Court Opinion

ID: 9746490
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:18:43.85936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:13.767784
License: Public Domain

concurring.
Three members of the Court would refer the question of immunity for grievants to the PRRC for detailed reasons supporting the Committee’s recommendation that absolute immunity should be eliminated if the confidentiality requirement is eliminated, even though that issue is not properly before the Court. I observe, first, that in 1995 the Court substantially limited confidentiality requirements under the rule without a corresponding limitation on absolute immunity and that adverse consequences to lawyers have not been reported. In any case, the underlying rationale for the majority opinion in Matter of Hearing on Immunity for Ethics Complainants, 96 N.J. 669, 675, 477 A.2d 339 (1984), was not that immunity is inextricably linked to confidentiality, but rather, that immunity fosters public trust in our disciplinary system and, most important, ameliorates concerns that “nonmalieious potential complainants” may be deterred from filing ethics complaints in fear of retaliation by the attorney. Because I believe that that rationale is as valid today as it was in 1984,1 see no reason to seek guidance from the PRRC on the immunity question.
Justices LONG, ALBIN and WALLACE join in this opinion.