Dirty LAWndry reader, “Jennifer,” is considering quitting the legal profession based on some dirty behavior that she recently witnessed.

“I’m a chairman on a panel of attorneys that serves as arbitrators for our court system. This is not a full- or even part-time position for me or any of the other arbitrators. I have a full-time job at a law firm, and I am extremely busy there. Unfortunately, I’m being dragged into a time-consuming ethics investigation because of another attorney’s vendetta against another member of the bar. Basically, plaintiff’s counsel had a petty argument with defense counsel over a personal issue years ago. Since that time, plaintiff’s counsel apparently held a grudge. So, in front of our panel, plaintiff’s counsel brought up issues about defense counsel’s moral character and accused defense counsel of all sorts of criminal behavior - fraud, perjury, etc. Plaintiff’s counsel did not have any basis or evidence for her contentions. It was pretty obvious that plaintiff’s counsel simply did not like defense counsel and wanted to damage her career. But, accusations of this sort against an attorney have to be addressed, especially when they’re being heard in an open courtroom. So, now I’m being dragged into this investigation and it’s so frustrating. Then I started thinking about how easy it is for a member of our bar to simply accuse another attorney of wrongdoing without any basis. Unfortunately, in our state, even accusations of wrongdoing are publicly available no matter the outcome.”

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