Can You Be Disbarred For Being A Dick?

Factual Questions
1

I’m not going to name names, mainly because I’m still not sure where I stand on the notion of publicly shaming someone on the internet. Nevertheless, there are stories going around of a guy at some New York store going ballistic and threatening to call Immigration on two workers speaking Spanish to each other. Someone did some digging and found that he’s an attorney, and that person showed screenshots of their tweets to the New York Bar Association.

Will the Bar give a damn about this? Is there something in the lawyers’ code of ethics that prohibits being a racist asshole in public, and/or for bringing shame to the profession?

2

No answer, but its probably notable just how ‘extreme’ the public’s reaction has gone. Here’s a link w/ video-links within.

3

Well, got an answer this time but it doesn’t really apply to OP.

[Turns out](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/“Mr. Schlossberg is not a member of the New York State Bar Association,” managing director Dan Weiller told NewsOne.) he is NOT a member of the New York bar, so can’t disbar, per se. Here’s another link to some of his past antics. What a scumbag, imho.

From the link:

4

The New York State Bar Association is not the same thing as the New York bar. There does appear to be an Aaron Morris Schlossberg currently registered as an attorney in NY.

5

The model rules of Professional conduct has the following 8.4(g) (The NY version seems to be more about discriminating during the practice of law or hiring…)

Maintaining The Integrity Of The Profession
Rule 8.4 Misconduct

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
…
(g) engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law. This paragraph does not limit the ability of a lawyer to accept, decline or withdraw from a representation in accordance with Rule 1.16. This paragraph does not preclude legitimate advice or advocacy consistent with these Rules.

6

True, but that’s all qualified by “… in conduct related to the practice of law.”

This guy’s behaviour seems to have been quâ customer, not quâ lawyer.

7

American Lawyer’s expert agrees that disbarring is unlikely, though a confidential admonishment could occur:
[INDENT][INDENT]Whether S-- will actually face discipline, however, is unclear, according to Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert and professor at New York University School of Law. While it is true that lawyers can be disciplined for actions they take outside of court, Gillers said he could not recall any similar incidents that led to discipline. He also said that in most cases, the type of discipline that could apply here would most likely remain private.

“I’ve not heard of discipline for racist rants outside law practice and unaccompanied by violence,” Gillers said. “But most discipline is private so the public would not know.”

Such discipline could have taken place in private, he said.

“Whether the lawyer is disciplined will depend on whether he has prior discipline and his defense (‘the meds made me do it,’ for example). If the conduct leads to a conviction, even a minor one, discipline will be much more likely.”[/INDENT][/INDENT] Backlash Mounts Against Attorney Whose Racist Rant Went Viral | The American Lawyer

The above paywall can be breached via google. An easier link with similar content is here: New York politicians file formal complaint against lawyer whose racist rant went viral

8

Really? Discipline is private?

In Canadian jurisdictions, all discipline is public and set out on a web-page.

9

I thought I heard that the Appellate Division put all attorney disciplinary records on the interwebs now. Unless there’s another form of discipline in NY that falls outside that system?

10

IANAL, but this is from the complaints page of the New York State Unified Court System. Emphasis added: [INDENT][INDENT]The committee may take appropriate action by sending a confidential letter to the lawyer. A Letter of Advisement is sent when the committee is of the opinion that the attorney acted in a manner which, while not constituting clear professional misconduct, involved behavior requiring comment. An Admonition is issued in those cases in which the committee finds that the lawyer committed clear professional misconduct that was not sufficiently serious to warrant the commencement of a formal disciplinary proceeding. [/INDENT][/INDENT]
https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad2/attorneymatters_ComplaintAboutaLawyer.shtml

So I’m guessing that an admonishment could indeed remain private between the lawyer and the Attorney Grievance Committee.

11

They shouldn’t, imo. His antics have nothing to do with his profession and apparently people in his past have come forward to point out that he’s always been a dick, which isn’t a crime or even unethical.

What I really dislike is threat of “bullying by proxy” that’s all the rage now, where someone calls the police (or in this case Immigration) to make trouble for a minority like the recent Yale or Starbucks incidents.

12

The guy has been a raging racist asshole for a long time, but it does no one any good to overreact to this sort of thing. Public exposure and mockery is warranted for someone throwing a public bigoted rant like this. Driving him out of his job and harassing him at his home is both excessive and an unpleasant precedent.

13

At the very least if he did follow up and call the authorities and the reasons were groundless, there’s some form of public nuisance charge for making a false report. If your only grounds for calling immigration is “they spoke Spanish!” then that would be wasting everyone’s time, which is what constitutes a nuisance call. If the motivation were more for revenge than a real concern and reasonable grounds to believe they were illegals, then that’s a malicious false report.

Note too the assumption - anyone who speaks Spanish is illegal.

14

For the record, note that in New York City Puerto Ricans are the largest component of Hispanics at 33% of the Hispanic population. The Bronx is majority-Hispanic (54% in the 2010 census).

Not only are this guy’s comments bigoted, they’re ignorant of the city where he lives.

15

Yeah, during the video when he threatens to call ICE you can hear several of the Spanish speakers laughing at his assumption.

16

His comments aren’t ignorant… they’re aspirational! :confused: :rolleyes:

17

Wasn’t Jack Thompson disbarred for basically being a dick? In his case, not so much his public dickishness, but for constantly fighting the Florida bar association?

18

Disbarred for being a dick (out of court)? Perhaps not, but a Dick may be Spotted, either by a bystander with a cell phone camera, or by a British dessert cook.

19

It’s a good question.

In Ontario at least, the answer appears to be that the Law Society would be reluctant to judge purely “extra-legal” dickish behavior, but may do so, if such behavior brings the integrity of the lawyer into question: an argument could be made that a lawyer acting in an overtly harassing, bigoted manner could well qualify - as lawyers as supposed to uphold legal values, specifically including a commitment to human rights, and specifically not to be bigots.

Extracts from the Ontario Rules of Professional Conduct. Note commentary 3, 4 and 4.1 to R. 2.1-1.

20

md2000 and Malthus make good points: lawyers, more than anyone, should be careful about making a careless or completely unwarranted complaint to law enforcement agencies.

If the completely unwarranted complaint to LEO also has a racist component to it, I could see a law society taking a look at it, even if it’s not directly connected to the lawyer’s practice activities.