AN UNMAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR -- Chapter One
A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH THE OREGON STATE BAR'S DISCIPLINARY SYSTEM -- I had been gone from Oregon for ten years, but was happy to return. Serendipity intervened and an old friend offered me a job at his local law firm before my employment quest even began. At the same time, I began reading the advance sheets and stumbled upon a strange disciplinary case published there. It seems a lawyer had been found guilty of a minor traffic offense and the major decision to be decided by our stalwart courts was whether the offense constituted "moral turpitude" such that the lawyer should also be found guilty of an ethical lapse. Weird. First, it struck me as double jeopardy. Second, it struck me as asking how many angels dance on the head of a pin.
Then my own personal odyssey began with the fun and good times at the Oregon State Bar. You see, I had been a lawyer for a good long time, but had never practiced law on the ground. I had been counsel to several insurance companies which took me across the United States and now I was returning to the fold. My good buddy nurtured my rough beginnings in the private practice of law and all was well. Until that first disciplinary complaint came rolling in. For the fourteen years in corporate life, I had been called a good many things, but never unethical. My record was fourteen years of spotlessness in the ethical realm. This was all to change when I became a lonely private practitioner of the law in Oregon. Oh, how it was to change. My ethics haven't changed, but subjugation to a Bar that enjoys retaliation is what is of moment.
Let me fast forward ten years. About 1997, after about ten years in private practice, I was starting to get weary of these eight month investigations by Mr. Sapiro, our good disciplinary counsel at the Oregon State Bar of "ethical" complaints either by my clients who didn't want to pay their attorney fee bill or by opposing lawyers as part of their advocacy strategy. So, one day I asked the Bar to assemble all these spurious bar complaint files and I examined each one to determine what exactly took an average of eight months to determine no ethical violation had occurred. What I found was disconcerting. There were no time constraints on the Bar's disciplinary department to do anything!!
The final straw occurred in 2001. Up until that time I had no formal (meaning that the Bar actually files 'criminal' charges against you) complaints against me. Mr. Sapiro's department had dismissed two ethical overtures by my opposition in ongoing litigation, but the third would be investigated by him. After a three year 'investigation' that went nowhere and was assigned to two outside investigators, I had had it. I filed an ethical complaint against Mr. Sapiro for neglect.
Well, I don't have to tell you the "rest of the story" do I? Since 2001 Mr. Sapiro has filed eight (8), that is right, count them......eight more formal disciplinary complaints against me and last year the Oregon Supreme Court, without reading the record, suspended me from the practice of law for an indeterminate time period until I become moral enough to sit on the group W bench. The shower continues.
Here is my message. Our illustrious leaders don't care. The media doesn't care. (One reporter from the Oregonian told me the public would rather read about Trimet than our justice system). Our fellow lawyers don't care (all the while opening up their Bulletin to the disciplinary pages then tossing that publication aside). So, we must do it ourselves. We must organize. We must protest. We must do something about our Bar's Disciplinary Department. Nobody cares but us.
LAUREN PAULSON
in OREGON'S DISCIPLINARY SYSTEM
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14 Comments
Reader Comments (14)
Dear Lauren,
I am trying to get in touch with you reguarding "THE STRANGE CASE OF JUDGE MICHAEL MCELLIGOTT" and any actions that a citizen can take against a judge for not examining all the evidence.
PLEASE Respond!
I recently filed a bar complaint against a Portland Lawyer. He was represented by Christopher Hardman. Mr. Hardman is a former employee of the OSB. His position was investigating bat complaints. In his responses to the bar he would refer to conversations that took place between he and Stacy Hankin. Many of MS. Hankins questions about my claim went unanswered. I agree with your conclusion regarding Lawyer Discipline.
... you're right. I don't care.... yawn
The Oregon State Bar only entertains complaints from lawyers, not private citizens as I learned when I complained about lawyers on both sides of a case where an innocent friend Thomas M. Kelly was railroaded to prison for no fault of his own.
The Bar's Scott Morrill <SMorrill@osbar.org> made a pretense of response denying both complaints but on the prosecutor Clatsop County DDA Ron Brown, I complained further until it went to the Bar's "General Council" complete with time indexed citations from FTR court recordings. Even with that evidence and copies of the CD's the whack job "General Council" simply wrote there was no evidence and denied my claim, without even addressing the evidence I presented.
I conclude the Bar is so corrupt you can rest peacefully knowing that any citizen's complaint didn't work against you at all. If the Bar went to court against you, it's because a lawyer complained, one of your peers who pays their dues to the Bar.
PS: The above was posted before reading your Education of a Board of Governor's member after which my reaction is DUH! You went into the rat's nest and thought you'd escape reputation intact? I'd bet you know your Bar accuser.
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Mr. Paulson, has no room to protest anything regarding the state bar discipline system.
Their slow moving response and refusal to take action against him resulted in major harm to his own clients.
A prime example of a travesty of justice. .
We continue with our Dionysian Freethought series. The stark truth is that most people have never read the entire Bible, let alone most of it. Yet millions still believe the Sharia Laws of a Bronze Age deity, which they don't fully grasp, should dominate a civilization that has embraced reason and spiritual individuality. Devoid of mythical allegory, historical context and critical reasoning, The Bible is a tool for both societal and personal oppression. A new book not only takes us on a satirical, comprehensive journey of the entire Canon, it exposes the poisonous impact on those who choose the path of Literalism. Beyond an entertaining safari of an ancient people and their challenges, it's a sober warning to the growing threat of fundamentalism in our times. We also deal with Bible absurdities, Apologetics, and the modern Humanist movement. And whether the Atheist movement will have better luck than the Gnostics did 2000 years ago...even as it realizes, whether He exists or not, that the Demiurge is as dangerous as ever.
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