Once again, you miss the point, or do you honestly believe that judges stand matters down while they check to see if the lawyer standing before them is in good standing with the bar?
Well, around here, if you want to get into the special “attorneys only” line through the metal detectors and such, you have to show your Bar Card (I have to show my badge). And, if a Judge has doubts, I expect they have a clerk or bailiff check the records. But has anyone suggested tha Judges routinely stop procedings to check? Seems like a strawman. Are you telling me that a Judge *NEVER * , at any time, checks the State Bar records when seeing a new attorney in their Court? :dubious: I suspect that such a thing can be done without delaying Court procedings. :dubious:
Just. Stop. Typing.
I think the point is that the more you talk, the dumber you look.
Maybe you should switch to explaining to us why you think anyone who whooshes anyone else should be banned.
Uh, yeah. We do the same thing in Texas; if you know the person’s bar card number you can verify it on the state bar website. What does that have to do with what I said? 
Unless I have been whooshed again (and I cheerfully admit it’s easy to do so :smack: ), it seems to me that some dudes here were trying to make a point that Judges/Courts don’t check whether or not a claimed Lawyer is really a member of the bar. And, thus it seems like the point those dudes were trying to make (again, correct me if I am wrong) was that if the Courts/Judges never verify this, why should we here at the SDMB.
It seems to have been started from this "Muffin Quote:
Originally Posted by DrDeth
So, unless the SDMB is going to guarantee that they have verified and checked that a Poster is a Member of the Bar
That is not practicable.
I suggest that if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck, and for the purposes of a general anonymous message board, obtaining a veternary certificate would be silly.
A question for the ducks out there – how often does a judge ask you to prove that you are a lawyer when you address the court? I have never been asked. "
If indeed, I am wrong, then what *was * the point?
I see the Deputies checking Bar cards all the time at Security. I have never seen a Judge do so in the Courtroom, but as I said, it’s a matter of record, so the Judge doesn’t actually have to confront the claimed attorney in his Courtroom, he just has someone check the record if he is in doubt. The fact that a Judge very rarely stops proceedings to do so *during Court * does not mean it is never done outside Court.
Was this a whoosh? Or a strawman?
I don’t think you’ll get any argument to the effect that it’s never done; if you read my post, I mention that I’ve heard about it being done when a judge grows suspicious that the person before them may not be a lawyer at all. There was a case here a few years back where a judge grew suspicious of a guy who didn’t seem to know what he was talking about, much like Bricker did with Beryl. The judge asked his number in chambers, and the guy supplied the judge with a fake bar number that the judge checked on the bar website. The guy ended up doing time for falsely holding oneself out as a lawyer and unauthorized practice of law. It does happen, it’s just rare, and has never happened to me (yet). Perhaps some judges routinely check out every lawyer they don’t recognize, but most don’t.
I doubt that most judges spend their time checking. But a court clerk probably will, since a bar number (and nowadays, in many cases, an electronic registration) is necessary for filing papers in many jurisdictions. And it’s pretty routine practice at most larger firms to check out the opposition; if I can’t figure out who I’m up against, then I’ll start digging, and it usually doesn’t take long to discover if an opposing “lawyer” really isn’t admitted to practice.
For the record, I saw the movie, “My Cousin Vinny”
Heh. Never an issue for me… when I was in practice, I always knew the opposition was legit – it’s one thing to impersonate a lawyer; it would have been an order of magnitude up to impersonate an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney!
I’ve seen it happen. It was in federal bankruptcy court, and the lawyer handling the case had sent a young associate to try to get the matter adjourned. Apparently the senior lawyer had a bit of a dodgy history with the judge, and the judge asked the young associate whether he was admitted. The fellow said that he was admitted to the state bar, but not to the federal court. The judge ripped the young associate a new asshole, and made the senor lawyer come down to fix the matter up.
Come to think of it, when I have been representing people in places like small claims or housing court, I have been asked whether I am a lawyer because it is not unheard of for people to ask non-lawyer friends who own suits to represent them, something the court doesn’t like. I’ve never been asked to prove it on more than my word, however.
Interesting note, my Bro (who is NOT an attorney) is admitted before the US Tax Court. But *only * the US Tax Court. He’s rather proud of this.
Have you talked to Lynn Bodoni recently? 
No, didn’t her cousin Vinny get disbarred, oops, banned or something for being a sock ?
Is there a requirement for admission to practice in front of the bankruptcy court beyond admission to the state bar? In other words, was this a simple matter of never-filed-the-paper-and-paid-the-fee, or does the bankruptcy court have some substantive additional requirements before admission?
My sparse knowledge of the federal courts begins and ends with the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia. All you need there is prior admission to practice before the Supreme Court of Virginia, to sign certifying that you’ve read the Federal Rules of Criminal/Civil Procedure and Evidence, and a checkbook — and if you’re admitted in the Eastern District, you’re automatically admitted in the Western District.
It is mostly a file the paperwork and pay the fee issue in New York. The pain in the neck is that to get admitted to the Southern or Eastern District of New York you need to fill out a full application in advance, have someone sponsor sponsor you and schedule an admission ceremony before one of the district judges (which both you and the sponsor must attend), so it isn’t immediate. Once you are admitted to the Southern or the Eastern District, you can just fill out the paperwork and pay the fee to immediately get admitted to the other. If you are admitted to the District Court, admission to the Bankruptcy Court is automatic. I haven’t been admitted to the Northern or Western Districts of New York so I don’t know their procedures, but I do know you need to be separately admitted to those courts.
It was much easier in New Jersey, where they had a federal District judge at the state swearing in ceremony, and you were admitted to both the state bar and the District of New Jersey simultaneously.
In re Bar numbers (heh – legalese at every opportunity!): I’ve never been asked to prove I’m a lawyer for any appearance I’ve made in court. But I rarely appeared in small claims or municipal court, and I always dressed “like a lawyer” (i.e., in a suit) when I was appearing, so maybe I just projected so much the aura of “duck” in my waddling and quacking that nobody bothered to check.
When I was first admitted to practice, that jurisdiction didn’t have Bar numbers. Then they started using them and retroactively assigned them to us, but for years I didn’t know what mine was. Still couldn’t tell you without looking at the card. In the second jurisdiction I was admitted, the Bar number had to appear on every pleading so I know it off the top of my head.
But the chief use of it, so far as I could tell, was to estimate the level of experience of your opponent – lower Bar number = more years of practice, high Bar number = newbie.