WSBA should have stuck to its knitting

This is to express my support and agreement with Roger Ley, Alan M. Singer and the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers as stated in the November 2005 Bar News regarding I-330 and I-336.

Professor George Bell did not teach ethics at the University of Idaho College of Law, but the one statement I heard him make on the subject has always remained with me: “Attorneys should bend over backwards to be ethical in everything they do. The trust and respect of the public and their clients will repay them far beyond measure.”

The Washington State Bar Association should have recused itself from the I-330/336 debate. George Bell’s approach to ethics certainly demanded it if not the RPCs.

Carleton B. Waldrop, Pullman

A plague on all your houses

Dear WSBA: Who you gonna call?

Well, you went ahead and did it. Took sides on the I-330 Initiative. Although the November 8th election will have come and gone by the time you read this letter, I think you still need to defend yourself based on all those angry letters to the editor published in the last issue of the Bar News chastising you for taking sides. I, for one, however, do not want one dollar of my bar dues to be spent on defense of your actions. Maybe you can get some “pro bono” help with your defense. Here are some suggestions.

Your taking sides on the I-330 Initiative was perceptively framed as a “political” issue in one letter to the editor. Clearly, Republicans are for I-330 and Democrats against I-330. Your stand against I-330 makes it apparent WSBA and its Board of Governors is dominated by Democrats. Why don’t you call the Washington State Democratic Party Executive Committee for help? Hopefully, it won’t matter that I-330 did not come into being by legislative bill drafted and sponsored by a legislator affiliated with a political party. Hopefully it won’t matter that the legislature held their respective partisan noses on this initiative when it was filed in 2004 as an initiative to the legislature and opted to pass it on to the electorate for voting in the November 2005 election.

If your fellow Democrats won’t help you, maybe some liberal defense lawyer will. Let’s see . . . you need a lawyer referral. Despite that fact that Washington Defense Trial Lawyers (WDTL) wrote a letter to the editor critical of your taking sides on the I-330 Initiative, their concern seemed focused on the noble cause of preservation of “collegiality” among WSBA members. As friendly and fair minded as WDTL appears to be, I would think that WDTL would accept you with open arms and find a member lawyer to zealously defend you. A check of their website indicates that WDTL’s mission goals apparently focus on defense lawyer betterment, without other agendas. A review of WDTL’s lawyer practice sections, unfortunately, reveals no lawyer practice section devoted specifically and on point to issues regarding potential WSBA defense. Looking at WDTL’s website, I don’t see any practice sections devoted to such areas as defense of free speech and other constitutional rights, debtor defense, environmental defense, DUI defense, etc. Seems like most of WDTL’s practice areas are devoted to insurance defense and related areas. Gosh! Insurance companies like I-330 don’t they? Geez . . . maybe WDTL should change their name to Washington Insurance Defense Trial Lawyers (WIDTL)? Sure would help to avoid confusion and a lot of misdirected lawyer referral calls. Oh boy . . . looks like WDTL even has a professional lobbyist whose bread is ostensibly buttered by the insurance industry. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea to seek help from WDTL.

I know! How about contacting the “No on I-330” group? Maybe they have campaign contribution money left over to pay for your defense. They may not have a lot though. The Public Disclosure Commission indicates that sponsors and proponents of I-330 have raised contributions nearly two times that of the “No on I-330” group. Talk about David and Goliath! You really should pick your battles more wisely, WSBA. Doesn’t look like this suggestion is going to be of much help to you. Sorry.

It is funny, though. Many of the major contributors of money to the I-330 Initiative were insurance companies and doctors. I thought they were so poor because of huge medical malpractice insurance premiums and medical malpractice jury awards being paid in Washington State? Golly, I hope the insurance companies and doctors don’t add the cost of their campaign contributions to my insurance premiums and medical bills next year! Looks like the “No on I-330” group is no match for our “poor” insurance companies and doctors. If I ever sponsor a citizen’s initiative petition, I want the support of insurance companies, doctors and other underdogs rather than having to rely on those cheap and greedy plaintiff PI firms that Bar News letter writers assert are the real backers of the “No on I-330” group. Rest assured, my initiative petition will implement the best law money can buy!

Well, I am out of suggestions. Maybe you should just take your lumps on this one. Next time WSBA, just keep your mouth shut . . . please! Let’s just all be friends and talk about the weather or some other non-controversial subject. Remember, no more opinions from now on . . . just the facts.

Gary Smith, Port Orchard

Civil liberties at issue, but the wrong steps are being taken

I was appalled by President Taylor’s essay claiming that someone who publishes a message of hate and violence — “praising the mission of the terrorist mastermind (Bin Laden),” and publishes it by defacing public property, has a “fundamental privacy right guaranteed by the First Amendment” to avoid disclosure of their identity in the face of a grand jury subpoena. Anyone can distinguish between a broad sweep of all those who check out a particular book at a library versus tracking down someone who has defaced public property with a message of violence and hate.

Cities across Europe are in flames because of Bin Laden’s ilk. When one of them steps forward with “disturbing” public praise of Bin Laden, and commits a crime doing it (RCW 27.12.330), that is enough to justify some sort of government investigation. One wonders whether the President or the U.S. Attorney would declare a privacy interest in surveillance videos that captured a jihadist spray-painting praise of Bin Laden on a downtown building.

It is disturbing to see our President and the Office of the U.S Attorney for the Western District of Washington unwilling, or unable, to make fundamental distinctions in the scope of privacy rights, for on those distinctions our future freedoms depend. Finding a privacy interest in criminal conduct merely because expressional elements are present lends credence to a rising chorus that claims that “liberalism is a mental disorder.” As the First Amendment is spread thinner and thinner to protect the politically correct, we are losing our most important civil liberties and even public support for their very existence (cf., e.g., the intrusiveness of sobriety checkpoints).

James Buchal, Portland, OR

Defining fisc and fora

I salute Bob Cumbow (“The Language of the Law,” December 2005 Bar News). I can only imagine how difficult it must be to stay on the right side of the line between amusing or elucidating and ponderous or tedious, which he so far has managed to do. A significant accomplishment in the language of the law by Spokane lawyer Milt Rowland deserves recognition. Milt managed to work into a single amicus brief (Cowles Publishing Company v. Spokane School District No. 81) both “fisc” and “fora.” Traditional dictionaries have of course been superseded in this millennium by the Google “define:” function. When you type “define:fisc” in Google, you quickly learn that it means “a state treasury or exchequer or a royal treasury; originally the public treasury of Rome or the emperor’s private purse” (worldnetprinceton.edu/perl/webwn). “Fora” gets no hits on websites in the English language (it is evidently a Portuguese word however), but what lawyer would not recognize it as the plural of “forum”? So to Bob and Milt, I say “Keep up the good work!” We all need something that makes us grin from time to time.

Pat Anderson, Snoqualmie