HOW many bad lawyers??

What on earth is going on out there? On earth? Today I picked up these two stories. The first is from Lowering the Bar and is mind-boggling:

Assorted Stupidity #67

  • Man, the California State Bar is really cracking down these days. Slip up just 810 times and they’ll insist on disbarring you. Try to save them a bunch of work by stipulating to misconduct in 14 cases, and do you get any credit? No, it’s all “look at these other 796 complaints.” Please.

That was the inimitable Kevin Underhill’s comment in reporting this wild story. Here, from a California state bar journal, is the actual news item. You’ll see the journal, probably appropriately, took it somewhat more grimly than did Underhill, whom I bless every day for his finely honed sense of the ridiculous: Attorney who drew 800-plus complaints agrees to disbarment.

And then in today’s Daily News, this hard copy headline, “Fake lawyer gets 50 yrs in $5M scam.” Here’s the very short, hugely startling item: Queens man sentenced up to 50 years for posing as a lawyer, investment adviser – NY Daily News.

I am now possessed of a burning desire to tell you all about a man I was once forced to meet who was an “investment adviser” and lawyer, although I suspect he was posing as one of those things, but I won’t. Tell you, that is.

Instead, I’ll point out that this fake lawyer, Mohammed Rafikian, “convinced one victim to give him $3.2 million to invest.” All of you know never to give a “lawyer-investment adviser” your $3.2 million to invest, right?

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