[rayiner]

There are a number of structural mechanisms that make “getting away with it” difficult. First, the process is adversarial—there is another side with huge incentives to discover any fabrication. Second, there is an ethical duty to reveal misconduct in your knowledge, under punishment of penalties to yourself. It’s not enough for a rich criminal to pay off a lawyer; they have to pay off everyone else who might know. Third, ethics proceedings can destroy a person’s entire livelihood, and the standard is not “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” but “more likely than not.” And there’s no statute of limitations—misconduct can come back to bite you decades later.

[CobrastanJorji]

What is this "destroy a person's entire livelihood" thing? For prosecutorial misconduct, it's nearly impossible to sue the prosecutor. They have the same qualified immunity police officers enjoy, and incidents of state bars punishing prosecutors for misconduct are nearly nonexistent.

[woofie11]

Have you ever tried filing a misconduct compliant with a bar association? You'll get just about as far as a police violence compliant with the local PD. The bar is there to serve the lawyers, like any guild or union. For the most part, there are no checks on lawyer ethics.

[gamblor956]

I've actually served on the ethics committee for the bar association. We discipline lawyers all the time.

The bar does not exist to serve lawyers, it exists to regulate them.

[elgenie]

> The bar does not exist to serve lawyers, it exists to regulate them.

Those are far from being in opposition. A cynic might say the bar exists to serve lawyers as a class by doing the bare minimum to appear to be regulating them.

[justinclift]

From the perspective of a lay person, it doesn't to be effective in doing so.

eg. Places like Prenda Law being able to operate openly for years before being shut down, etc.

[srtjstjsj]

Prenda Law operated for 1 year before they were caught, and then. Disbarred and imprisoned.

The reason they continued their crimes for 3 years was that it's impossible to prevent someone from doing paperwork crimes if they aren't in prison.

[justinclift]

> Prenda Law operated for 1 year ...

While technically yes. They just opened another company and kept on going. Guess I should have said "Prenda Law and it's various incarnations". ;)

> ... it's impossible to prevent someone from doing paperwork crimes if they aren't in prison.

That's the whole point. ;)

On that note, it looks like Paul Hansmeier is now attempting to start that racket back up again, even from behind bars.

[jacquesm]

It exists to avoid the courts stepping in to regulate them. If it weren't for the bar association keeping the worst out of view there would be a lot more lawyers reprimanded by judges instead. This is probably efficient, but not a sign that the bar association serves individual lawyers. It serves them collectively by keeping the dirty laundry within the organization rather than to submit to outside regulation.

[tptacek]

Isn't the bar association a guild or union? The state court system hears serious ethics complaints.

[woofie11]

For the most part, complaints are handled through the Bar. Unless something is a press-worthy scandal, they are promptly ignored by most Bars. The goal is to protect lawyers, not clients. A press-worthy case hurts lawyers. Normal scams are, well, what most lawyers do.

Suing a lawyer for malpractice in courts is very tough. There are all sorts of barriers. For example, let's say your lawyer fails to file legal paperwork on-time, and you lose a case. You can sue, but to collect damages:

* You have to show that in the alternative case, you would have won. The lawyer will argue you would have lost in either case.

* The case against your lawyer will likely impact your main case, and not in ways you like.

If your lawyer charges billable hours without actually working -- something which is standard practice among lawyers in my community -- you need to be able to prove that. It's the culture here:

* I've been to lunch with lawyers who bragged they were billing someone else for the time

* Lawyers routinely double-bill if e.g. handling client emails on a cell phone while in court for another client. ). How do you do that?

So it happens all the time, and I've gotten insane bills when nothing was done. You can't prove that in court, though. There's no case. And so on.

[srtjstjsj]

Each state delegates much of the legal oversight of lawyers to the $State Bar Association, from initial licensing to disbarrment.

[rayiner]

It depends on the state. In New York and Illinois, the bar is an organ of the court system, and bar associations are separate private organizations.