“Heartless”

Goodman Advocacy, the web page of  former West Virginia Bar Counsel Sherri Goodman, has a section called Tales From The Crypt. One anecdote in particular caught my eye as capturing the essence of what motivates one to serve as a bar prosecutor. Done for the right reasons (and free of the influence of the organized bar), to me this is God’s work. Sherri’s story:

Heartless

A member of the Board of Governors once accused me of being heartless! Those who know me will be as shocked as I was.  Who planted perennialsand annuals in front of the State Bar Center several years in a row?  Whotried to get a bird unstuck from the State Bar’s three story drain pipe? Who spent a whole hour in an auditorium filled with alternatively sullenand smart alecky junior high school students on Law Day because some othercoward backed out at the last moment?

What prompted this accusation was this:  At the Board of Governor’smeeting during the State Bar’s annual meeting, a resolution was proposedto memorialize all the lawyers who had died the preceding year.  Thisis a rather routine resolution that speaks in glowing terms of the deceaseds’contributions to the legal profession.  This particular year I noticedthe name of a lawyer whose law license had been suspended and had never beenreinstated before his death. Moreover, the lawyer had actually been disbarredmany years before and had been reinstated in a controversial Supreme Courtdecision, only to get a suspension ten years after reinstatement.

I merely brought it to the attention of the Board that this deceased lawyerhad not been entitled to practice law at the time of his death and wonderedwhether he should be included with those other lawyers who justly deservedto be remembered. This sparked some debate which was concluded with one membersaying, “The man is dead.  SOME of us have a heart, and this lawyershould not be removed from the resolution.”

The lawyer’s name was duly included in the resolution, and I found it ironicto learn later on that at the time of his death, he was under a criminalinvestigation for misappropriation of funds as an executor of anestate.  In cases like this, my heart was always with the clients, notthe lawyers, however dead they may be.

Best holiday wishes to my disciplinary counsel friends around the country, who fight to uphold the integrity of our profession. (Mike Frisch)