Another letter addressing Virginia accountability

Virginia State Bar's dismissal of integrity and diligence

Citizens for Judicial Accountability,

I responded to your September 18, 2008 email that suggested that my site provide a "brief" summary of our case. I provided a list of our specific "issues" with Virginia attorneys and followed it with this web page The Experience Short List of Attorney and Virginia State Bar indiscretions on September 20. Again I stress ours is a case of at least ten attorney failures in representation of multiple issues. From our experiences failure to engage appears to be endemic in the industry, not the exception. The response from the Virginia State Bar on the occasions that we contacted them was avoidance, they do not address "strategy", but they did suggest we retain another one of their members to address the prior members failure. When we tried this we received a repeat of the Virginia State Bar, followed with we "could not afford to address", of course my girlfriend could not afford to censor the member's performance, in one case she was a bankrupt probono client of an attorney that deserted all their clients.

An example of the Bar's failed diligence can be found in my girlfriends case of the deserting attorney who was retained in 1995 for a dog bite injury. In 2000 the attorney deserted and the Virginia State Bar changed their policies( Virginia State Bar - Professional Regulation - Code of Professional Responsibility ). The Virginia State Bar had changed their policies from http://www.vsb.org/profguides/1999/codeprof.html ethical codes that gave a client some leverage over their representation to one that does not. In 2000 the Virginia State Bar chose not to maintain their legacy ethical standards, specifically the integrity of the profession, Canon #1 ( http://www.vsb.org/profguides/1999/c...l#anchor470335 ). If the institution had they would have ensured that the clients damaged by the deserting member would have access to representation that would resolve "all" the clients issues, the Bar did not. Because of this failure my girlfriend has no idea whether she was scammed by the deserting attorney or not, the Bar did not execute due diligence in this injury case, this failure by the Bar identifies that the "Code of Professional Responsibility" no longer remained an ethical policy.

It has come to my attention that the Virginia State Bar has set up a "Public Protection Task Force". I suspect that this "task force" consists of a biased population. Recent events have made it apparent that government and industry cannot self-regulate, they use words such as "task force" to placate the public after an event occurs - no change results. From experience we have found a deep reluctance for this industry to address "strategy" failure. I suspect that this reluctance
comes from experience, the classic everyone claims to be "innocent". If I remember correctly when the "Code of Professional Responsibility" was in effect, the consequences of an investigation would be disbarment, the finality of such action would explain the change of policy in 2000. Combination of disbarment and resources expended would make the cost of such a decision high. A middle solution could have been taken, one where the Bar confirmed or refuted negligence, the complaint and its merit logged so that other prospective clients could research their future representation with all the facts. The results from such a
determination could also be used to solicit representation for a legal malpractice action against the attorney that failed. Instead the Bar's solution was to avoid a clients "grievance".

Like the statement "they all claim innocence", all attorneys claim "diligence", including the institution that used to be tasked with maintaining the integrity of the profession. The avoidance of the complaint metric provides a niche for predatory practice of law, this is unacceptable with the technologies available. As a result of this avoidance the Virginia State Bar cannot confirm or refute my claims of predatory/negligent practices by its members, the Virginia State Bar is negligent in its duties to the citizens of Virginia.

As a result of this negligence, my girlfriend, with a grade school education, history of foster homes, abuse, an individual that chose to better her position was denigrated, processed, dismissed and discarded by members of this profession that she retained to represent her. She has been the subject of denigration, religious persecution and hard line punishments for her mistakes. There was no method provided to identify attorneys that had a history of just "processing" certain demographics.
There was no method to protect the integrity of the profession when one of these members deserts. The presumption of guilt policy executed by this industry gives me concern, is this country one that adheres to "rule of law" or discrimination, bias and presumption of guilt ?

The question is how many others have been "presumed guilty" by members of the Virginia State Bar, how many cries for help have been squashed as "sour grapes" by the Virginia State Bar and their members poor ethical standards ?

I ask, do our experiences support the goals of your organization or not ? I have cc'd some other organizations with this correspondence, time is of the essence, as I am worried about my girlfriends condition, the breakdowns, depression and belief that she is insignificant. To see some action taken would at the minimum give her some relevance, two decades of Virginia professional negligence is enough.

The Experience Short List of Attorney and Virginia State Bar indiscretions

Thank you for your consideration,