Court Opinion

ID: 9631049
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:27:45.129305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:47.789639
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the disposition.
As has become our practice, we referred this matter to the State Bar for a recommendation whether petitioner’s conviction of driving with an excessive blood-alcohol level while on probation for the same offense (Veh. Code, § 23152, subd. (b)) involved either moral turpitude or “other misconduct warranting discipline.” No majority opinion of this court, however, has ever refined the latter imprecise phrase or declared a standard for its application. Yet as the present case shows, there is need of such a standard: lawyers need to know what conduct other than moral turpitude may jeopardize their license to practice; the bar authorities need the same information to administer the disciplinary program; and we need such a standard to reach some degree of consistency and fairness in our decisions imposing discipline on this facially amorphous ground.
Regrettably, the majority opinion misses an opportunity to provide such a standard. Although it determines that a nexus, however tenuous, exists between petitioner’s misconduct and her fitness to practice law, it expressly declines to resolve the issue whether such a nexus must be shown before the “other conduct warranting discipline” category is applied.
*500I would answer the question in the affirmative, and would limit the application of the “other misconduct warranting discipline” category to misconduct that impairs or is likely to impair the attorney’s performance of his or her professional duties. I believe this rule is most consonant with the role of this court in the disciplinary process: i.e., to protect the public from the negligent or improper practice of law, to preserve confidence in the profession, and to maintain high professional standards. (See, e.g., Mepham v. State Bar (1986) 42 Cal.3d 943, 948 [232 Cal.Rptr. 152, 728 P.2d 222].) If the misconduct does not meet this standard and the attorney is not otherwise subject to discipline on moral turpitude or other statutory grounds, we should leave the matter to the sanction of the criminal law or public opprobrium.
Broussard, J., concurred.