For a well-educated
bunch, lawyers can do some stupid things.
o The Chief Judge of New York’s respected highest court
wrote that the law was “A Profession…not a business… that it was distinguished
by …a duty to subordinate financial reward to social responsibility…” What lawyers was he talking about? Those in lower trial courts in Forsyth or in
New York County?
o Responding to criticism of a published survey of lawyers about
the judges they practiced before, the results of which were subject to
manipulation by lawyers belonging to “affinity groups” from which candidates
running against some of the judges were drawn, the President of one Bar group indicated surprise that any lawyer
would blemish his good name by deliberately ranking a judge as poorly qualified
in order to aid a challenger. Gee whiz! Really! Even a Dean of the Harvard Law School
has gone to jail. That Bar group will field a similar survey again.
o The lawyers of the Forsyth County Bar Association elevated
to its Presidency a Judge, beloved in the community, whose conduct had been
characterized by the Supreme Court as
being “egregious” and who was found to have continued to engage “…in a pattern
of behavior after she was privately cautioned by the [Disciplinary] Commission
in 2006 for substantially similar conduct.”
It should be noted that the FCBA exists to “…foster and maintain a high
standard of integrity [and] honor…in the legal profession.” High standard?
It saddened me to resign from the FCBA.
