Where’s My Roy Cohn?: A documentary on McCarthy’s right-hand man, mentor to Trump
The title of this newly released documentary refers to a tirade reportedly unleashed by Donald Trump early in his presidency, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the federal investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Russian “meddling” in the 2016 campaign.
Although Cohn had by then been dead for 31 years, Trump was wishing he still had the services of the man who became infamous as the 26-year-old second-in-command to the notorious senator from Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy at the height of the anti-communist witch hunt of the early 1950s. Cohn later became the mentor to the New York real estate developer who now occupies the Oval Office. Many observers have already noted the similarities in style and politics between Trump and Cohn—the barefaced lying, gangster mentality and tactics, disdain for elementary democratic rights, and fanatical hostility to socialism and communism—but further examination of the connection between the two men is certainly appropriate.
The film, directed by Matt Tyrnauer, a journalist for Vanity Fair magazine, adds little to what is already known about Cohn’s life and fails to offer a serious explanation of Cohn’s rise to prominence or his legacy. That legacy, however—the contemporary role of the ultra-reactionary politics he personified—makes this a timely film, if only for its archival material.
Roy Cohn (right) with Senator Joseph McCarthy at the Army–McCarthy hearings
A generation that was not even born when Cohn died in 1986 can learn something from the newsreel footage, old television interviews and other elements presented. Among those interviewed for this film are journalists David Cay Johnston, Ken Auletta and Sam Roberts; Cohn’s cousins Anne Roiphe and David Marcus; and others. There are snippets of television journalist Mike Wallace, as well as a brief excerpt from an angry televised exchange between Cohn and writer Gore Vidal.
As recounted in the film, Cohn was born in 1927 into a wealthy New York City Jewish family. His father was a judge. His mother had by all accounts the greatest influence on him as he grew to maturity. He attended private schools in the city, and then Columbia College and Law School, from which he graduated at the extraordinarily young age of 20. He was only 21 when, thanks to family connections, he became an assistant US attorney.
Soon he joined the prosecution team in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been charged with conspiracy to commit atomic espionage for the Soviet Union. As the documentary notes, Cohn, along with trial judge Irving R. Kaufman, was used to immunize the government against charges of anti-Semitism.
The authorities were well aware that a large percentage of American Jews were influenced by the Communist Party and by the left in general. They used the prosecution both to whip up anti-Semitism and also, at the peak of the Cold War, to secure the allegiance and obedience of that section of the Jewish population that occupied a prominent place in government, business and academia. Cohn played a particularly filthy role in railroading the Rosenbergs, and it was later revealed that he had had telephone discussions with Judge Kaufman, a flagrant violation of judicial ethics, to insist that both defendants be put to death.
Cohn’s aggressive role in the Rosenberg trial brought him to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, the fanatically anti-communist director of the FBI. Hoover then recommended Cohn to Joseph McCarthy, who, as chairman of the Senate Special Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was riding high in his crusade against suspected communists and their sympathizers in government, the media and elsewhere.
Cohn’s role with McCarthy came to an end in 1954, after the Army-McCarthy hearings. Cohn was accused by the Army of repeated and improper attempts to secure special treatment for G. David Schine, his “close personal friend,” who had been hired as a consultant to the McCarthy committee and drafted into the Army in 1953.
Part of the hearings were televised to a wide audience, as shown in video footage in the documentary. Behind the specific charges leveled against Cohn were bitter tactical differences within the ruling establishment. The proceedings led eventually to McCarthy’s censure by the Senate in December 1954, a blow that proved fatal to his political career and was followed by his death a few years later.
Cohn had been forced to resign from his Senate staff position. The young anti-communist crusader did not disappear, however. On the contrary, as Where’s My Roy Cohn? explains, he went on to enjoy a lucrative legal career.
Cohn became a partner in the New York firm of Saxe, Bacon and Bolan. Business executives and various white-collar criminals were eager to make use of his services. Cohn used his trademark methods to amass great wealth over the next several decades. His clients included the New York Yankees and the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. In the 1970s, Cohn became prominent as the attorney for the biggest Mafia families, including those headed by the likes of Carmine Galante, John Gotti and Tony Salerno.
It was during this period that Cohn was also retained by Donald Trump. The Trump Organization had been sued by the US Justice Department in 1973, accused of racial discrimination in the rental of apartments it managed in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Cohn countersued for the improbable sum of $100 million. While the countersuit was dismissed, Trump was able to settle the case out of court a few years later. Cohn became a mentor to the young Trump, who at the time was not yet 30 years old.
Alongside his wealth, and despite his notoriety, the former McCarthy aide continued to enjoy significant political influence during the 1970s and 1980s. Cohn was always able to get through to the White House during the Nixon and Reagan years, serving at times as a kind of unofficial adviser.
In the late 1970s he met Rupert Murdoch, who had bought the erstwhile liberal New York Post, his first major foray into the US media market. It was Cohn who later introduced Trump to Murdoch. There is thus a fairly direct connection between the McCarthyite prosecutor of the 1950s and today’s Fox News, the semi-official media outlet for the Trump White House.
Cohn never lacked for friends in high places,
in both business and government circles.
These connections are illustrated in the film in
striking photographs of Cohn at various social
and political functions. One shows him with
Trump and New York Mayor Ed Koch.
Another has Cohn between former Vice
President Hubert Humphrey and New York’s
arch-right-wing Francis Cardinal Spellman
(one of Cohn’s strongest supporters). Other
footage shows Cohn at New York’s Studio 54
nightclub, hobnobbing with the likes of Andy
Warhol.
Although he was the subject of federal investigations on several occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, Cohn—no doubt helped by many friends among both Democrats and Republicans—was able to either avoid charges or win acquittal. In 1986, this support began to wane.
The Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Cohn, citing, among other things, misappropriation of clients’ funds and pressuring a comatose client to amend his will. The documentary dwells on this latter case, concerning Lewis Rosenstiel, the multimillionaire founder of Schenley Liquors. Cohn lifted the hand of the unconscious and dying man. The resulting “signature,” shown to somewhat comical effect on screen, was ruled indecipherable and inadmissible in court.five weeks after his disbarment, Cohn was dead of AIDS. His refusal to the very end to acknowledge either his homosexuality or his illness is highlighted at some length in the film. What makes this pertinent is Cohn’s own use of right-wing homophobia. In the 1950s he assisted McCarthy in the so-called Lavender Scare, during which homosexuals were hounded out of their federal jobs on the grounds that they were security risks. Thousands suffered ostracism and humiliation, and a few committed suicide.
It is necessary to understand Cohn and not merely to describe him. On this score, Where’s My Roy Cohn? gives generally shallow answers. How did he become so prominent when he was still in his early 20s? Why was he able to go on to a life of wealth, privilege and continuing political influence even after he was disgraced in the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954? And why, above all, has he seemingly been reincarnated in the Trump White House today?
The usual answers, including attributing Cohn’s behavior to his mother’s influence or to some inexplicable lust for power, are either false or misleading. Cohn’s vitriolic anti-communism drove him from the beginning. He never wavered for an instant, never softened his views during the more liberal decade of the 1960s. He is shown in an interview toward the very end of his life. Asked whether he had any regrets about sending the Rosenbergs to their deaths, he replies, “If I could have pulled the switch, I would have done it myself.”
His rabid anti-communism made Cohn useful to the ruling elite. The McCarthyite Red Scare, with Cohn playing such a prominent role, must be understood in the post-World War II context. The American ruling class faced a massive strike wave in the years immediately following the end of the war. At the same time, it had to confront the Chinese Revolution of 1949, the growth (based in part on the prestige of the Soviet Union, despite the crimes of Stalinism) of the Communist Parties in Western Europe, especially in France and Italy, and the colonial revolution sweeping much of Asia and Africa.
A major aim of the anti-communist hysteria was the purging of the labor movement, especially the housebreaking of the CIO, which had emerged out of the industrial union struggles of the 1930s. A major reason for the shift in the political winds against McCarthy by 1954 was the consolidation of a bitterly anti-communist and pro-imperialist bureaucracy in both the AFL and CIO. The two union federations merged in 1955 on the basis of ferocious anti-communism and support for US imperialism in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The development of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy as a bulwark in defense of capitalism persuaded sections of the ruling class that the Wisconsin demagogue, with the reptilian Cohn at his side, was no longer necessary—especially when he began to attack the pillars of the capitalist state, including the Army.
As noted, Cohn did not fade away, despite pious liberal denunciations of McCarthyism in subsequent years. For capitalism in the period of imperialist decay, democracy is always disposable. The ruling classes may prefer to rule when they can through forms that allow for open debate within the establishment, along with the promotion of certain democratic illusions for the masses. The past century has shown how quickly these democratic forms are dispensed with, however.
Cohn’s friendships in high places were an indication that his methods were still being held in reserve. The whole McCarthy era passed, but the impact of the devil’s bargain made by American liberalism with the most reactionary anti-communist forces continued to be felt. Cohn’s brand of semi-fascism was put on the shelf, but never buried.
Which brings us to the Trump presidency. Where’s My Roy Cohn? clearly aims to point the finger at Trump with an eye to the 2020 election. To the extent this film has a message, it is that today’s self-proclaimed “progressives” are the answer to the dangers emanating from the White House.
This “message” is based on a lie. The Democrats, one of the major parties of American imperialism, have never been principled defenders of democratic rights. The very first prosecution under the notorious Smith Act was directed against the Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party by Franklin Roosevelt in 1941. After the war, the Democrats were fully complicit in the anti-communist witch hunt, launched under Harry Truman in the late 1940s and supported by the Democratic Party tops for a number of years under Dwight Eisenhower. In the ensuing decades the Democrats no less than the Republicans have had the blood of millions of workers and peasants around the world on their hands.
Since the theft of the 2000 election, it has become increasingly clear that there is no longer any constituency within the US ruling class or either of its major parties for the defense of democratic rights at home, as well as throughout the world.
This finds expression today both in the Trump presidency and the Democrats’ efforts to attack Trump from the right. In the White House itself, Trump’s 34-year-old chief aide Stephen Miller struts about like a resurrected Roy Cohn. Trump, the political descendant of McCarthy and Cohn, has ascended to higher office than his mentor and is encouraging the formation of a fascist movement. Yet such is the depth of the political crisis of American capitalism that Trump can argue, with some perverse justification, that he is the victim of a witch hunt, as the Democrats play the national security card over issues such as Ukraine and Russia.
IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAD THE DOLLAR AMOUNT THE PARASITIC LAWYER CLASS SUCKS OUT OF THIS COUNTRY WE WOULD SEE LAWYERS HANGING FROM THE ROOF TOPS!
THE CALIFORNIA STATE BAR EXISTS TO PROTECT SHITBAG LAWYERS FROM THEIR VICTIMS!
"What this has led to in its “Model” form is a smoke screen to frustrate individuals that have a problem with an attorney, and to keep attorneys out of harm’s way from the general public."
More Corruption With the State Bar of Arizona, This Time Protecting a Sexual Predator
There is an effort underway around the country in many states to dismantle state bars. Over half of them are mandatory, operating as unions with a monopoly over the practice of law. This has led to massive corruption. The left controls the state bars, and uses them to target conservative attorneys. They also protect their own.
Michelle Flick was the victim of a sexual predator, but because he worked for the State Bar of Arizona, he was protected. Flick met Hal Nevitt through a recommendation. She had a friend who worked for an alcoholic attorney. The friend was very concerned about her boss, who had several DUIs and was frequently driving drunk during the day while working.
Flick asked around and was told she should contact Nevitt about it, who was the director of the bar’s Member Assistance Program (MAP). Nevitt is a licensed clinical social worker and substance abuse counselor. The MAP program deals with attorneys who have substance abuse or mental problems. It requires them to undergo mental health treatment in order to keep their licenses to practice law. Arizona Attorneys Against Corrupt Regulation has reported on the abuses of this program. It seems like a stretch to get the bar involved with health issues.
Nevitt previously served time in prison for drug trafficking. While there, he was given three compassionate leaves from prison. Prosecutors say he must have known someone to be given all that special treatment.
Nevitt took a liking to Flick, and asked her if she wanted to work for him on an as-needed basis. Since Flick received government assistance, he told her he would pay her under the table.
Before she started work, he asked her a bunch of questions that he said were necessary, such as whether she had ever been sexually abused. He approached her and tried to kiss her. She was appalled because he’s married.
At one point, he came over to her house. He took her into her bedroom. He pulled her hair and made her perform a sex act on him.
Nevitt started stalking her; driving down her street, sending her emails and calling her (she wouldn’t answer). She notified the Arizona Bar (AzBBHE) about the sexual assault. John Furlong, the bar’s General Counsel/Deputy Executive Director at the time, told her the bar doesn’t need her help and hung up on her.
Flick reported the sexual assault to the police. Nothing happened. She filed a complaint with the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners. They covered for him, saying they wouldn’t do anything since the police didn’t. She contacted the governor’s office. A staffer for then-Governor Jan Brewer told her Brewer couldn’t get involved because it would be political suicide.
Finally, at an AZBBHE meeting, she asked why Nevitt wasn’t charged with sexual assault. She had recordings of him, so he finally got busted for a HIPAA violation. But he merely had to take a remedial course and pay a fine which was deferred.
Another attorney came forward and filed a complaint with AzBBHE against Nevitt for sexual assault. She was disbarred after that. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so. Another woman contacted Flick and told her he’d sexually assaulted her. AZAACPR reports that Nevitt “has been the subject of repeated agency complaints and other reports to civil and criminal authorities for sexual misconduct.”
For awhile, the bar’s disciplinary judge, William O’Neil, was using Nevitt for assistance. He essentially delegated judicial authority to him. The bar wrote in its monthly magazine, "The MAP director will have discretion to reduce Respondent's probation to one year." Another order gave Nevitt the discretion to require an attorney to wear an ankle bracelet. O’Neil has his own extensive history of corruption. AZAACPR has documented much of it.
Then Flick got a request from the big law firm Snell & Wilmer. The bar hired them to investigate her claims. Finally, the bar fired Nevitt as MAP director, However, Flick believes they continue to use him as a contractor. AZAACPR says if you call MAP saying you are an attorney who was referred there, you will be given the contact information for Nevitt’s private company.
Flick believes that Nevitt had dirt on so many people such as O’Neil they had to protect him. For example, Flick was told by a knowledgeable party that Nevitt knew O’Neil was addicted to pain pills. Many believe that O’Neil, a Democrat, was put in his position as disciplinary judge since he would throw the book at conservative attorneys, while protecting favored friends of the bar — who are almost all Democrats. O’Neil is in part untouchable since his attorney is Stanley Feldman, a former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice who was very liberal.
Flick finally filed a lawsuit against Nevitt. He was ordered by the judge to get a medical examination. He refused to go, probably because Flick could describe his genitalia. They eventually settled the lawsuit out of court.
Flick worries that Nevitt’s predatory behavior will continue. He currently works in rehab centers. The kind of women he is treating aren’t likely to go to the police to report him.
Unfortunately, the Arizona Bar is powerful and attorneys are terrified to take it on, for fear of losing their bar licenses. One former member of the bar’s board of governors wrote an article for Forbes documenting some of the abuses. Within two hours, the bar contacted Forbes and threatened them into taking it down. That attorney’s bar license is now suspended.
The bar needs to be dismantled and converted into a voluntary bar. Its disciplinary function should be removed and put under the Arizona Supreme Court. The bar has demonstrated too many times that it is a good old boys’ club of progressives, who target conservatives and protect their own.
Flick testified at the Arizona Legislature in front of an ad hoc committee that had been set up to analyze dismantling the bar. But unfortunately, even though legislation has been introduced every year for several years now, the bar has been able to stop it from going through due to extensive lobbying. No attorney in the legislature dares vote for it. Until this important legislation passes, the bar shows no signs of discontinuing its abuses of power.
The California State Bar/The Model Problem
https://attorneybusters.com/the-california-state-bar/
(Mother Black Widow & Babies)
The State Bar of California is touted as being the model and mother for other bars across the country, and there lies the problem in its “Motherly Model” form.
Once you strip away the pretentious titles used to describe the various self- elected positions, Office of Chief Trial Counsel, Board of Governors, etc., it is just a club with forced membership and dues.
The State of California by law, requires all attorneys practicing law in the state to be members of the California State Bar.
The State Bar of California, then in return for the favor of forced membership and dues, is required to act as the “administrative arm” of the California Supreme Court.
And what is supposed to be the chief purpose of administration? To administrate a Self-Disciplinary program of its member attorneys.
What this has led to in its “Model” form is a smoke screen to frustrate individuals that have a problem with an attorney, and to keep attorneys out of harm’s way from the general public.
A general public that has many valid reasons to be ticked off at them.
The State Bar of California has important sounding titles for their fellow attorney members that discipline each other.
They call themselves judges (not judges elected by the public), and governors (not elected by the public), and court committees (not the public court), and appointees to the court (not the public court, but their own internal court).
For the purpose of discussion, lets call the State Bar of California, “The Club”.
“The Club” has proud names for “member only services” that are used to help discipline themselves, such as, “The Ethics Hotline”.
On the surface, this sounds fine and noble, however, once the fog lifts, you realize a more accurate title would be, “Ethics, I Don’t Think I Have Any, Can You Tell Me What They Are?” or “Ethics, Not Lately, I Think I’m In Trouble”.
But, the titles would be too long and they wouldn’t sound as good.
Plus, some of us of lesser intelligence that need protection from ourselves (according to the attorneys) might actually catch on to their secret “members only” code names.
Let’s look at the Ethics Hotline. This is a toll free number “FOR ATTORNEYS ONLY” that an attorney can call to see if either something they did, or plan to do, could get them a warning letter from “The Club”.
The “Ethics Hotline” is courteous as to provide for attorneys that do not wish to use their own names, the ability to use “pseudonyms” (an “alias” for us simple folk). The “Ethics Hotline” will even arrange a call back appointment (for the attorneys to call back) when they don’t want to leave their number.
This is not a joke!!
“The Club” is working to provide their members the first level of defense when they are pursued by a client. “The Club” will tell the attorney what things they can cite to deter “The Club” from “getting” them if they do have a complaint filed against them.
“The Club” (State Bar if you have forgotten) of course says this is how its members are better disciplined by knowing what ethics are.
However, Attorney Busters.com believes that if an attorney hasn’t figured out what ethics are by the time they take their state bar exam, they simply don’t want to know.
There are several CD’s available concerning what you should look for in an attorney and what to do if you’ve got a problem with one.
In order to post a complaint about a bad experience you or a friend has had with a bar association go to the Cobweb.
*
Hackers Expose Attorney Corruption At State Bar
Hackers Expose Attorney Corruption At State Bar
8/31/2017
State Bar Leader Bites the Dust After Cover- Up
Russia, Clinton Emails, Isis and now California's State Bar. Hackers may truly be responsible for changing the world and many Silicon Valley Hackers are now turning to clean up California's Courts.
Confidential State Bar communications indicate that dating back to 2014, State Bar employees and contractors; Braulio Munoz, Gregory Dresser, Sherrie Mc Letchie , Lori Wallerstein and James Towery, willfully engaged in misconduct at the State Bar that compromised the private and confidential records of private citizens who filed complaints against attorneys, including the social security numbers and home addresses of individuals who attempted to complaint about unethical lawyers.
Rindskopf, the Bar's latest leader to flee the rapidly deteriorating lawyer watchdog agency, is reportedly aware the Bar released the private social security numbers, home addresses , IRS information, credit card and banking records of private citizens who sought to address bad attorneys, and that the State Bar never notified these individuals of the release.
Emails and notes obtained by members of Silicon Valley's most elite hackers show that Rindskopf has told those closest to her that she is leaving the State Bar after only two years, before a hurricane of investigations results in indictments and criminal charges for many past and present employees, lawyers and judges.
Some of the records leaked to the press from Anonymous indicate that the Bar repeatedly covered up attorney misconduct and ignored clear and convincing evidence that showed former Chief Trial Counsel James Towery threw Joe Dunn under the bus when Dunn refused Towery's request to cease investigating lawyers in Santa Clara County, where Towery was appointed as a judge following his departure from the Bar.
State Bar Compliant files also show that the state's legal system has become outright corrupt , as it has allowed large law firms and individual lawyers off the disclosure hook, while judges award these same unethical firms and lawyers millions in sanctions and fees awards every year.
The records obtained also show that James Towery failed to make lawful disclosures himself, while working at the State Bar, and while acting as a judge in Santa Clara County. Towery's former law firm , Hoge and Fenton, is reported to have essentially bought the employment position for their partner , which in return promised "protection " for Hoge Fenton lawyers, and lawyers inside the Santa Clara County prosecutor's office, where Towery's wife was employed. Additionally problematic was the fact that Towery and his wife, Karen Sinunu Towery saw to it that millions of State Bar grants went to fund questionable non profits and programs associated with Santa Clara County University's law programs.
Bar communications also show that Rindskopf is extremely worried about Hayward v. Superior court. Rindskopf privately admitted, the Bar clearly first ignored a complaint against Nancy Perkovich before the Hayward case was decided, and is now scrambling to discipline Perkovich, who is facing a civil suit for driving one divorce case to incur over $3,000,000 in fees where Perkovich did nothing for the millions she charged in attorney fees and costs.
The Hayward case indicates that orders made by attorneys acting as private judges could mean the voiding of orders in thousands of California divorce cases, but also the voiding of the orders that were related to the formation of Facebook, which could be problematic for Facebook shareholders all over the world.
The Hayward case could additionally entangle attorneys who acted as private judges, or minor's counsel, in divorce and large complex civil litigation matters, where lawyers like; Perkovich, Richmond, Hales, Cox, Crawford, Nat Hales, , Robert Blevans, Richard Roggia, Brad Baugh, Valerie Houghton, Tom Tuttle, Seastrom and Hammon have been known to be making millions off creating misery of divorce litigants as these unscrupulous lawyers have made billions of California divorce, probate and custody cases.
For employees, shareholders and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, the issues in Santa Clara County family courts may be far more important then they once believed.
State Bar memos indicate that Jim Towery pressured employees to bury complaints that would have shown fraud and outright criminal conduct that could land , now judge, James Towery, right in jail based on his involvement in Mark Zuckerberg's lawsuit with the Winklevosses, that ultimately got Facebook anchored in California.
The use of Facebook in legal matters has become an increasing matter of public interest. In family courts judges are using Facebook to hold mothers and fathers in contempt of court after they are stalked on Facebook by their ex spouse and on (www.dailybusinessreview.com/id=1202796261138/Judges-Facebook-Friendship-With-Attorney-Doesnt-Require-Recusal-Court-Rules) , August 23, 2017, a Florida's Supreme Court just ruled that a Judge "friending " a lawyer on Facebook does not require recusal from cases where that lawyer appears before her. Many litigants now believe that makes Facebook fair game to stalk judges and lawyers for information to use against them when filling complaints and reporting judge crimes.
California's State Bar misusing personal information of private people who file complaints against unethical lawyers must be addressed urgently by the state's legislature.
State Bar records, obtained by a core group of elite Hackers in Silicon Valley, show that judges in Santa Clara, Sacramento and Contra Costa and Orange Counties regularly refused discipline attorney misconduct over the past 30 years, as Canon 3 of California's Judicial Code of Ethics makes mandatory, and the judicial failures have now seeped into the state's attorney discipline agencies, in a manner that allows corruption to flourish in the state's courts.
Members of the Public who filed complaints against an attorney and provided the Bar with records, or information, that contained social security numbers, bank account numbers or IRS information, are advised to contact : caljohnqpublic@gmail.com to see if your personal information is in the records the Bar has carelessly disseminated to the public when handling complaints about attorney misconduct.
The California State Bar's dismal history shows why it should be broken up
Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley), confronts the defeat May 31 of his bill to reform the California State Bar, which legislators thought did not go far enough. (AP)
Let's put this in terms that even an attorney with peerless loophole-seeking skills would consider straightforward: the California State Bar is a mess.
In recent years, the organization has been the target of withering state audits documenting misspent fees by the millions, overpaid executives, and inept management of its all-important duty of licensing lawyers and managing professional discipline. Its reputation is at a low ebb among state legislators, who last month placed on hold the organization's yearly authorization to collect annual fees because the measure didn't go far enough to achieve reform.
The Bar's dual role as licenser and ethics enforcer as well as trade organization pushing policy changes, critics say, leaves it hopelessly mired in a conflict of interest.
"You don't delegate regulatory power to a special interest group," says Robert Fellmeth, executive director of the University of San Diego's Center for Public Interest Law and a frequent critic of the Bar. "To let them be the decision-makers is obscene."
The Bar should have only one purpose—to rid the profession of bad apples.
DENNIS H. MANGERS, NON-ATTORNEY BOARD MEMBER OF THE CALIFORNIA BAR
These issues seem to crop up every few years, but seldom with as much urgency as now. That's because a 2015 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court has put professional licensing bodies on notice that they could be guilty of antitrust violations if a majority of their members are participants in the business they regulate.
The California State Bar is governed by a 19-member board of trustees, 13 of whom are lawyers. You do the math.
The Court decision isn't the only driver of potential change. "People can suffer irreparable harm from attorneys," says Fellmeth, a lawyer. They can be deprived of their liberty by inadequate representation in criminal court or immigration cases.
But the Supreme Court ruling sharpens the argument for splitting the Bar in two — into a trade association with voluntary membership, and a government body controlled by non-lawyers and responsible for professional licensing and discipline, much as medical professional standards are overseen by the Medical Board of California and political advocacy is left to the independent California Medical Association.
A measure passed by the State Assembly in June 2 would place the "deunification" of the Bar firmly on the front burner. The bill would create a commission to reconsider the Bar's governing structure and report back to the legislature by April. The bill also would restructure the Bar board as a 13-member body with at least seven non-lawyer members — an effort to comply with the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling.
Deunification is "the only real solution to the state bar's chronic dysfunction," says Dennis H. Mangers, a non-attorney Bar trustee who has submitted just such a proposal to the legislature. "The Bar should have only one purpose — to rid the profession of bad apples."
That function often takes a back seat to the policy and social purposes that make the Bar resemble more a professional club than a regulator, according to critics. In legislative testimony last April, Fellmeth observed that the Bar sponsors 30 different programs offering professional services to its members, often at a group discount, including financial advice, insurance, consumer products and software. "No other occupational licensing agency offers any of these goods and services to its licensees," he said.
The Bar tends to hold itself exempt from state rules applied to other state agencies on grounds that it's an arm of the State Supreme Court; critics say it still regularly violates the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, which requires at least 10 days public notice of any meetings and forbids members to discuss business with each other except in an open forum, despite a measure passed last year bringing it under Bagley-Keene's jurisdiction.
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, the former dean of McGeorge School of Law who took over as executive director of the Bar last September, T described herself as "agnostic" on deunification. The organization hasn't taken a formal position.
But Parker argues that "as officers of the court, lawyers have responsibility for the good features of our rule-of-law system." Their duties include "making sure the legal system is functioning well" along with "educating and informing the public and the legislature on technical issues in the law."
Breaking up the Bar, she says, could hamper programs to improve access to the courts for underprivileged clients, since these are funded from mandatory fee revenue that might not flow from a voluntary organization with a smaller membership. Still, she acknowledged that all these functions might be accomplished via "a different set of structural arrangements" than the present.
The California State Bar cut its disciplinary backlog in 2011 by lightening penalties, but the backlog of cases has been creeping back up.
In the mid-1980s, the legislature imposed an enforcement monitor for the organization. Fellmeth, who served in that role for five years, found that clients were systematically discouraged from pursuing complaints. For example, the Bar had established a toll-free hotline, but hadn't listed the number anywhere "a consumer might logically look to find it."
State Auditor Elaine M. Howle has been turning up the heat. In a report last year, she ripped into the disciplinary system, especially the Bar's ham-handed management of a crippling backlog of nearly 5,200 cases in 2010: it reduced the backlog by two-thirds the following year mostly by settling cases hastily with light penalties. (Backlogged cases are those in which no action has been taken for six months or more.)
Some had to be reexamined; of 27 settlements rejected by the State Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of lawyer discipline, 21 had to be renegotiated with harsher punishments, including five disbarments. About 10% of the attorneys who were allowed to continue practicing after the settlements faced new complaints subsequently, and 28 were eventually disbarred.
Howle found that the Bar was squandering resources that should have been spent on hiring more enforcement staff. In 2012, the organization spent $76.6 million to buy and refurbish a Los Angeles office building to supplement its San Francisco headquarters — about twice what it spent on discipline that year.
Meanwhile, the case backlog was creeping back up — from 1,742 in 2011 to 2,174 in 2014. Bar officials say the backlog was reduced by about 24% last year, but they warn that further reductions will require as many as 48 more lawyers and investigators, in addition to the 118 employed at the end of last year.
The Bar's structure as a combined trade association and enforcement body dates from 1927 and isn't unique. But their day may be passing, says Ted Schnayer, an expert on Bar governance at the University of Arizona.
"I want to clear up any perception of a profession being permitted to regulate itself," says Mangers, a former state legislator who will be leaving the board this summer. "Most attorneys never have a blemish, but the bad ones are beyond your imagination."
Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.
The California State Bar Has No Clue What It’s Doing
California has a plan to help the people who failed the bar exam... and obviously it makes no sense.
May 24, 2018 a
California just posted its worst bar exam passage rate in 70 years, and somehow that’s not the dumbest news we have about them this week. As California continues its draconian, trade restricting bar grading policy — despite the pleas of academics, common sense, and a comprehensive scientific study — and pawn off the blame for its own market manipulation on “students must be getting dumber” nonsense, it turns out the California Bar is truly the dumbest of them all.
An essay on Medium, penned by a graduate who unfortunately failed the February exam, unleashes a hilarious broadside against the tinpot bureaucracy behind the exam. To set the scene, those who didn’t pass the exam were notified on May 18 with the following message of encouragement:
In order to help improve performance on the bar exam, we recently launched the Productive Mindset Intervention Program. Through this program and ongoing study, we hope to better understand the downward trend of bar exam pass rates.
The Productive Mindset Intervention Program will be available to applicants beginning with the July 2018 Bar Exam. This program is a partnership with researchers at Stanford University, the University of Southern California, and Indiana University. The program is designed to improve exam performance across the board.
But, as the essayist learned, while this graduate-focused initiative sounds wonderful, it’s also run by the California State Bar, so….
Well, gee. This program sounds really great! You may be wondering, as I was, “How do I sign up?” The answer is: You can’t! Haha!
No, seriously. You can no longer sign up for the program that, according to the Executive Director of the State Bar of California on May 18th, had just been “recently launched” for the July 2018 exam. I found this out by calling the Los Angeles Office of Admissions and asking for information on how to enroll in the program. I was told that the deadline for enrollment was May 14th, 2018. Some might find that an odd date to choose, as it is four days before the Bar Exam results were released. Meaning that anyone who had failed the February administration and would be registering for the July exam had missed the enrollment deadline for a program designed to improve their performance in July.
Yes, the California Bar used their failure notifications to pimp a program that they knew none of those graduates could enroll in. Let that sink in. Because the author of this essay has let it sink in and remains… perplexed:
Much angrier now, I demanded to have the names of the persons in charge of running the “Productive Mindset Intervention Program,” and for their contact information. If you’re reading this and you’re wearing a hat, I would advise holding onto it before proceeding on and reading the response I received. The words that stumbled out of the man on the other line’s mouth were “no one has been appointed for that yet.”
No one. Has been appointed. For that. Yet.
In a sense, this is the perfect metaphor for the California Bar — there’s literally no one minding the wheel. When the law school deans rolled into the California Supreme Court with empirical data and asked that body to exercise a little of its theoretical oversight authority to fix the problem, the Court rolled over like we should have always expected.
That’s exactly the sort of service you expect from a test that brings in roughly $12,040,000 every year in fees! And they’d have even more if they could find a way to charge for this Productive Mindset Intervention Program… but that would require getting people enrolled first.
Check out the full essay for a thorough rundown of everything these people have done to screw over young lawyers — often along racial and gender lines — for years. And it’ll probably keep doing this for years to come.
Because no one is running this show.
California State Bar Accused of Fraud and Corruption by Former Bar CEO
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/california-state-bar-accused-of-fraud-and-corruption-by-former-bar-ceo/
The attorneys in California are almost all members of the State Bar. The Bar has ethics panels to see if each attorney is working within the oath they took to become an attorney. Now we find those running the California State Bar fire whistleblowers—even those running the organization. We also know that the statistics kept by the California State Bar are as accurate and honest as a document from the Obama White House.
“Dunn claims he was targeted after he discovered that the bar’s chief trial counsel, Jayne Kim, removed 269 backlogged cases from official reports released to the public in order to make her office appear more productive.
Jay, the newly named defendant, is the former principal attorney to the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.
“Consistent with her historical pattern of interfering with state bar affairs without any constitutional, statutory, or other authority,” Dunn claims, Jay met with certain members of the bar’s board of trustees to urge Dunn’s termination by spreading “blatantly false information” about him.”
Jay, the newly named defendant, is the former principal attorney to the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.
“Consistent with her historical pattern of interfering with state bar affairs without any constitutional, statutory, or other authority,” Dunn claims, Jay met with certain members of the bar’s board of trustees to urge Dunn’s termination by spreading “blatantly false information” about him.”
Some of this appears to be criminal. When will the Attorney General shut down this criminal enterprise? The people of California deserve better—instead we get the California State Bar, important people that protect themselves from the law.
Dunn Adds Fuel to Case Against CA State
Bar
By KATHERINE PROCTOR, Courthouse News, 5/5/15
LOS ANGELES (CN) – Former state Sen. Joseph Dunn amended his whistleblower lawsuit to name a new defendant, Beth Jay, in his claim that the State Bar of California fired him as its executive director for exposing “serious ethical breaches, prosecutorial lapses, and fiscal improprieties.”
Dunn claims he was targeted after he discovered that the bar’s chief trial counsel, Jayne Kim, removed 269 backlogged cases from official reports released to the public in order to make her office appear more productive.
Jay, the newly named defendant, is the former principal attorney to the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.
“Consistent with her historical pattern of interfering with state bar affairs without any constitutional, statutory, or other authority,” Dunn claims, Jay met with certain members of the bar’s board of trustees to urge Dunn’s termination by spreading “blatantly false information” about him.
Dunn alleges that Jay met repeatedly with Kim, Craig Holden (the bar’s newly installed president, who is also named as a defendant) and Jim Fox to set into motion plans for Dunn’s termination. The meetings “culminated in Kim filing a frivolous and unsubstantiated grievance against Sen. Dunn,” the amended complaint states.
The former Democratic state senator also claims that Jay was directly involved in and copied on the grievance, which he was never given the opportunity to review or to answer.
“Beth Jay’s involvement played a substantial role in the ultimate decision to terminate Sen. Dunn,” the amended complaint states.
In addition, Dunn accuses Holden of engaging in a “campaign to derail the sale of the state bar’s San Francisco headquarters.”
“Specifically, it has been learned that Holden has a plan to lien the San Francisco property, falsely claiming urgent needs to make property improvement and repairs, that is in effect nothing more than a poison pill plan to scuttle any sale of the property which could have led to the state bar realizing millions of dollars in equity which could be used to defray membership costs and to support its core functions,” Dunn claims.
In November, the State Bar of California issued a statement that called Dunn’s lawsuit “baseless.”
Both sides will be heard on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
In a telephone interview, Holden said that Dunn’s “eleventh-hour” filing of the amended complaint was an effort to derail the hearing.
Dunn is represented by Mark Geragos in Los Angeles.
STATE BAR BURNS DOCUMENTS TO COVER UP ATTORNEY CORRUPTION AND JUDGE CRIMES
State Bar Cursed - Still Covering Up for James Towery
Ironically, as can be seen in the Bar's own email noted above , James Towery, former Chief Trial Counsel of the State Bar was among the victims of the Bar's reckless handling of private and confidential information. Towery appears to be the only victim who was directly called by the Bar. Other victims have had their personal information released by the Bar, as early as 2015, but have never been contacted or informed their private information had been compromised.
Several victims claim to have experienced fraud and identity theft ever since providing personal and confidential information to the Bar when complaining about attorney misconduct.
In addition to compromising private and confidential information of persons and businesses victimized by bad lawyers. The State Bar also appears to have released internal emails that show employees of the Bar attempted to commit fraud on the State Auditor , Elaine Howle during a 2015 audit.
Since James Towery was Chief Trail Counsel at the Bar from 2010 -2011, policies and procedures appear to have been in place that allowed lawyers to continue to harm the public. As far back as 2010 , the Bar has reportedly hired thugs to stalk, harass and intimidate people who have filed complaints against California lawyers
Employees and lawyers at the Bar are additionally aware of millions of dollars bad lawyers have stolen through trust account abuse, which the Bar never investigated or prosecuted. Bar staff are also reported to have pressured prosecutors in Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Napa, Sacramento and Orange County to ignore judge and lawyer crimes, in return for immunity from investigations of DA offices.
The Bar also appears to have tried to conceal that James Towery never lawfully reported his financial interests on his form 700. One Bar employee reports the Bar's top brass told employees not to worry about Towery's failure to lawfully disclose as he acted in the Bar's most powerful position, and where he was later appointed to the Santa Clara County bench by Governor Brown in 2011.
bench by Governor Brown in 2011.
State Bar disaster continues as California politicians ponder fate
It’s been painfully evident for years, if not decades, that the State Bar – the quasi-public organization that licenses lawyers and is supposed regulate their conduct – is an institutional disaster zone.
Multiple reports by outside auditors about its managerial shortcomings, regulatory backlogs and financial irregularities, very public exchanges of charges and countercharges by State Bar officials, and dueling lawsuits all attest to the mess.
Five years ago, the Legislature ordered the State Bar to create a “Public Interest Task Force” to delve into its problems and recommend reforms.
It took four years just for the panel to be convened – itself a testament to the State Bar’s innate dysfunction. This week, however, its conclusions emerged, along with a minority report that says the draft is too weak, ducking the mandate to recommend “meaningful solutions.”
By its own words, the majority didn’t offer concrete reforms because it didn’t want to interject itself in an intense, backroom debate in the Capitol over the State Bar’s fate.
When the State Bar sought its usual bill authorizing it to charge lawyers “dues” to cover its expenses, the Assembly rebelled and made dues contingent on a series of reforms – including, oddly enough, creating another commission to study its operations and recommend changes.
However, the bill stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, in part because Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye didn’t like its provisions. The Supreme Court wields the ultimate authority on disciplining lawyers. And the bill remains in limbo as the Legislature begins the last month of its biennial session.
Both factions of the task force agree “that significant changes are needed” to make the State Bar an effective agency.
However, the majority just suggests alternatives for possible change while the minority focuses on what should be obvious to anyone: The organization’s dysfunction stems directly from its dual functions as a regulatory agency charged with protecting the public from incompetent or venal attorneys and as a trade association that promotes lawyers’ professional and economic interests.
“We conclude that the only answer to the Bar’s persistent dysfunction is to de-couple its regulatory and professional association functions,” the minority says.
The State Bar’s structural and operational maladies are not only well documented, but continue even as legislators and others ponder its future.
This week, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported that the State Bar has selected a new contractor to clean up a multi-million-dollar, malfunctioning internal computer system after dumping the original contractor for “seriously flawed” work.
This week, too, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reported on new suits being filed relating to the messy departure of Joe Dunn, the state’s former executive director – a continuation of charges and countercharges of malfeasance and corruption that have rattled the organization for months.
The time for more study is long past. The time for action, leading to the de-coupling of the State Bar’s incompatible functions and other structural reforms, is now.
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