REGULARS

LETTERS

I want to convey to you my respect for and gratitude to Marc Adelman. I have never seen a president of the State Bar work as hard as Mr. Adelman during his term. Marc had a difficult year, taking the helm of the State Bar just as Gov. Wilson vetoed the bar dues bill. It is hard to imagine a more difficult position. Marc rolled up his sleeves and went to work.

He spent the entire year attempting to resolve contentious issues. Although his attempts were not successful, I think that he deserves our highest praise.

Bill Lockyer
State Senator, 10th District

Liberal agenda isn't the cause of the bar's failures

I agree with all five of the scarlet letters which Michael Schroeder (August, Bar Journal) cast upon the California Bar Association. I agree that the bar should give up many of its programs, though personally I believe in continuing education for all professionals.

However, I do not agree that the word "liberal" is needed to characterize the failings of the State Bar. A scarlet "A" for you, Michael.

Richard J. Tasoff
Encino

DAs should prosecute ambulance chasers

As an auto fraud prosecutor for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, I can state with certainty that this area is far too complicated and sophisticated for the State Bar to investigate (see Letters, August 1998 Bar Journal). I prosecute lawyers, doctors, ambulance chasers, cappers and conspiratorial rings which stage "accidents." This area requires county district attorney prosecution aided by the California Department of Insurance, the local police and district attorney investigators.

After the criminal conviction, we turn the matter over to the bar for it to do what is appropriate. Despite its shortcomings, the bar doesn't deserve a bad rap for not initiating investigation in this area of criminal law.

Harvey Giss
Deputy District Attorney, Los Angeles

Kline's decision amounts to jury nullification

If Justice Kline (California Bar Journal, August, "Judge faces discipline for opinion") wished to stay within well-trodden paths, he might have written, "I concur with the decision of the majority solely because of the rule laid down in Blank v. Blank, a case which I think was wrongly decided and hope to see reversed."

Instead, I understand he said, in effect: "The law controlling the case at the bar is laid down in Blank v. Blank, as correctly stated by the majority. On moral and intellectual grounds I refuse to follow that rule, and therefore I dissent."

I see no difference between that course of conduct and jury nullification--the action of a juror or a jury, under claim of right, to decide a case without regard to the law given in the judge's instructions and the juror's oath.

John B. Lawrence
San Bernardino Municipal Court (ret.)

Refusal to apply valid law violates oath of office

It appears to me that both the ABA and Prof. J. Clark Kelso missed the point regarding Justice Kline's dissent in Morrow v. Hood Communica-tions Inc. This is not a dissent in which Justice Kline disagreed with the reasoning, or the application of law, by his colleagues. What the honorable Justice did was to refuse to apply precedential case law solely because he disagreed with it. This constitutes a clear violation of his oath of office. It is not his opinion that is called into question, but his action . . . his refusal to apply valid law.

Judges in the past have been constrained to apply law they differed with, and we will see such reticence to apply law in the future. However, Justice Kline's flat refusal to apply law, " . . . as a matter of conscience," which he himself recognized as controlling, tears at the very fabric of stare decisis and makes a mockery of his oath of office. If judges are allowed to pick and choose which laws they will recognize and apply, and which they will simply disregard, we will no longer be a nation of laws rather than men.

If Justice Kline cannot follow his oath of office, I suggest he find suitable employment elsewhere.

Wayne P. Cantero
El Centro

Kline's bad example deserves discipline

I was surprised by the "firestorm" unleashed in protest of the disciplinary action commenced against Justice Kline. I certainly respect Justice Kline's right to express disagreement with our Supreme Court, but I do not respect his blatant refusal to follow its legal precedent.

He clearly would have been permitted to vote to grant the motion and, at the same time, express his disagreement with the rule of law that required him to grant the motion. Justice Kline chose a different course instead. In addition to blatantly violating the Canons of Judicial Ethics, Justice Kline's refusal to follow the law announced by our Supreme Court sets a bad example for all of the lawyers, judges and citizens of this state.

If Justice Kline does not have to follow the laws with which he disagrees, then why should anyone else? I, for one, hope the disciplinary action against Justice Kline does have a chilling effect on any judge who would otherwise be inclined to so blatantly disregard the rule of law and his or her role in the hierarchy of our judicial system. It is about time someone focused on the role of the judiciary in helping to create the public perception that our judicial system is broken and needs to be fixed.

Douglas R. Thorn
Pilot Hill

NEA decision does not restrict free speech

Regarding your review of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, in particular the ruling in National Endowment of the Arts v. Finley, (August 1998 Bar Journal) your comment that the ruling gives the government great license to make choices restricting speech when it is the funding source is wrong.

Decisions regarding the disbursement of NEA money do not involve restricting speech but only involve restricting the disbursement of NEA money. If an artist is turned down by the NEA, the artist can seek private funding or disseminate their work on their own. In other words, the artist can do what artists did before there was an NEA.

It must be remembered that issues involving the NEA do not involve free speech, but rather paid speech, i.e. speech paid for by the taxpayers. All NEA v. Finley does is allow the government to use criteria in the spending of taxpayers' funds (decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public) which most taxpayers would want used.

Stephen Piccola
Woodland Hills

Prosecute paralegals who practice law

I am looking at an advertisement that starts: NO LAWYERS! and promises cut-rate legal services. I have yet to see the State Bar announce that it's run a sting operation on any of these bottom-feeders. I've seen the products of these "paralegal services" and I'm glad I was never dumb enough to be suckered by them. They charge as much for a bankruptcy as I do--with no representation. These services are blatantly illegal and yet it's just beneath the notice of the State Bar.

A professional license is worthless if the agency that licenses does not protect its members from those who would encroach on that license.

Until the State Bar (1) protects the rights of small firms by stamping out the unauthorized practice of law, whoever is doing it; (2) knocks off the "mandatory pro bono" campaign; and (3) taxes the costs of State Bar Court and appeals to those attorneys who are their subject, relieving the rest of us of onerous dues, I will be happy to pay my minimum $77 dues and not a penny more.

Gerald McNally
La Crescenta

The bar does not mandate pro bono service and already assesses errant attorneys for discipline costs.

Consumers can get help from trial lawyers

President Marc Adelman is disingenuous in lamenting the alleged effects of the bar cutbacks on public protection. His statement that victimized consumers "no longer have anywhere to turn for assistance" is demonstrably false.

There is an active plaintiff's bar out there for those victimized consumers. Given that the bar itself was socked with a fine for its own lobbyist contract, perhaps a bit of introspection is in order. After all, who protects the members of the bar from the bar elite and its cronies?

Howard Freedland
Palo Alto

Children a good cause, but not the bar's cause

I certainly support the concept of assisting children and have heartfelt sympathy for President Marc Adelman's family. However, the position he takes in his September 1998 column demonstrates precisely why the State Bar's crisis has occurred.

Adelman vigorously urges that the State Bar institute a call to action for private attorneys to assist children, apparently by advocating legislation or otherwise attempting to compel public agencies, at taxpayers' expense, costly programs like the special education his child required.

Any such political agenda--liberal or conservative--is beyond the scope of a mandatory bar association.

Members of the State Bar have a wide variety of differing views on what "assisting children" should mean; that's precisely why the bar should concern itself not with public policy but only, and narrowly, with issues directly related to the practice of law. Anything beyond that should be the province of public interest law firms or political organizations.

J. Peter Rich
Los Angeles

Letters to the Editor

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