THE NATION; Are Divorce Lawyers Really the Sleaziest?
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ARE divorce lawyers really sleazier than other lawyers? That, in a nutshell, is the question before a committee of New York lawyers who are trying to decide whether sweeping new ethical rules for divorce lawyers should be extended to all attorneys. The rules, which are to take effect in November, require divorce lawyers to provide reliable estimates, itemize their bills, and hand all clients copies of a consumers’ bill of rights. They prohibit lawyers from demanding non-refundable retainers or from making clients sign over their mortgages to guarantee that they’ll pay their legal fees. They also prohibit sex with clients. Now, Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye has asked a new committee to recommend whether those rules should be applied to lawyers in every field from antitrust work to taxes. The committee is expected to recommend that many of the rules should be. “It’s my suspicion that the matrimonial bar is not in special need of the new rules,” Judge Kaye said last week. By many accounts, more complaints have been filed against divorce lawyers than any other kind. The National Discipline Databank of the American Bar Association, which cautions that its figures are incomplete, said that in 1990, divorce lawyers were punished more often than other lawyers for ethics violations. New York does not keep such records, but states that do show that divorce lawyers are not necessarily the worst offenders. In Illinois, for instance — a state that is demographically like New York — divorce lawyers were indeed the single biggest target of ethics complaints — with 20 percent more complaints against them last year than against personal injury lawyers, the next biggest category. But Illinois, after investigating, disciplined only 13 of them; that put them fifth behind personal injury, criminal, probate and real estate lawyers. More : query.nytimes.com |