Even legal ethics opinion writers cannot resist the urge to be anti-Republican pundits

As a dues paying California lawyer, I periodically receive an email from the California State Bar offering random tidbits and squiblets of news some assumes California lawyers might find interesting.  The January edition intrigued me because of drive-by punditry that appeared in an ethics analysis of Judge Richard Posner’s latest decision.  I wasn’t paying attention, but Posner’s decision apparently has lawyers talking because as it takes very direct aim at a specific lawyer, and does so using rather broad humor.

There’s nothing new about a judge taking potshots at a lawyer.  One of the funniest (and meanest) opinions ever written comes out of a federal court in Texas and includes the foll0wing gems:

Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact — complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words — to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions.

With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor’s edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.

[snip]

Plaintiff seems to rely on the fact that he has pled Rule 9(h) and stated an admiralty claim versus the vessel and his employer to demonstrate that maritime law applies to Phillips. This bootstrapping argument does not work; Plaintiff must properly invoke admiralty law versus each Defendant discretely. Despite the continued shortcomings of Plaintiff’s supplemental submission, the Court commends Plaintiff for his vastly improved choice of crayon — Brick Red is much easier on the eyes than Goldenrod, and stands out much better amidst the mustard splotched about Plaintiff’s briefing. But at the end of the day, even if you put a calico dress on it and call it Florence, a pig is still a pig.

Now, alas, the Court must return to grownup land.

[snip]

The Fifth Circuit has held that “absent a maritime status between the parties, a dock owner’s duty to crew members of a vessel using the dock is defined by the application of state law, not maritime law. Specifically, maritime law does not impose a duty on the dock owner to provide a means of safe ingress or egress. Therefore, because maritime law does not create a duty on the part of Defendant Phillips vis-a-vis Plaintiff, any claim Plaintiff does have versus Phillips must necessarily arise under state law. Take heed and be suitably awed, oh boys and girls — the Court was able to state the issue and its resolution in one paragraph … despite dozens of pages of gibberish from the parties to the contrary!

[snip]

After this remarkably long walk on a short legal pier, having received no useful guidance whatever from either party, the Court has endeavored, primarily based upon its affection for both counsel, but also out of its own sense of morbid curiosity, to resolve what it perceived to be the legal issue presented. Despite the waste of perfectly good crayon seen in both parties’ briefing (and the inexplicable odor of wet dog emanating from such) the Court believes it has satisfactorily resolved this matter. Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.

[snip]

In either case, the Court cautions Plaintiff’s counsel not to run with a sharpened writing utensil in hand — he could put his eye out.

Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., Inc. (S.D. Tex. 2001) 147 F.Supp. 2d 668.

Bradshaw is a remarkably savage opinion, and one that will follow plaintiff’s attorney to the end of his career.  It is also, quite possibly, deserved.  After all, there are myriad decisions in which courts have chastised, sanctioned and even disbarred attorneys for poor or despicable behavior.  Bradshaw stands out only because it adds the humiliation of being laughed at to what is probably a deserved reprimand.  (Lord knows, I’ve appeared opposite attorneys who operate on the “bury someone under paper” principle, an approach that invariably generates, not just dozens, but thousands of pages of gibberish.)

Judge Richard Posner therefore did nothing out-of-the-ordinary when he delivered a strong rebuke to an attorney in front of him.  Even the fact that he used humor was not sufficient to make it stand out.  Posner, though, added something a little different:  pictures.  To make known his disdain for counsel’s decision to file what he considered a completely unwarranted appeal, Posner had this to say — and show:

The ostrich is a noble animal, but not a proper model for an appellate advocate. (Not that ostriches really bury their heads in the sand when threatened; don’t be fooled by the picture below.) The “ostrich-like tactic of pretending that potentially dispositive authority against a litigant’s contention does not exist is as unprofessional as it is pointless.” Mannheim Video, Inc. v. County of Cook, 884 F.2d 1043, 1047 (7th Cir. 1989), quoting Hill v. Norfolk & Western Ry., 814 F.2d 1192, 1198 (7th Cir. 1987).


I don’t particularly take umbrage at what Posner did.  Using rather amusing pictures strikes me as better than being sanctioned heavily or referred to a State Bar for disbarment proceedings.  And if indeed the lawyer ignored controlling law, that’s a big no-no, and deserves some judicial umbrage.

Although it’s not entirely clear, though, Diane Karpman, who wrote the ethics post from the California State Bar, seems to believe that it was a bad thing for Posner to use illustrations to take aim at a lawyer who violated appellate rules.  Thus, after carefully explaining the decision, Diane Karpman poses a series of questions indicating, without actually saying, that she thinks that maybe Posner crossed a line:

Is it acceptable conduct or unacceptable conduct to make a public spectacle of the lawyer? McKeand is now (and forever will be) known as the “Ostrich Lawyer.” As lawyers, we all make silent promises to members of the bench to protect them from ridicule and scorn, because they cannot protect themselves. Isn’t there a reciprocal promise made that everyone will behave in a civil, respectful and professional manner?

Those are fair questions.  Where Karpman goes of the rails as far as I’m concerned is in the paragraph immediately following, when she suddenly becomes political pundit, turning on Newt Gingrich:

Now we have Newt Gingrich, who in the final Iowa debate described the courts as “grotesquely dictatorial,” and who wants to subpoena justices before Congress to explain decisions he rejects.

Did you see that coming?  I didn’t.  As far as I can tell, it’s a complete non sequitur.  I can certainly conceive of an argument that might lead into this bit of punditry.  For example:

Although judges have the power to sanction the attorneys who appear before them, that should not give them the right publicly to ridicule those same attorneys by likening then to animals or to otherwise demean them.  Engaging in this type of judicial conduct lowers the judges’ own standing, leaving themselves open to challenges to their authority.  In such an environment, it is not surprising the Newt Gingrich has proposed making judges more accountable.  While Newt’s proposal is fatally flawed insofar as it attacks the separation of powers, there is no doubt that judges who behave vindictively, rather than showing a true judicial temperament, leave the door open to these kinds of political challenges.

By the way, I’m not saying that I agree with what I just wrote.  In fact, I happen to feel that way too many judges erroneously liken themselves to priests, whose ordination makes them conduits to a higher moral authority.  I’ve seen too many judges who believe that, merely by donning that iconic black robe, they’ve suddenly hooked into a hotline to some higher truth, one that usually has little to do with statutory and case law, and a great deal to do with Progressive ideas about social justice.  (Can you tell that I’ve spent my legal career in the San Francisco Bay Area, heartland of activist judges?)

What Karpman seems not to understand is that, if you’re desperate for some punditry, there’s a way to do it gracefully.  She made no such graceful transition.  In the middle of a mild challenge to what she apparently perceives as Judge Posner’s discourtesy, she suddenly, and irrelevantly, launched random criticism against Newt Gingrich.  This is liberal drive-by wannabe punditry at its worst.