Legal Commentary

You may, perhaps, have already heard about Illinois lawyer Melvin Hoffman, who after 35 years without a blemish on his law license, is facing a six-month suspension, primarily for calling an administrative law judge for the Department of Children and Family Services a "narcissistic, maniacal mental case" who "should not be on the bench" in a phone conversation with the judge and opposing counsel. Mr Hoffman followed this up with a letter to the judge that read:

I must note further that during our telephone conference on February 8, 2008, you personally stated: "I have no problem with the matter being heard in LaSalle County." If that is correct, and no Motions are pending in Cook County, it is extremely difficult to comprehend any justification or motivation whatsoever for requiring the appearance of counsel other than the interjection of your personal vendetta in an attempt to rationalize your own mistake in summarily placing a 14 year old child with a drug and alcohol addict.

As an officer of the court, I must bluntly state that you appear to have serious mental issues involving extreme narcissism and illusions of grandiosity which effectively interferes with your ability to act as a Judge. I am certain this is the opinion of many other lawyers who are acquainted with you. I am aware of your tendency toward self-promotion and your blatant insinuation that you somehow have a superior ability to ascertain peremptorily and without the presentation of appropriate evidence the best interests of children. Do you in any manner accept the reality of the jeopardy in which you placed this child? Is it possible that you could apologize to my client, who has had custody of this child since birth and suffered weeks of sleepless nights wondering whether her child would return safely from her substance addicted and irresponsible former husband? Are you capable of self-examination, or do you simply react negatively and defensively to any suggestion that you are incapable of error?

There is a little more to the story.  

There always is.  But the Review Board found that attorney Hoffman acted with knowledge or reckless disregard as to the falsity of his statements that impugned the integrity of a judge.  The Review Board interpreted Hoffman's statements as making straightforward factual claims that the judge was unfit.   They apparently did not consider whether the statements might instead by hyperbole--an emotional rant based on a perceived injustice toward a client.  If the statements were hyperbole, which the first outburst certainly might have been when viewed in context, it would be impossible for Hoffman to have made the statement with actual malice because hyperbole is not capable of being interpreted as stating actual facts.  It is also open to question how much the integrity of the justice system is threatened by one lawyer going off on a rant in judge's chambers in the presence of opposing council and the judge.  As I said, there are more facts here, but the "speech" issue, together with Hoffman's lack of remorse for speech he believed to be protected by the First Amendment, were the primary reasons the Review Board gave for his suspension.

I always find myself torn in cases like this one that assert that attorneys receive fewer free speech rights than other citizens when acting in their roles as officers of the court. On one hand, the justice system depends on lawyers and the public respecting the authority of judges.  On the other, this lawyer was speaking out against what he believed to be a gross injustice against his client.  Certainly his language was disrespectful, and the judge felt personally insulted, but I wonder whether the integrity of the justice system really depends on lawyers having fewer rights to speak about it than other citizens, particularly since the only audience was the judge himself  and opposing counsel.  [If you want to see all the possible arguments on both sides of the question of whether attorneys deserve fewer speech rights than other citizens when acting as officers of the court, the various opinions in the Supreme Court case of Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada are the place to start. As you might guess from the tenor of this post, I'm a fan of Justice Kennedy's opinion in that case. ]