Letters to the Editor

The bar needs to help

As I read the malpractice article (July 2002), I was amazed to learn of apparent inaction on this issue by the State Bar. I am a sole practitioner and after my insurance carrier stopped writing attorney malpractice policies this year, I was nearly unable to obtain malpractice coverage, despite a spotless record. When my agent finally found an insurer that would write a policy for me, my premiums increased dramatically. This is an untenable situation.

Yet your article left me with the distinct impression that the State Bar is not addressing this problem. The co-chair of the bar's Committee on Professional Liability Insurance, Kevin Culhane, is quoted as stating: "I don't think anyone would call it a crisis." Then what is it? Anyone reading the article - or, like me, suffering firsthand - can see this is a crisis. If Mr. Culhane's statement reflects the State Bar's position on this matter, it is shocking. Isn't the State Bar supposed to look after us?

The malpractice insurance problem needs to be addressed now. The State Bar should, at a minimum, be lobbying the California Insurance Commissioner and the legislature for relief. I hope for the sake of all of us that the State Bar makes this issue a top priority.

Thomas S. Rubin
Los Angeles

Investigate rate increases

Nancy McCarthy's lead article on malpractice premiums (July 2002) can be distilled to the following: 1) patent attorneys have had their rates increase up to 200 percent; and, 2) unwise investment decisions in the stock market have led insurance companies to increase rates. Then the quote from O'Regan: ". . . the fact they've gone bare could show questionable management and could cause the rate (to lawyers) to go up even higher."

This statement is laughable. I'm an attorney. I've done nothing wrong. My insurance carrier has lost money in the stock market and increases my premium 200 percent. And I show questionable management if I don't pay the extortion?

Ethical attorneys need to draw a line in the sand. So long as attorneys are willing to pay the extortion, market driven principles will apply and malpractice rates will remain high.

The fact that insurance companies have elected to increase rates on patent lawyers smells fishy. I think the attorney general should look into the matter. Isn't it an unfair business practice and possibly a conspiracy for insurance companies, admitted to do business in California, to reduce their stock market losses by raising insurance rates?

Ralph D. Chabot
Camarillo

No mitigation for disciplined lawyers

For many years a reading of some of the monthly disciplinary reports has disgusted me. Time after time the reports of trangressions of disciplined attorneys end with the representative statement:

"In mitigation, the subject attorney has no prior record of discipline."

Allow me to suggest that there be no mitigating factor related to an attorney's freedom from prior discipline. Such is to be expected, not applauded. Rather, the fact of prior discipline should be an aggravating factor.

Peter R. Sobel
San Diego

Intemperate remarks

Judy Copeland's statements (June 2000), if accurately quoted, are startling and unbecoming a lawyer or State Bar Governor. Ms. Copeland announced at the May meeting anent the judge who decided Keller v. State Bar, "I hate him." She then announced she also hated the judge who decided Brosterhous v. State Bar.

While there were many judges who decided both Keller and Brosterhous, (each case was the subject of appellate review which in Keller included the United States Supreme Court), utterance of such public statement by a Board of Governors lawyer amounts to misconduct.

It demonstrates a contemptuous attitude towards decisions which collide with Ms. Copeland's notions of law and justice. State Bar leadership commonly engages in breast-beating rhetoric about maintaining the integrity and standing of the independent judiciary. They're our protectors against public ignoramuses, or so they proclaim. State Bar leader Copeland's venomous message certainly gives the lie to that bromide.

Hon. Quentin L. Kopp
San Mateo County Superior Court