Attorney Privilege

The Bar Court weighs mitigating factors before imposing sanctions, ranging from an attorney's discipline record and mental health to how much time has passed since the misconduct. Such considerations can produce rulings that read like misprints.

During a monthlong stretch in 1999, attorney Julie Wolff dumped 39 cases referred to her through an indigent litigant program in Sacramento County, deserting 300 clients. Yet in 2004, a Bar Court judge let her off with a public reproval, citing Wolff's clean discipline history and the four-year gap between her file purge and the Bar's investigation. Last December, the Bar Court's appellate review panel applied a degree of corrective logic, hitting Wolff with an 18-month suspension.

The state bar's annual reports on lawyer discipline omit details on the average length of suspensions approved by the court. But an SF Weekly review of cases since 2004 involving Bay Area attorneys indicates that most run six months or less. McCasey's lasted 60 days, ending in February.

The Bar Court's discipline order states that McCasey suffered from unspecified "extreme emotional difficulties or physical disabilities" at the time of her offenses.

A frustrated Weakland meted out his own justice: He placed copies of the court's ruling in the mailboxes of her neighbors in Alamo. "If the bar wasn't going to give her what she deserved," Weakland says, "I figured I could try to embarrass her a little bit."

Disciplinary action taken against California attorneys enters the public record unless a lawyer agrees to a private reproval before the bar files charges. (The agency posts the discipline history of its members at www.calbar.ca.gov.) But unlike in Oregon and West Virginia, where every written grievance against an attorney is disclosed, complaints against California lawyers stay under wraps if dismissed by the bar.

Robert Hawley, the agency's deputy executive director, asserts that California's policy cleaves the middle ground between the public's right to know and shielding lawyers from gratuitous character attacks. "An attorney's reputation is sort of their stock in trade," he says. "Their reputation shouldn't be dinged unless the complaints are found to have validity."

HALT's Blonder agrees — to a point. She might fully endorse California's approach if the bar brought charges and imposed sanctions more quickly. But given the delays, she says, "You're leaving people vulnerable. You're not shedding enough sunlight on the process."

The bar requires a lawyer, if suspended for 90 days or longer, to notify clients, opposing counsel, and the courts, but unsuspecting clients can still remain in the dark. Two years ago, South San Francisco attorney Justin Dahlz received an 18-month suspension for pocketing more than $20,000 in settlement funds intended for five clients. The sanction marked his fourth since 1996.

The suspension took effect in January 2005. Yet the 70-year-old Dahlz continued working, filing motions in at least two cases. He stopped only when Victoria Townsend, the opposing counsel in one case, learned of his suspension and informed his client and the judge. Early last year, facing charges of practicing while on suspension, Dahlz resigned from the bar. He couldn't be reached by SF Weekly for comment.

To Townsend, however, his actions typify a dysfunctional discipline system. "You're putting the responsibility on the person accused of egregious conduct to then tell everyone about it," she says. "That's insane."

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Lissa Jacobson suspected Robert Cram of abducting a pair of feral cats that lived in the backyard of her Sherwood Forest home. The two neighbors had recently tangled in court after Cram trimmed four trees along their shared property line, with Jacobson obtaining a small settlement from him. As revenge, she alleged, he trapped and disappeared Persia and Mittens, the strays she had watched over for years.

Jacobson wanted to sue — if an attorney would take the case. A succession of lawyers turned her down. Christine Garcia, however, sensed a cause célèbre in the offing.

A member of the city's animal control and welfare commission, Garcia advertises her "vegan-owned" Presidio practice as "The Animal Law Office." She filed Jacobson's suit in Superior Court in 2002 without interviewing anyone besides her client, court records show. Her sprawling, 14-count complaint alleged that Cram inflicted emotional distress, violated the Food and Agriculture Code, and committed "trespass to chattel." She asked for damages of $876,000, or about 35 times what Jacobson says she planned to seek.

Court documents also show that Garcia mailed letters to Cram's neighbors accusing him of "malicious actions"; her Web site referred to the suit as a "wrongful death case."

Cram had legally trapped feral cats on his property and delivered them to the Society of Prevention for Cruelty to Animals so that they could be fixed and released back into the neighborhood. An SPCA worker affirmed that claim in a defense deposition. (Cram declined to comment to SF Weekly.)

In November 2003, the suit was tossed at trial, and Garcia and Jacobson were ordered to pay $77,000 to cover Cram's attorney's fees. The judge blasted Garcia for exploiting a meritless case "to vent her political and philosophical beliefs regarding animal rights," and for preying on Jacobson's "one-sided vendetta" against Cram.