DC BEAs & 8.3

DC’s BEAs have not only never enforced 8.3, they have also misrepresented their reasons for doing so, thus violating 8.4) (prohibiting misrepresentations even outside of the context of legal proceedings).

When asked about DC’s lack of 8.3 enforcement during a January 22, 2018 webinar on ethics, the head of D.C.’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel (“ODC”) responded, “The problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know.” But that’s plainly not the problem, as Bar Counsel has knowingly ignored hundreds of 8.3 violations. As examples, the ABA and others have in 2010 and 2014, respectively, have publicly identified failures by the Department of Justice for failing to report even egregious violations to the DC Bar.  Of 400 “reckless or intentional” violations that DOJ itself found its attorneys to have committed, DOJ identified less than 5% as having been reported to the D.C. Bar. This despite that the 400 were the most egregious of a still-larger pool of 650 violations in just that 10-year period. After years of inaction, in 1999 Congress made clear through the McDade Act that all DOJ attorneys who work in D.C. must comply with D.C.’s Rules. Because D.C.’s Rules include 8.3, the ODC Head’s 2018 statement is a Rule 8.4 misrepresentation at best.

DC’s BEAs have also ignored dozens of 8.3 and other violations by attorneys in just the still-concealed matter that has already caused over $150M in harm (not just to third parties but also to the violating attorneys’ clients). The violations include fraud, directions to destroy evidence revealing the fraud, and threats to sue if the fraud and other violations are reported. They are dispositively proven in a Dec. 23, 2015 report to DC’s Board on Professional Responsibility, but still the Bar has done nothing. Further information of these violations could likely be provided once DC’s BEAs respond to NDA-related inquiries posed to them in 2015, 2017 and 2020.