A Member Of The Club

The controversy generated by the District of Columbia Bar’s attack on Avvo continues. Carolyn Elefant has questioned whether her mandatory bar dues should be spent pursuing litigation that she opposes. An Avvo -related web page has posted the following threatening letter from the Bar’s counsel. I wonder, as did Carolyn, whether the Bar should be trying to shut down the flow of accurate and publicly-available information and whether my dues should fund that effort.

I have been a dues-paying member of this Bar for 34 years and was a bar employee for over 17 years. It has been my experience that the Bar is run by and for the insiders (consisting of the large firms who wish to share in the leadership and the entrenched Bar executives).  If you do not subscribe to the views of and show fealty toward the leadership, you simply do not exist. Any of my attempts to bring an issue or an injustice to the Bar’s attention (such as the forced removal of a member of the Board on Professional Responsibility for the crime of focusing on the public interest) have met with stony indifference at best and “how dare you” at worst.

I remain a member because I must but am constantly reminded of the wit and wisdom of Groucho Marx.

See this related post from Simple Justice. (Mike Frisch)