Court Opinion

ID: 9494849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:48:31.418618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:39.813068
License: Public Domain

TROTT, Circuit Judge
(Concurring):
The Preamble to the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct states:
In all professional functions a lawyer should be competent, prompt and diligent. ...[,] should use the law’s procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others....[, and ] should demonstrate respect for the legal system and those who serve it.
Model Rules of Prof 1 Conduct, pmbl. ¶¶ 3-4.
It is a mistake to regard the adversary system as an opportunity to see what you can get away with or if you can pull the wool over a court’s eyes. This case, as *985filed and pursued, gives every appearance that counsel is representing not Ms. Hy-sell, but protecting someone behind the scenes who prefers not to be identified. If Ms. Hysell is too indigent to afford to travel to San Diego for a deposition, and if she does not own this money, one can only wonder what arrangement counsel and “Lankford” have with respect to its disposition should they be successful in its recovery. Counsel’s current argument regarding his performance during the deposition and afterwards that he “did not ever agree to produce[Lankford’s’] telephone number and/or address outside of formal discovery” is the kind of assertion that draws the legal profession into ill repute.
Although private attorneys are held to different standards than government prosecutors, see Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88-89, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935), such attorneys, as officers of the court and members of the bar, are universally required to file their cases with clean hands and pursue them with forthright presentations. The justice system expects lawyers, in cases like this one, aggressively to contest probable cause and to argue whatever legitimate positions will advance their client’s causes. However, the law and the principles of legal ethics do not expect lawyers to attempt to game the system and deliberately withhold, without justification, available and relevant information germane to the outcome of litigation, as apparently has been done here. One can only hope that the momentary heat of battle has clouded someone’s otherwise good judgment.