Lawyer Misconduct Charges Will Go Online

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 08 No. 2008 Pg. 05
• Publication year: 2008
• Pages: 05
• Year: 2008
• topic: Business of Law

California Bar Journal 2008.

CBJ - August 2008 #05. Lawyer misconduct charges will go online

California Bar Journal
June 2008

Lawyer misconduct charges will go online

By Nancy McCarthy
Staff Writer

After an exhaustive debate, the board of governors voted 18-4 last month to post on the State Bar Web site disciplinary charges filed against California lawyers. The board turned back an attempt to postpone any action pending further study and rejected opposition to online postings by the majority of those who contacted the bar about the proposal.

The postings, which will be placed on a lawyer's profile page, will be phased in, beginning with any lawyer newly charged, and will eventually include notices for every California lawyer with a pending disciplinary proceeding - about 700 bar members. The lawyer's answer to the charges also will be posted.

Chief Trial Counsel Scott Drexel proposed putting charges online as a way to protect potential clients, some of whom have hired lawyers who, unbeknownst to the public, face disciplinary charges. Some, Drexel said, "lost their cases, lost legal fees, lost their legal rights as a result of not knowing if there were charges pending against their lawyer when they hired them."

He wondered aloud if people "want ready access" to disciplinary information when they hire a lawyer. "I think the answer has to be yes," he said.

Although such information has been publicly available since 1985, judges, lawyers and members of the public have had to call the bar to learn if a lawyer has a...