Ray R. Brown's Aug. 26 response to Brant McGee's criticism of the Alaska Bar Association grievance and disciplinary process is riddled with misquotes, thinking errors, and what seems to be a pretty grandiose form of equivocation.
Mr. Brown effectively misquotes McGee by writing that "McGee is mistaken that clear and consistent evidence of an ethical violation is required at the time the grievance is filed." In this way, Mr. Brown has literally put words in the mouth of McGee. This is a clever way of assassinating someone's character with falsehood. However, if one simply looks to McGee's commentary, it is clear that McGee said no such thing, nor intimated such.
McGee correctly stated that "Bar counsel will dismiss your complaint as 'not warranting investigation' unless you prove your case against the lawyer by 'clear and consistent evidence.'" It would seem Mr. Brown is actually reinforcing McGee's argument when he states that, "If the grievance contains allegations of an ethical violation that warrants an investigation, bar counsel initiates an investigation." McGee tells us that the "allegations" must contain "clear and consistent evidence as a standard that "warrants" investigation. Furthermore, McGee goes onto state that this is actually a "policy" within the bar Association. That means that the actual words exist on paper. Therefore, technically, Mr. Brown is wrong in writing that McGee is mistaken, or that the issue revolves around the filing of the grievance. The issue McGee poignantly brings to the foreground is that of the Bar Association only warranting an investigation if clear and consistent evidence is already present at the time an investigation is considered in the first place.
In other words, it would literally take someone having to conduct their own complete investigation, just to provide the information necessary to "warrant" an investigation by the bar association. Moreover, Mr. Brown goes on to explain the rest of the investigation process, which isn't even relevant to the argument that clear and consistent evidence must be present to warrant an investigation. At that point in Mr. Brown's response, I begin to feel uncomfortable about just exactly what he is trying to accomplish.
Mr. Brown goes on to defend the bar by stating that "the disciplinary process is as transparent as the Supreme Court and the bar rules allow." So, I may be just a country bumpkin, but I can guess that the Supreme Court doesn't proscribe the bar association from more ethical, just and transparent policymaking regarding this process.
Additionally, I seriously doubt the Supreme Court proscribes the bar association from making the results of an investigation with disciplinary action a secret from the public. That just doesn't make sense. I'm also feeling maybe the Supreme Court should get involved and let the bar know that it's not proscribing all these things that at least one member of the board seems to think it is. Take that any way you like, but the point is Mr. Brown didn't really say anything meaningful to refute Mr. McGee's claims. That should be of concern to everyone.
Why would a board member on the bar association go to such lengths as to publicly lambaste and discredit someone who seems quite correct in assertions regarding the lack of an ethics and discipline in legal practice in the state of Alaska? Moreover, how could a board member on the bar present such a blatantly mismanaged rebuttal to the point of seeming equivocation and character assassination? Nothing Mr. Brown writes in his piece effectively counters the point made by Mr. McGee, that "clear and consistent evidence" is the bar's standing policy to warrant an "investigation" into a lawyer's conduct, and that the proceedings and results are secret to the point that if the aggrieved talks about it, they can be held in contempt of the not-really-a-court court. Now isn't that just the funniest thing you've ever heard of? Yeah, but it's a pretty bad joke. I truly hope Mr. Brown understands that the policy he so obviously ignores in his piece is conceptually a bar (ha ha) to justice itself.
I say the Legislature needs to draft specific laws about what constitutes criminal behavior on the part of an attorney, to include negligence, incompetence, sabotage, double agency, bribery or accepting bribes or gifts, and so on and so on. And while they're at it, maybe our legislators could get around to some ethics laws and anti-corruption laws for themselves as lawmakers.
So I guess the real question is why is it 2014 and Alaska has no actual laws on ethics and corruption for lawyers and politicians that are enforceable by a criminal court. Geez, I wonder why. And ... I wonder why a board member of the bar association would risk exposure to try and discredit a critic. Geez, I wonder why. I can only guess, and I'm probably correct.
Jeffrey Todd Brown came to Alaska in 1997 and has been working in social services and case management for the past 16 years.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.