Op-Ed: Conduct Unbecoming a Lawyer
By Dan Wharton
Pictures may speak a thousand words, but these dandies from Halloween 2011 leave me speechless.
A Buffalo-based law firm representing big-time mortgage lenders like Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo is under fire after a N.Y. Times Op-Ed exposed the firm for its annual Halloween party.
Members of the firm weren’t derided for dressing like Snooki from the Jersey Shore (with her…well, you know…hanging out) or like Anthony Weiner (with his…well, you know…hanging out). Instead, attorneys, paralegals and secretaries took to the office dressed as the not-so-well-off.
Steven J. Baum, P.C. runs its business prosecuting foreclosure cases. Famous in New York for forcing 73-year-old women from their homes, the firm rarely offers homeowners a chance to get out from underneath their underwater mortgages. They have been accused by the Department of Justice of filing misleading statements with the court (for you CivPro buffs, a Rule 11 complaint) and are also under investigation by the New York Attorney General. They are the subject of several class-action lawsuits for improperly filing certain papers that would force mortgage lenders to negotiate with their borrowers.
And, to add insult to injury, you can see that the attorneys make no bones about how they feel about their opponents in litigation. They set up a “squatter’s camp” in the middle of their office, smothered themselves in something disgusting (besides their own morals), and dressed like people who had been kicked out of their homes. In one picture, supplied to columnist Joe Nocera by a confidential source inside the firm, a “squatter” erected a sign asking for an “O.T.S.C.”—an order to show cause—a symbol of “they’re wrong, I’m right” that mocks the common last-stand of those evicted from their homes. In another photo, the attorneys placed a picture of their opposing counsel from a prior lawsuit (I kid you not) inside a coffin—“R.I.P. Crazy Suzie.”
I’m not taking the stance that foreclosing on people who don’t make mortgage payments is wrong. (Though there must be something said for the fact that the federal government is allowing over 4 million homeowners to file for a review of foreclosure proceedings on their home.)
Instead of focusing on prosecuting mortgage foreclosures, let’s focus on the real problem here: drawing a line between being a zealous advocate for your client and mocking people.
This behavior is disgraceful. Doing your job is one thing—making fun of those whose interests aren’t aligned with your own is another.
Acting like this in private only encourages wrongful characterizations of these people in public. If one of these attorneys shows up to court and actually meets a person that they’re trying to foreclose on, imagine how their attitudes have already been reinforced by these costumes and these signs. It’s inappropriate from people in our profession.
And if these people are just trying to “lighten the mood,” they’re missing the point. They are attorneys. They’re to be held to a code of conduct. Leave the unenlightened caricatures to the misinformed. Know that you have to live up to a higher standard.
As attorneys, we have to realize that we’re under a microscope. Other people look at us as problem-solvers, but also as problem-causers. We don’t need to reinforce that stereotype by playing to the lowest common denominator. We absolutely should be zealous advocates for our clients—but that doesn’t mean we need to lose our sense of what is right and wrong.
These attorneys have clearly lost that sense. I don’t know whether to chalk it up to a deformed sense of ethics, or Halloween, or a full moon. But my advice to them would be not to plan on repeating that costume next year.
