THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 12, 1996 TAG: 9601120001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
In Oregon, complaints against lawyers have been open to public scrutiny for 19 years, with few reported problems. Disciplinary hearings are open and the results are made public.
In Virginia, by contrast, even the existence of a complaint against a lawyer is kept secret in most cases. Of the more than 2,000 complaints filed annually with the Virginia State Bar, the great majority are dismissed, often with no reason given - even to the complainant.
``The closed nature of the system engenders public suspicion,'' concluded a report issued last month by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the investigatory arm of the General Assembly. The report called for opening up the State Bar's disciplinary system.
The State Bar is an administrative arm of the state Supreme Court. The bar's main job is to investigate ethical complaints against lawyers and impose sanctions if necessary. Active Virginia lawyers - about 20,000 in all - must belong to the bar.
The State Bar is to respond by Feb. 15 to the legislative commission's call for a more open disciplinary system. That response will go to the state Supreme Court, which could change disciplinary procedures.
Fueling the debate is a State Bar survey of 101 people whose complaints were closed by the bar from July 1993 to November 1994. Fifty-three percent said they were unhappy with the bar's handling of their complaints; 47 percent were happy.
The most common gripe was that the bar didn't investigate complaints thoroughly. Complainants presumably thought as much because they had no idea whether the bar did anything.
In fact, as staff writer Marc Davis reported, many complaints against lawyers are dismissed out of hand because the bar does not investigate problems of incompetence or poor communication, only ethical misbehavior. But, again, complainants often receive no explanation.
Back in 1991, a blue-ribbon panel for the American Bar Association, a national lawyers' association, called for opening all records of complaints against lawyers and nearly all hearings to investigate those complaints.
But most lawyers say the secrecy is necessary to protect them from frivolous or malicious complaints.
That hasn't been a problem in Oregon, where the State Bar acts as a kind of Better Business Bureau, answering callers' inquiries about individual lawyers.
Still, it might be fairer to lawyers if clearly frivolous or merely malicious complaints were sealed. A lawyer's reputation is all-important.
Without question, however, much of the veil of secrecy should be lifted, both to protect the public and to lessen its mistrust of lawyers. by CNB