The Wages of Being Identified With a Client

Mike Frisch has written insightfully, in blog posts and articles, about bar association (or bar discipline process) politics. Another colleague worth noting for his decades-long support of a state bar, who is reaping a bitter harvest, is my colleague Dane Ciolino (well, he teaches at Loyola nearby, but really he also visits regularly enough to teach ethics at Tulane that I hope he considers me a colleague). His recent post at his Louisiana ethics blog tells the tale of Dane, while representing a lawyer suing the bar, being so identified with the lawsuit that some in the bar organization shun him. And yet he does himself identify with the client in this case. Seems to me Dane makes a good case, especially since it’s part of a position that prevailed in California courts a while ago. Consider reading his post: On Being Forced Into and Excluded from the Bar Association. (Alan Childress)

Unfortunately this post has a far-too-familiar feel about the organized bar and its lack of tolerance for dissenting views.

My experience representing a member of the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility who was denied reappointment for the crime of committing truth by occasionally pointing out the challenged reasoning of her colleagues was a stark reminder of how bars operate.  

Real dissents that articulate the public interest in fair bar regulation are like unicorns. 

Some people believe in em; others require evidence.

For me, mandatory bar membership for any reason save regulation puts the lie to the old Groucho Marx joke about membership in an organization.

I sent the club a wire stating, “PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”.

Telegram to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills to which he belonged, as recounted in Groucho and Me (1959), p. 321

(Mike Frisch)