For all the effort the Bar, courts, and some lawyers put into expecting the public to respect the legal process, you would think that they would be extra careful about those situations in which money is changing hands between court staff (and their families) and outsiders, especially lawyers.
While most judges, in particular, are very careful, there are times where even judges have been known to take outright bribes or soft money for “speaking engagements” or conferences, for example. (Even Supreme Court justices participate in the latter, and there have been issues with political activities for profit by Justice Thomas’s wife, for example.)
Here is a real head-scratcher from Pennsylvania:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has barred state appellate court staff members from performing private legal work for compensation amid reports of a federal investigation into legal fees paid to the wife of Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery….
Justice McCaffery’s statements of financial interest, which court officials make public upon request, report that eight law firms have paid referral fees to Ms. Rapaport on 19 occasions since 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported. ["Referral fees" are a dicey subject to begin with -- they can be tantamount to a kickback for sending a lawyer a new client, like a finder's fee, but without the performance of any work. This can be abused, in particular, where the referral fee is paid to a politician or, in this instance, indirectly to a judge especially if the paying firm also has business before the court. Apparently, as mentioned below, these were from firms that also contributed to the judge's campaign -- another example of why popular election of judges is so susceptible to problems.]
Justice McCaffery was not required to disclose the amounts of the fees in the financial disclosures, but a court filing last year revealed that one fee paid to Ms. Rapaport was $821,000, the Inquirer has reported. [That is an absurdly high fee -- it's not that hard to find a good lawyer, and most lawyers make valuable referrals for free. One concern is whether this is being disclosed to the client or just passed through in inflated fees or expenses. In the contingent fee world, the referral fee becomes a smaller contingent fee for the co-counsel, but there's not supposed to be any adverse impact on the client.]
All of the law firms and their lawyers have made campaign donations to Justice McCaffery, and some have argued cases in front of him, the Inquirer has reported. …
It was not immediately clear whether the order will definitively bar the practice of referring people to law firms in exchange for a fee. …
A lawyer for Justice McCaffery and Ms. Rapaport has told the Inquirer that the legal fees she received to refer people to law firms did not constitute the practice of law or a conflict of interest for Justice McCaffery. [If she's not even a lawyer, this is a very odd sort of "referral" fee and the amounts are bizarrely high. I do agree, however, that one does not need to be a lawyer to refer someone and, if referral fees are alright for lawyers, they might as well be paid to non-lawyers, too. The better situation, especially from the client's perspective, is to pay fees only to lawyers, however, who perform services that justify the fee.]
Justice Castille told the Inquirer for a story published in March that the fees raise the potential for conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety. [That's an understatement.] …
Scrutiny of Justice McCaffery follows the February conviction of another state Supreme Court justice, Joan Orie Melvin, on charges that she used her taxpayer-paid judicial staff and resources to help wage her campaigns for the seat. [Yet another example of the perils of popular election of judges. Of course, this puts honest judges at a disadvantage when huge amounts of special interest money floods an election.]
One can only wonder what the law firms paying these amounts were thinking. And you also have to wonder how such large sums were was passed through, directly or indirectly, to their clients.
This is just one step from auctioning off judgeships, which might then be followed by auctioning off the actual decisions. How much would special interests pay, for example, to reverse Roe v. Wade or Bush v. Gore or Citizens United or the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) decision? I suppose paying $1 million or so for a single judge just makes economic sense to some lawyers and law professors who advocate that sort of practical economic analysis for all things legal. Maybe this would solve budget problems for lots of courts, not just judges who aspire to hold a job with such a low salary.
So many members of the public, especially those ground down by the legal system, already suspect that it is corrupt. Just one story like this tends to increase their anger and frustration even more, undoing the efforts and honest behavior of all the judges who work hard and live on the paycheck they earn.
Local Paper: Pa. high court targets private legal work by staff
