Category Archives: Judiciary

 

February 15th, 2007

Rudy Giuliani Finally Complies With New York Ethics Rule

A week ago I headlined that Rudy Giuliani had screwed up by not following changes to New York’s new attorney rules on advertising. In addition to leading in the polls for a presidential nomination, Giuliani is also a practicing New York attorney. Since these are Disciplinary Rules, they’re important.

I checked yesterday and Bracewell & Giuliani has now complied, as have some of the others on the two lists I provided. Former Mayor Ed Koch’s firm Bryan Cave, among a gazillion others with New York offices both prominent and not, is still in default. And whether New York attorneys comply with the more substantive rules than the one I picked on is anyone’s guess.

While I’ve written about many of the problems and challenges the new rules will have, the biggest one (for any rule that survives legal challenge) is likely to be enforcement. The resources since don’t exist to chase everyone down, which means that any enforcement is going to be selective, and therefore it will likely be discriminatory in some fashion.

If the old rules were thinly enforced regarding advertising and solicitation (particularly with respect to the abhorrent practice of “chasing” in personal injury matters), simply creating new ones is not likely to cure the problems that do exist.

Other links to the subject:

 

February 13th, 2007

New York’s High Court Welcomes Newest Member

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones Jr., was sworn in today as a Judge on the Court of Appeals. From the Times Union ( Albany):

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s first nominee to the state’s highest court – an African-American Vietnam veteran – was sworn into office this morning in a moving ceremony in Court of Appeals Hall [pictured at right].

Surrounded by family, friends and downstate colleagues, former Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones Jr., 62, admitted to being overwhelmed.

“I take this responsibility very seriously, aware of the almost 200 years of history in this particular court,” he said. “Next to the Supreme Court of the United States, this is probably the most important appellate bench in the country.”

As he acknowledged February as Black History Month, Jones said he was mindful that he stands “on the shoulders” of those who preceded him, including George Bundy Smith.

Judge Jones is also a minority on the court in ways unrelated to race: New York’s seven-member Court of Appeals has just three men.

 

February 12th, 2007

New York Trial Justices Oppose Role In Chief Judge’s New Screening Committees

New judicial selection rules in New York faced a new problem today when the New York Law Journal reported on its front page that trial justices are opposed to their being part of new screening committees, being set up by Chief Judge Judith Kaye.

The new screening committees were announced in this Feb. 8 release and discussed by Matt Lerner over at New York Civil Law.

A resolution was adopted unanimously by more than 100 justices who attended the association’s Jan. 27 annual meeting.

See also:
New York Near Deal on Judicial Selections? (This blog, 1/12/07)

 

February 9th, 2007

Brooklyn Trial On Judicial Selection Scandal is Steaming Along

A great piece yesterday at Judicial Reports regarding the ongoing trial of former boss Clarence Norman, Jr. and the testimony of judges:

Half-Baked Fix
By Jason Boog
Posted 02-09-07

The latest trial of Clarence Norman, Jr., has revealed all the nasty machinations of the ex-party boss’s judge-picking apparatus. Judges have taken the stand to hammer the very system that created their careers. That means they have also offered a warning to judicial selection reformers whose proposals fail to address nomination systems in the lower courts — from which judges for the upper tier are often plucked.

Last week, former Civil Court Judge Karen B. Yellen nearly broke down on the witness stand, recalling how Democratic Party leadership undermined her re-election bid in 2002.

Dressed in a bright red blouse with her black hair trimmed short, Yellen described the financial train wreck that effectively ended her contested campaign. Brooklyn’s Democratic Party leadership had demanded $9,000 more from her depleted coffers, she said, threatening to withdraw its support for her if she failed to come up with the dollars.

“There wasn’t enough money left in my campaign finances for it. This was a fight for my career,” she said.

Over the last two weeks, the prosecution in the final trial of former Democratic Party leader Clarence Norman, Jr., called four judges to the stand, giving court watchers a fly-on-the-wall perspective into the petty disputes, bankrupt campaigns, and childish struggles that marked the end of Norman’s reign.

All four judges blamed party leadership, criticizing the very system that created their careers.

Much more of the article at this link.

Prior posts from my own site:

 

February 8th, 2007

Rudy Giuliani Among New York Attorneys That Violate New Ethics Rules

Rudy Giuliani is apparently in violation of New York’s new ethics rules that went into effect one week ago. The former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, mayor, and now presidential candidate, has failed to label his firm’s web site as “attorney advertising” as required by the new Disciplinary Rules. Law firms large and small, famous and not, with New York offices continue to show widespread ignorance or disregard for the new rules on attorney advertising. While some may have constitutional concerns, only one is known to have brought a legal challenge on that basis.

Despite front page treatment of the news in the New York Law Journal and wide discussion in blogs since the proposed rules were announced last June, a great many firms have committed an ethical violation. (For a presidential candidate, among others, that’s probably not good.)

I wrote last week of the failure by 11 of the largest 15 firms in the nation (with New York offices) to comply with the easiest part of the rules, putting the words “attorney advertising” on the home page of their web sites. This was picked up by Law.com Blog and WSJ Law Blog giving the news a bit more distribution. Many have since complied. A few that are currently in violation of the ethics rules:

Since a Google search of New York attorneys returns 16 million hits, I didn’t spend too much time on this. It appears clear though from a brief spin through sites large and small that compliance failures are common.

There are a few possible reasons:

  • Ignorance – Some lawyers don’t keep abreast of changes in the law (or in this case, disciplinary rules);
  • Assumption that someone else has taken care of it;
  • Vagueness of the rules: As I wrote last week, the rules apply if the “primary purpose” of the web site is the retention of clients. That definition is both vague and over broad and, I think, is likely to fall to constitutional challenge.

Personally, I think the primary reason is the first: Ignorance. This is not based on scientific survey, of course, but on a version of Occam’s Razor: All things being equal, the simplest answer tends to be the right one.

Other links to the subject:
New Attorney Advertising Rules (Is This Blog an Advertisement?) (this site)
New York Advertising Rules (Sui Generis)
Some More Discussion About New York’s Attorney Advertising Rules (New York Civil Law)
NYSBA Rules Fiasco (The Common Scold)

[Update 2/15/07: Rudy Giuliani Finally Complies With New York Ethics Rule)