International Law

Can Lawyers be Liars?

When the Truth Can Wait: "Was author Carlos Casta­neda’s mys­tical teacher Don Juan right? Is it better to get something worthwhile done using deception than to fail to get something worthwhile done using truth?"

Here is an interesting version of the utilitarian dilemma. In investigating a possible wrong doing by a medical review company,

"The lawyer made a couple of telephone calls to find out how the medical review company operated. Both times, the lawyer introduced himself as either a chiropractor or an M.D. interested in working for the company. Based on what he learned from these con versations, the lawyer filed a federal lawsuit against the medical review company and the insurer, alleging fraud and intentional interference with contractual relations.

But the lawyer-Daniel J. Gatti, a prominent per sonal injury lawyer in Salem and founding partner of Gatti, Gatti, Maier, Sayer, Thayer & Associates-was slapped with a disciplinary complaint. The grounds were that his phone calls violated various provisions of the Oregon Code of Professional Responsibility prohibiting lawyers from engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, and from knowingly making false statements of law or fact while representing clients. After a disciplinary panel of the Oregon State Bar ruled that Gatti had violated the ethics rules (but that the bar was estopped from prosecuting him), the case went to the state supreme court.

Ruling in In re Gatti, 8 P.3d 966 (2000), the Oregon Su preme Court affirmed that Gatti had violated the state ethics rules and sanctioned him with a public reprimand.

In doing so, the court re jected arguments from Gatti and a number of amici in the case—primarily government pros ecutors and consumer ad vocates—that an exception to the rules should be recognized in conjunction with investigations into some suspected illegal activities."

(Via ABA Journal Magazine Stories.)

Couldn't afford a pre-texting investigator?

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on January 30, 2008 (boomark / email).