Court Opinion

ID: 9534410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:39:14.4515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:32.598081
License: Public Domain

OP ALA, Justice,
dissenting in part.
When overfocused (which occurs all-too frequently), collegiality-bred concerns for some residue of salvageable characteristics in offending legal practitioners — who, like this respondent, are rightly to be viewed as deeply scarred1 rather than purely evil — tend to bring about a management style of discipline enforcement that is best described as a revolving-door passageway for de licensed offenders. These persons are first mustered out of the practice and then quickly brought right back into it. Readmission quests that follow suspensions (for a period of two years *1051and one day or longer) have met with an extraordinarily high incidence of success. Our current pattern of dealing with lawyer recidivism, which I cannot countenance, brings disrepute upon the legal profession and should inspire a search for some improvement in the exercise of this court’s stewardship responsibility.
I would today avoid excessive preoccupation with rescue concerns and err on the side of public safety by ordering the respondent disbarred. This would prevent him from launching a reinstatement effort for a period of five years. More importantly, the solution I propose would enable the Bar better to assess respondent’s rehabilitation progress and his fitness for re-entry into the practice. Its evaluation of the respondent’s eligibility for reinstatement would be extended to cover an appreciably longer period than that allowed by today’s suspension for two years and one day.

. By "deeply scarred” I mean that these persons have been affected by substance abuse or by destructive psychic forces.