I'm getting the impression it's not easy to disbar somebody and takes *forever*.
Which is probably a good thing as you're taking away somebody's livelihood, but I agree it seems like it's taken too long in this rather obviously deserving case.
Lawyers are sort of by nature called to do lots of extremely unpopular things on behalf of their clients, so the bar for the bar to disbar them just because of public outcry has to be pretty darn _firm_. But unfortunately, many bars have confused that with making the bar _high_. Two different things
Yeah I mean no one is saying that lawyers should be disbarred just because of public outcry. All I'm saying is that we should make it a priority to investigate and once we determined that an ethical lapse occurred, shitcan them so fast their heads spin
If they did that, so many judges & prosecutors would be out on their ass in a heartbeat, but then state bars would lose their legitimacy & influence, which they derive primarily from money & political power first, professional consistency second. It like a union & a monopoly both.
From who? The people who ultimately practically decide its legitimacy are all members of the bar: non-lawyers don't get a say in it. It has de facto legal authority but not really any public accountability. It's not great system, but a lot of the alternatives seem worse, tbh.
From the communities lawyers serve???????
Like lawyers dont exist for lawyers they exist for people.
Same as every other profession??
Like if your professional association has no ethical standards why should I trust anyone who is a part of your association??
Some would argue that a major point of having professional gatekeeping is to raise wages/fees/salaries. It's even worse in the law, of course, because unlike w/ doctors, there's no objective outcome like health to measure quality against, just the say-so of folks w/ a motive to obscure & arcane.
