John Eastman disbarred in California for role in Trump's attempt to subvert the 2020 election

 Last week, after a three-year disciplinary process, the California Supreme Court finally officially disbarred John Eastman for his role in the attempt to help Donald Trump subvert the 2020 election.  

Eastman was also suspended in Washington, D.C. pending the decision of the case, so it is likely that he will be disbarred reciprocally there soon.

Politico has more on the story here and Above the Law has a good comment here.

UPDATE 4-18-26:  The ABA Journal reports "California Supreme Court disbars attorney John Eastman for 'egregious and deceitful conduct'"

Rudy Giuliani is now officially disbarred in Washington DC

 In a move that was very slow in coming, but that could not possible have surprised anyone, Rudy Giuliani has been officially and permanently disbarred in Washington DC. You can read the one page decision here.  For more on the story, here are a few sources:

Courthouse News Service

Politico

The Legal Profession Blog

Law & Crime

The Hill

MSNBC

TechDirt

Above the Law has a good, short, account of how Giuliani ended up here (from his failed presidential run, to his unfulfilled hopes of joining the Trump administration, to becoming Trump's personal attorney, to his downfall, and, more than likely, upcoming bankruptcy) and explains the DC result as follows:

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani got disbarred. Again. And in the most Rudy Giuliani way possible.

In a one-page order, the DC Court of Appeals noted that it had ordered him on July 25 “to show cause why reciprocal discipline should not be imposed” after America’s erstwhile Mayor was relieved of his license to practice law in the state of New York. Giuliani was apparently preoccupied stumbling into and out of bankruptcy and generally flopping around the federal docket like a beached orca as he desperately attempts to fend off the $148 million judgment in favor of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Atlanta poll workers he defamed. And so Rudy just didn’t bother to respond to the show cause order.

Under local precedent, “The imposition of identical discipline when the respondent fails to object should be close to automatic, with minimum review by both the Board and this court.”

And so, not having replied to the order, the court proceeded to disbar him.   

A DC Hearing Committee proposes a two year suspension for Jeffrey Clark

Back in April I reported that a disciplinary panel in Washington DC had held that Jeffrey Clark had violated the rules of professional conduct.  See here.  

Now comes news that the Hearing Committee Report in the Jeffrey Clark District of Columbia bar discipline matter matter has been released and that it proposes a two year suspension.  You can read more about the story here, here and here.  You can read the 213 page opinion here.

Reportedly, Clark is seeking to review the decision.  See here.

Hunter Biden’s law license suspended in DC following gun conviction -- UPDATED

June 29, 2024

 It is never surprising to hear that a lawyer's license is suspended following a conviction, but that usually happens as a decision on the merits in a case for discipline.  As reported by The Hill, however, Hunter Biden's license has been suspended pending the proceeding.  This means that the suspension is an interim suspension, until it is decided whether he will be disciplined.  Although interim suspensions of this type are not unheard of (that is what was imposed on Rudy Giuliani in New York, for example), they are not that common.  Usually, lawyers are allowed to continue to practice until a disciplinary proceeding is decided.  The Hill has to full story here.

UPDATE 8/5/24: Hunter Biden's lawyers reply to the court's order to show cause.  Here is the full story.

Federal prosecutor accused of withholding evidence in Trump protest cases

The Washington D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) has accused a former federal prosecutor who oversaw more than 200 cases related to protests of former President Trump’s 2017 inauguration of withholding evidence and of attempting to edit or obscure video evidence used against the defendants that otherwise could have been used to clear them of criminal charges.  The Hill has more on the case here.

As expected, the District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended disbarment for Rudy Giuliani

If you are a long term reader of this blog you know that I have been following the cases against many of the lawyers for the Trump administration, the most famous of whom is probably Rudy Giuliani.  And, you also probably know that his license was suspended in both New York and the District of Columbia while his disciplinary proceedings are pending.

Today I am here to report that, as expected, the District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended disbarment.  The Legal Profession blog has a summary and a link to the decision here.  

More coverage in The Hill, MSNBC and The Conversation.

Generative AI and the practice of law

As reported by Ethical Grounds, last month, the D.C. Bar issued Ethics Opinion 388: Attorneys’ Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Client Matters, which discusses many different issues and the Rules of Professional Conduct most likely implicated by a legal professional’s use of generative AI (GAI).  You can read the opinion here.

Based on this opinion, Michael Kennedy (of Ethical Grounds), has posted two new comments on issues related to generative AI and the practice of law.  In the first one, available here, he discusses why it is not necessary to amend or change current rules of professional conduct in response to the effects of generative AI in the practice of law.  In the second one, available here, he begins to address issues related to the professional duties most likely to be implicated by a legal professional’s use of GAI by discussing the duty of confidentiality.  I expect he will address other duties in future posts, so stay tuned.  

Following California, DC Court of Appeals temporarily suspends John Eastman's license pending the resolution of his disciplinary case

As reported by The Hill, the D.C. Court of Appeals has temporarily suspended the law license of former President Trump’s ex-lawyer following a similar order made in late March by a California State Bar Court.  You can read the court's order here.  Go the The Hill for the full story.

DC bar authorities file disciplinary charges against pro-Trump 2020 election lawyers

 Politico has the details here.  The Legal Profession blog comments here.  The Hill has coverage here.

Court imposes sanctions for instructing client not to answer questions during deposition

 Long time readers of this blog have heard (or have read, rather) me complain often that courts do not do enough to discourage misconduct during discovery in civil trials.  But every now and then I am happy to report a case that comes along and shows some judges are doing their part.  Today is such a day.  The Legal Profession blog is reporting on a case out of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in which the judge reprimanded a lawyer for wrongfully instructing a client to refuse to answer questions during a deposition -- a practice that is not uncommon but that often goes unchallenged allowing lawyers to get away with it.  I am glad to see that did not happen in this case.  You can read more about it here.

Timetable set for Giuliani disbarment procedure in Washington DC

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting today that Rudolph Giuliani has noted his exception to the disbarment recommendation of a District of Columbia Hearing Committee and that the The Board on Professional Responsibility has now set a briefing schedule, as follows:

Respondent's brief is due on September 28, 2023.

Disciplinary Counsel's response is due on October 16, 2023.

Respondent's reply brief is due on October 23, 2023.

Oral argument is expected to be held in November 2023.

Stay tuned!

Update on Trump lawyers: Lin Wood retires to avoid disbarment; Hearing committee recommends disbarment for Giuliani

The list of lawyers for the Trump campaign (or for Trump himself) that are under investigation keeps getting longer.  John Eastman, Sydney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, and Jenna Ellis, among others, have been in the news recently.

So today I am writing to report on two developments this week.

First, you may remember attorney Lin Wood who was sanctioned by a court in Michigan.  (see here, here and here) and who was facing an investigation in Georgia for his involvement in Trump's campaign's attempts to overturn the last presidential election.  (He was also famous for filing a motion in which he claimed it was based on "plenty of perjury," but that is another story).

This week it was reported that, rather than face disbarment, Wood has filed a petition to retire from his practice in Georgia.  As discussed in an article in Above the Law, 

If granted leave to retire, this would end the career of a once-respected attorney whose decision to embrace MAGA craziness dragged him into an ethical quagmire that he had little hope of ever escaping. Rudy Giuliani’s fall from crusading U.S. Attorney to getting his law license yanked and making ends meet on Cameo is rightfully the most dramatic instance of a lawyer throwing away everything for Trump’s adoration, but Wood’s not far off.

And speaking of Rudy Giuliani, the second report of the day is that last week a Washington, D.C.-based bar discipline hearing committee recommended that Giuliani should be disbarred for “frivolous” and “destructive” efforts to derail the 2020 presidential election in support of former President Donald Trump.

You can read the report here.  The case will now go before the Board on Professional Responsibility.  

Obviously, this means that this is not the end of the case.  Giuliani has the right to appeal and the case will likely make its way to the courts eventually.

The committee, comprised of D.C. attorneys tasked with reviewing Giuliani’s conduct, deliberated for months after a weeks-long series of hearings that featured testimony from Giuliani and several of his close associates.

For coverage on Lin Wood's retirement you can check out MSNBC, Above the Law, ethinking.com, Courthouse News Service, NPR, The Hill, Lex Blog, The ABA Journal and the New York Times.

For coverage of Giuliani's case, you can check out MSNBC, Jurist, Lex Blog, Politico, Courthouse News Service, Above the Law, The Hill, and the Legal Profession Blog.

Rudy Giuliani files post-hearing brief in the District of Columbia bar discipline case

The Legal Profession Bog is reporting that Rudy Giuliani recently filed a post-hearing brief in the District of Columbia bar discipline case arguing that Disciplinary Counsel failed to establish any ethics violations by clear and convincing evidence or, in the alternative, that if a violation is found, the proper sanction should be just an informal admonition or reprimand.  The office of the Disciplinary Counsel filed a reply.

You can read the information and follow the links to the documents here.

DC Disciplinary Counsel rules that Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting that the District of Columbia Disciplinary Counsel just filed a 46-page Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in In re Giuliani concluding that Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred.  It concludes that 

The Hearing Committee should recommend that the Court of Appeals disbar Mr. Giuliani because the integrity of the legal profession demands it. The Court must send a message that lawyers who misuse their law licenses to undermine our constitutional form of government cannot continue to practice law. One hopes that no other lawyer will ever engage in comparable conduct. Alas, as divided as our country is and as distrustful as many of us are of the basic institutions of our democracy - a distrust that Mr. Giuliani fostered and continues to foster - that may be a forlorn hope. But at the very least, the bar needs to know clearly that the consequences of such a betrayal of one's oath to support the Constitution is the loss of the privilege to practice law.

 

Jeffrey Clark argues disciplinary agency has no jurisdiction over his conduct because it violates the principle of separation of powers

As you may remember, the District of Columbia filed disciplinary charges against both Rudy Giuliani and former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark for their efforts to help former President Donald Trump overturn his 2020 election loss.  The case against Giuliani seems to be proceeding quickly since he recently announced the witnesses he intends to call.  Likewise, last week there was an interesting development in the case against Clark.

Clark has filed a petition to remove the case to federal court arguing that the agency of the D.C. Bar responsible for filing and adjudicating disciplinary proceedings against attorneys and the D.C. courts do not have the jurisdiction to bring ethics charges against him. He argues that "no state possesses the power to supervise the internal operations and deliberations of any branch of the federal government" and that the ethics case against him represents a "direct attack on the fundamental principle of separation of powers."  You can read his petition here.

So what happens when a lawyer tries to remove a state ethics discipline matter to federal court?  Does the court have jurisdiction?   Michael Kennedy, bar counsel for the state of Vermont, shares his experience on this matter here.  

Above the Law has a comment on Giuliani's case and Clark's cases here.

New disciplinary charges filed against Texas Attorney General and against Rudy Giuliani for their participation in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential elections

The Texas state bar has sued the state's Attorney General Ken Paxton arguing professional misconduct for trying to void Biden election.  Courthouse News Service has the story here and Above the Law has a comment here.

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia office of disciplinary counsel has filed charges against Rudy Giuliani alleging that he made baseless claims in federal court filings about the results of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania.  You can read more about this story in The Guardian, Politico, Jurist and the Legal Profession Blog.

Pandemic-Related Legal Ethics Opinions: A Compendium

LawSites has a short list of recent ethics opinions generated because of the pandemic and the fact that so many lawyers are practicing law remotely.  Go here for the story.  It mentions (and provides links to) opinions from Florida, New York, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the ABA.  

In addition the San Francisco Bar Association has issued Ethics Opinion 2021-1 on working remotely.  See here also.

Rudy Giuliani gets suspended in Washington DC

 About two weeks ago I reported that Rudy Giuliani's license to practice law was suspended by a court in New York.  One question that suspension raised, of course, was whether other jurisdictions in which he was licensed would suspend him "reciprocally" also.  Now we have the answer.

Last week a District of Columbia court suspended Giuliani from practicing law in the nation’s capital.  Because the suspension was just an order based on the fact that he was suspended already in another jurisdiction, the order was very short.  It essentially simply said that the D.C. court system had received a “certified copy” of New York’s decision to suspend Giuliani’s law license which triggered D.C. Bar Rule XI, § 11(d) related to “reciprocal discipline.”   Law & Crime has a good explanation here.  

For more coverage and commentary go to Above the Law, NPR, and Politico.

In addition, here is a short podcast discussing Giuliani's suspension and his possible future in the practice of law.  You can listen to it below by clicking on the play button or by going here.

DC Bar Rules Committee proposes new rule akin to Model Rule 8.4(g)

On the same day that the New York State Bar Association Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct submitted a proposal to adopt a rule akin to Model Rule 8.4(g), the District of Columbia Bar Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee submitted its own proposal to do the same.  

As I reported here, I really like the NY proposal which I think addressed the most important concerns regarding the Model Rule.  The proposal in Washington is better than the Model Rule in at least one important respect, but it is not as limited as than the one in New York.

The Executive Summary of the report accompanying the proposal explains the background: 

The D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct currently contain two rules that address harassment and/or discrimination: D.C. Rule 9.1, which prohibits discriminatory conduct that violates employment law; and D.C. Rule 8.4(d), which prohibits conduct that “seriously interferes with the administration of justice.” Comment [3] to Rule 8.4 clarifies that paragraph (d) prohibits “offensive, abusive or harassing conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice,” and may include words or actions that “manifest bias or prejudice based upon race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status.” 

. . . .

In 2016, the D.C. Bar Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee began studying whether the District should amend the D.C. Rules to adopt a provision similar to Model Rule 8.4(g). For reasons detailed in this report, the Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee recommends adopting new proposed Rule 8.4(h) to expand the scope of the existing anti-harassment and anti-discrimination provision found in D.C. Rule 8.4(d), similar to Model Rule 8.4(g), but with some modifications.

The Committee reached this final proposal after publishing for public comment in 2019 a proposal to essentially adopt ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) as a revised D.C. Rule 9.1. The Committee received 52 comments in response which were largely critical of the 2019 proposed rule, principally, although not exclusively, on First Amendment grounds. Upon careful consideration of the issues identified in the comments, the Committee revised its proposal.

The new proposal leaves Rule 9.1, a rule that has existed in the District for 30 years without issue, unchanged. As with ABA Model Rule 8.4(g), proposed Rule 8.4(h) moves the D.C. Rules’ current prohibition on harassing and discriminatory conduct from a comment to Rule 8.4 to a “black-letter rule” that, like Model Rule 8.4(g), sets a standard for how members of the D.C. Bar should interact with others with respect to the practice of law.

Currently, D.C. Rule 8.4(d) addresses discrimination and harassment only in the context of the administration of justice, which narrows the reach of the rule to a lawyer’s conduct while representing a client before a tribunal. Proposed Rule 8.4(h) includes harassing and discriminatory behavior by a lawyer directed at another person with respect to the practice of law, which would include such abusive conduct that occurs outside of a courtroom and/or the representation of a client.

. . . . 

Proposed Rule 8.4(h) is not intended to chill speech on controversial topics, but rather to prohibit harassing and discriminatory conduct directed at another person or persons by a lawyer with respect to the practice of law.

As proposed, the new Rule 8.4(h) and its comment read:

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

.... 

(h) engage in conduct directed at another person, with respect to the practice of law, that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, family responsibility, or socioeconomic status. This Rule does not limit the ability of a lawyer to accept, decline or, in accordance with Rule 1.16, withdraw from a representation. This Rule does not preclude providing legitimate advice or engaging in legitimate advocacy consistent with these Rules.

Comment

. . . . 

[3] Paragraph (h) reflects the premise that the concept of human equality and respect for all individuals lies at the very heart of our legal system. A lawyer whose conduct demonstrates hostility or indifference toward the principle of equal justice under the law may thereby manifest a lack of character required of members of the legal profession. Discrimination and harassment by lawyers in violation of the Rule undermine confidence in the legal profession and the legal system.

[4] Discrimination includes conduct that manifests an intention to treat a person as inferior, to deny a person an opportunity, or to take adverse action against a person, because of one or more of the characteristics enumerated in the Rule. Harassment includes derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct based on the characteristics enumerated in the Rule. In addition, sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Antidiscrimination and anti-harassment statutes and case law may guide application of paragraph (h).

[5] Conduct with respect to the practice of law includes representing clients; interacting with witnesses, coworkers, court personnel, lawyers, and others while engaged in the practice of law; operating or managing a law firm or law practice; and participating in bar association events and work-related social functions.

[6] A lawyer’s use of peremptory challenges is exclusively addressed by Rule 3.4(g). A lawyer does not violate Rule 8.4(h) by limiting the scope or subject matter of the lawyer’s practice or by limiting the lawyer’s practice to members of underserved populations in accordance with these Rules and other law. A lawyer may charge and collect reasonable fees and expenses for a representation. Rule 1.5(a). Lawyers also should be mindful of their professional obligations under Rule 6.1 to provide legal services to those who are unable to pay, and their obligation under Rule 6.2 not to avoid appointments from a tribunal except for good cause. See Rule 6.2(a), (b), and (c). A lawyer’s representation of a client does not constitute an endorsement by the lawyer of the client’s views or activities. See Rule 1.2(b).

As in the proposal in New York, this proposed rule tries to solve the vagueness and First Amendment issues by limiting it to conduct “directed at another person.”  This attempts to eliminate the possible interpretation of the rule as regulating protected speech about general topics or even general groups of people simply because someone in the audience may find the comment offensive.  That is a good thing, but I am not so sure the language is clear enough.  I would prefer it if the rule said "at another individual person."

The new proposed rule, however, includes two categories that may be problematic.  It is not clear to me what is meant by “family responsibility,” and “socioeconomic status.”  Suppose a lawyer made a comment at a firm meeting discussing a specific client saying “we should stop representing that rich bastard.  I am tired of seeing them get all the breaks.”  That statement expresses bias against rich people because of their socio economic status, and, therefore, seems to violate the rule.  Yet, it seems to me that statement is protected speech.  That is a problem.

Washington DC lawyer files bar complaint against lawyers who brought lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election

Law & Crime is reporting that a Washington DC lawyer has filed complaints before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Office of Disciplinary counsel arguing that several lawyers should be disciplined for having participated in a frivolous lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  

The lawyers had represented Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) in a lawsuit that named then Vice President Mike Pence as the defendant (Gohmert v. Pence).  The case was quickly dismissed by a federal district court. Later, the decision was affirmed by the appellate court and the U.S. Supreme Court denied review in early January.

Even if you can argue that the lawsuit was frivolous, I highly doubt that the complaint will result in any type of sanctions. You can read the story here.