Personal Injury Law

A Tale of Two Lawyers

The Internet tells two stories this morning. First, the Maryland Daily Record tells the story of an applicant to the Maryland bar who has been practicing law, apparently without incident, in New York for 25 years. This New York lawyer apparently wanted to relocate to Maryland and took and passed the Maryland bar. Six months before he passed the Maryland bar, this lawyer had received a DWI in Virginia. He did not disclose this fact during his character committee interview, which was less than two weeks after he had been released from a four day stint in jail for the DWI. After he passed the bar, he fessed up. From the context of the story, I?m assuming that he came clean without any concern that the arrest was going to be uncovered; he just belatedly decided to do the right thing.

The second is a blog post from the New York Personal Injury Law Blog about a New York lawyer caught in a sting operation when "he engaged in sexually explicit conversations over an internet chat room with an undercover police officer posing as a 13-year old girl, followed by his attempted meeting with the presumed minor for purposes of sexual contact." But a divided New York court decided the appropriate sentence for this man would only be three years.

In the Maryland case, I would have admitted the lawyer if I were on the Maryland Court of Appeals. It seems to me, this was not a Marion Jones or even an Andy Petitte situation where someone gets caught and suddenly claims remorse. Instead, it seems like this guy just plain did the wrong thing and then decided to do the right thing. Sure, he did not show, as Judge Lynne A. Battaglia pointed out writing for the majority, absolute candor. But while wrong can be black and white, it is still a matter of degree. How about admitting the guy ? who apparently has been practicing law for a long time - and then suspending him for a year? Moreover, for me personally, I?d be more inclined to deny his application for the DWI. He did not put my wife and kids at risk by omitting something and then correcting his error. But he did by getting drunk and getting behind the wheel of a car.

On the other hand, the New York sex offender case is completely baffling to me. How in the name of Chris Hansen is this guy permitted to continue to practice law? The dissent sums up my view:

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).