Roberta Kaplan

Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: I Join An Effort To Show How Unethical E. Jean Carroll’s Lawyer Is

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

From the National Legal and Policy Center today:

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) has filed an appeal of the rejection of its complaint against E. Jean Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan by the Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC) of the New York Supreme Court.

On August 3, the Committee, or rather its Chief Attorney Jorge Dopico, who apparently serves as political gatekeeper, rejected the complaint alleging that Kaplan failed to inform the court or President Trump’s lawyers that Carroll falsely replied in October 2022 to a deposition question about whether anyone else was paying for her lawsuits against President Trump. Carroll replied “No” even though Kaplan knew that the suit was funded by an organization bankrolled by left-wing billionaire and Jeffrey Epstein associate Reid Hoffman.

As the complaint noted, “At that moment, Kaplan knew that answer was false but waited almost six months later until the eve of the trial to correct the record by informing opposing counsel and the court that Hoffman had funded the lawsuits”…

As an exhibit to the Request, Kamenar submitted an Expert Witness Report by noted ethics expert Jack Marshall of ProEthics. His Report concludes: “The deliberate failure of Attorney Roberta Kaplan to follow the requirements of the New York State Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct was serious and substantial. It caused significant harm to her client’s adversary and the administration of justice in the case at issue, as any distortion of the relevant facts in any matter will. The record, in my expert opinion, demonstrates Ms. Kaplan’s lack of honesty, trustworthiness and competence, rendering her continued engagement in the practice of law to be a threat to the integrity and reputation of the legal profession.”

“If the committee does not reverse the summary dismissal of our complaint, it smacks of a coverup,” Kamenar told the Daily Signal

Readers here know my opinion of Ms. Kaplan’s ethics orientation. I would not publicize the fact that I was hired to issue an ethics opinion for a client, but this client chose to publicize it themselves.

You can read the NLPC appeal here. The original ethics complaint is here. Click here for my Expert Witness Report.

Ethics Quiz: How Jean Carroll Got To Sue Trump For A Sexual Assault Allegation Over Two Decades Old

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

When I was discussing the recent jury verdict finding Donald Trump liable for defamation and sexual assault with an astute trail lawyer friend, he expressed surprise that the sexual assault civil case wasn’t barred by the statute of limitations, as the criminal case was. Among the glaring problems with the jury verdict was that it found by a preponderance of the evidence that the sexual assault—not the rape allegation , which, strangely, is what Trump called a lie on social media, prompting the defamation suit—took place even though Carroll couldn’t say what year it had occurred in. “This is the reason we have statute of limitations,” my learned friend said. “Memories fade, evidence is lost, testimony becomes unreliable. I’m amazed New York’s statute allows this.”

Well therein lies a tale. The statute didn’t allow it until, coincidentally <cough> last year. The Adult Survivors Act was passed by the New York legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul in 2022. It created a “one-year lookback window for survivors of sexual assault” to legally pursue their alleged abusers, irrespective of when the abuse took place.

It was and is a blatantly political measure, pandering to the #MeToo crowd, which itself is deeply conflicted and corrupt. Now bad, bad men like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and…surprise! Donald Trump, can be sued during a convenient one year window no matter how long ago their alleged sexual misconduct took place, or how blurry memories of the details may be. Never mind that the protection against unfair sexual assault and sexual harassment lawsuits based on accusations that only surface when the accuser calculates that there are forces at play in society (like “Believe all woman”) making a victory likely should be available to all citizens. Never mind that such late-hit lawsuits rely on emotion and politics as much as evidence.

Continue reading →

A Show Of Hands, Please! Who Is Surprised To Learn That “Time’s Up,” Like #MeToo, Is Partisan, Hypocritical, And Tainted By Double Standards?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I assume only those so gullible that they are constantly falling for Ponzi schemes and hanging on Chris Cuomo’s every word have their hands up.

The #MeToo brigade that screamed that Justice Bret Kavanaugh was a “rapist” based on the weirdly vague “discovered memories” of an alleged victim who knew the SCOTUS nominee before he could vote went on to overwhelmingly vote for a Presidential candidate whose serial sexual harassment habit was a matter of photographic record. Now we learn that the leadership of Time’s Up, an organization formed in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations (well, revelations in the sense that all of the Democrats and Hollywood stars who had willfully ignored them finally had to give in) that has the started mission of fighting sexual harassment and sexual assault—at least when Democrats aren’t involved, were involved in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to stifle the women accusing him of — sexual harassment and sexual assault!

The report issued last week by the New York Attorney General’s office found overwhelming evidence that Cuomo of sexually harassed eleven women. The report, also revealed that Roberta Kaplan, the chairwoman of the anti-harassment group as well as a co-founder, reviewed a draft of an op-ed letter that was designed to discredit Lindsay Boylan, the first woman to accuse Cuomo. The group’s CEO, Tina Tchen, also advised Cuomo and his staff, according to the report. Nice.

Today a group of victims of harassment t and sexual assault published a letter on Medium accusing that Time’s Up of betraying “the very people it was supposed to champion. The board continues to fail to heed the outcry from survivors. TIME’S UP is failing all survivors.”

Now Kaplan has resigned as chair, writing that as a lawyer, she could not answer questions about her involvement with Cuomo. “I therefore have reluctantly come to the conclusion that an active law practice is no longer compatible with serving on the Board at Time’s Up at this time and I hereby resign,” she wrote. So far, Tchen is still with the group.

Continue reading →