Mick Tronquet on Legal Ethics Stuff

Brad, while I’m relieved to learn of this lawyer discipline, I think sanctioning lawyers for AI breaches is pretty easy compared to sanctioning lawyers who, for example, misrepresent the constitutionality of certain of President Trump’s Executive orders or mislead the courts as to the Administration’s compliance with court orders. These are bigger fish to fry—and discipline—in my view. The birthright citizenship case heard in Seattle comes to mind, where Judge Coughenour found Executive Order #14160 to be “a blatantly unconstitutional order” and could not understand “how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order.” Yet I am unaware of any discipline initiated against the DOJ attorney(s) attempting to make that case. And what about the continuing misdirection proffered by DOJ attorneys in the Abrego Garcia case? At least the lawyer foolishly working a maritime law case gave an honest answer when queried by the court. This piece also reminded me of the first day of pleading and procedure class back in law school (fifty+ years ago). The case to be discussed was Pennoyer v. Neff and the instruction had been posted two days earlier. My friend, Frank, was the first to be called upon and, having not read the case (or even the Gilbert syllabus), foolishly and hilariously tried to charm his way through an answer. The prof was surprisingly kind to Frank, while the rest of were absorbing at least two lessons: (1) always be prepared; and (2) at least be honest in your response. Finally, could not help but chuckle over some of the terms identified in your piece. Maybe my favorite is “verification drift.” Why do we lawyers so often try to soften the blow and/or over-explain something that is pretty obvious even to the high school sophomore? “Verification drift” is a disingenuous way to describe simple laziness and, in the case of attorneys, breach of duty. It would be easier and more to the point to just say “check your citations—it’s your duty as an officer of the court.” Just saying.