times. however, when enforcing the integrity of the blue line serves to undermine it, and the saga of Officer Regina Tasca of the Bogota (New York) Police Department appears to be one of them. Continue reading →

Why Does American Public Education Stink? The Answer: Incompetence, Stupidity, and Fear. The Proof: THIS…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Ah, that look that only a dedicated New York public school teacher can spark!!!

Over at Popehat, Ken has been on another roll, and his latest effort, as depressing and enraging as it is, is a real contribution to our understanding of the kind of entrenched foolishness, cowardice and incompetence in our nation’s public school administration that is gradually rendering the schools useless and our children uneducated.

Spurred by a New York Post story that seemed too horrible to be true, Ken set out to research the claim that the New York School system has compiled a long list of topics that are banned on student tests for a variety of reasons, prime among them that someone, somewhere, will be offended by them.  After some digging on the New York City Department of Education’s websites, what he found  was worse than how the Post had described it.

In an Appendix, he discovered a list of  test question topics “that would probably cause a selection to be deemed unacceptable by the New York City Department of Education… In general, a topic might be unacceptable for any of the following reasons:

  •   The topic could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students that might hamper their ability to take the remainder of the test in the optimal frame of mind.
  •     The topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation.
  •     The topic has been ―done to death in standardized tests or textbooks and is thus overly familiar and/or boring to students.
  •     The topic will appear biased against (or toward) some group of people.

Using those criteria, and undoubtedly using astounding numbers of hours and taxpayer dollars, the Department came up with the following jaw-dropping list of banned test subjects. I’ll flag with red the taboos that are especially outrageous or idiotic, though perhaps I should note the two or three that might be appropriate. Continue reading →

The Legal Profession’s Muddled Standard For “Fitness To Practice”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

OK, he has a temper, but hire him as your lawyer, and you can trust him with your life!

I confess: my profession’s standard for discipline bewilders me, and leads me to believe that nobody really knows what kind of conduct by a lawyer should dictate that he or she should be kicked out of the profession. I was reminded of this when I read a report about a former associate at a large New York law firm whose license was suspended for three years because he physically abused his girlfriend. A hearing panel had recommended a 60 day suspension, but the Appeals Court decided on three years.

Here is the basic rule regarding misconduct by lawyers, from the ABA’s Model Rules:

Maintaining The Integrity Of The Profession

Rule 8.4  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.

Tell me: which provision did the brutal lawyer violate? Continue reading →

The Dominatrix Lawyer Principle?

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

"Your witness, Counsellor."

Alisha Smith, 36, by day a lawyer in the state Attorney General’s Office specializing in prosecuting securities fraud, prowls the night as “Alisha Spark,” a dominatrix who performs at S&M events for pay. So reports an expose in the New York Post. At a recent S&M event, Alisha posed for photos with fellow fetishists, wearing a skin-tight, see-through latex dress with heart-shaped pasties.“They pay her to go to the events. She dominates people, restrains them and whips them,” the Post’s source said.

Yesterday, the Attorney General removed Smith from her duties. “The employee has been suspended without pay, effective immediately, pending an internal investigation,” said a spokesman for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The lawyer-dominatrix’s punishment, which will may eventually involve dismissal, will undoubtedly be based on a standing executive order in the Attorney General’s Office that requires employees to “obtain prior approval from the [Employment Conduct Committee] before engaging in any outside pursuit … from which more than $1,000 will be received or is anticipated to be received.”

Whipping enthusiastic S&M lovers pays a lot better than that.

She should be dismissed anyway. Her activities breach no legal ethics rules, but as a representative of the state, the Attorney General and the justice system, “Alisha Spark” was obligated conduct herself in a manner that did not undermine the system’s dignity or call the competence of the Attorney General’s Office into question. Even if she had been whipping leather-clad, squealing men free of charge, she was still duty-bound to keep her kinky escapades secret and private, because once they became public, if they did, they would harm her ability to do her legal job. Would a jury be as likely to accept an argument from a prosecutor who had pictures circulating the internet showing her whipping up fun in her alternate profession while dressed like Cat Woman? Maybe, but no sane Attorney General would want to take that chance.

Kinky though she may be, Smith is apparently good at her day job. If the Attorney General  believes that his office won’t be tangibly impeded by her continued employment in a legal role that doesn’t require a high profile or courtroom duty, then it would make sense to keep her on. Otherwise, it is the Naked Teacher Principle again, under the rare sub-category labeled “Dominatrix Lawyers.”

Ethical Quote of the Week: Ed Koch

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

You're still doin' just fine, Ed!

“David Weprin is making phone calls trying to scare seniors. They’re nonsense. Weprin should be ashamed of himself . . . Bob Turner is running for Congress to protect your Medicare and Social Security. If anyone tries to scare you with lies about Bob Turner, tell ’em Ed Koch told them to knock it off!”

——Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, in a robocall on behalf of Republican Bob Turner, who is alarming Democrats by threatening to win Anthony Weiner’s vacant House seat in New York’s 9th Congressional District.  The State Democratic Committee, trying to bolster his opponent, Democrat David Weprin, had sent their own robocalls to senior voters, warning that Turner wanted to “dismantle” Social Security  (Translation: “You won’t get your checks!” This is a lie, as no politician has proposed any Social Security reform that would alter the benefits of any current or soon-to-be recipients of Social Security benefits.)  and end the program “as we know it.” Continue reading →

Return to a Sore Subject

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

"Does anybody care?"

[NOTE: An unusually busy travel schedule combined with terrible hotel WiFi and a week that was already stuffed with juicy and provocative ethics stories resulted in my not fulfilling my duties very well the last three days, for which I apologize sincerely. I’m going to make every effort to catch up this weekend.]

Rep. Weiner resigned at last, noting that his district and its constituents deserved to have a fully functioning representative in Congress, and that he could no longer fulfill that role. True enough, though one has to ask (or at least I do): if the people of Queens and Brooklyn deserve better representation than a hard-working, if dishonest, obsessed and twisted, pariah can offer, what about the people of the 8th District of Arizona, who have a representative who can’t funtion in her post at all?

I was going to wait until the six-month mark in Gaby Giffords’ rehabilitation to raise this matter again, since that will mark a full 25% of the Congresswoman’s term that she has been unable to serve, but the combination of Weiner’s resignation and the news of Giffords being released from the hospital created too much dissonance for me to ignore. I fully expect that I will be writing some version of this post 18 months hence, after Rep. Giffords’ entire Congressional term has passed without her voting on a bill or answering a constituent’s letter. To quote the singing John Adams in “1776,”: “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”

Reports from various medical personnel enthused that Giffords has made remarkable progress, and “seems” to understand “most’ of what is being said to her, though she still has trouble articulating responses. That is great progress for someone who has some of her brain blown away by a gunshot at close range, but it sure doesn’t sound like someone who is going to be making a persuasive argument on the House floor any time soon, or ever. So are we serious about this running the country stuff, or aren’t we? Continue reading →

As Weiner Finally Goes, Some Lessons That We Already Should Know

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I’m sitting in the Washington, D.C. offices of  NPR, waiting to go live at 11 AM. with some ethics commentary about the imminent resignation of Rep. Weiner. He is finally doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, just as his Democratic colleagues are defenestrating him for the wrong reasons. Once yesterday’s old photos surfaced showing Weiner in women’s underwear, his fate was sealed…although it was really sealed already. His forced resignation was inevitable, and the fact that the Congressman was unable to see it so that he could preserve some shred of honor by doing his duty as soon as his disgraceful conduct became public shows how wretched his judgment is.

The 56% of his constituents who, according to polls, thought that he should remain in his job demonstrated their complete lack of understanding of the requirements of leadership and ethics. They weren’t the only ones. It has been fascinating, though depressing, to read the comment threads on various websites and blogs covering the Weiner story, because they are so similar in their rationalizations. The categories, and reasons why they are so misguided, are:

  • “Lots of the people criticizing Weiner engage in dubious inline conduct themselves; they are hypocrites.” No, they are non-leaders. When you accept the responsibility of leadership, you accept the duties of  integrity, honesty, and honorable conduct. Rep. Weiner gave up the right to behave as sleazy as the guy we never heard of next door when he ran for office. Continue reading →