TaxProf Blog/NY Sun: President Clinton's Bar Suspension Ends Thursday

[DeepModem Mom]

January 17, 2006
President Clinton's Bar Suspension Ends Thursday


Interesting article in this morning's New York Sun (http://www.nysun.com/article/25965): Clinton Eligible, Once Again, To Practice Law, by Josh Gerstein:

After five years of banishment from the legal profession, President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath to questions about his relationship with a White House intern.

Mr. Clinton's suspension from the Arkansas bar, which he formally agreed to a day before leaving office in 2001, expires on Thursday. It is unclear whether the former president will seek reinstatement to the bar, but officials in Arkansas have been preparing for such a request....

A professor of legal ethics at New York University, Stephen Gillers, said he expected Mr. Clinton would seek to reclaim his Arkansas bar membership. "It would just be personal vindication," the professor said. "If he is admitted, he may see it as confirmation of his claim that the original transgression was not as bad as some made it out to be." Mr. Gillers said a law license also could help Mr. Clinton financially, by allowing him to become a rainmaker at a New York or Washington law firm....

While there appears to be little standing in the way of Mr. Clinton's reinstatement to the Arkansas bar, rules for admission in New York and Washington could pose a challenge to him quickly joining those bars. Admission by reciprocity to the New York bar requires that an applicant show that he or she has spent five of the last seven years working as a lawyer....Mr. Gillers noted that at any point Mr. Clinton could try to gain admission to the New York or Washington bars by taking the bar examination. Like other bar applicants, he would also have to demonstrate good moral character.


http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2006/01/president_clint.html

[rfranklin]

1. Just do it to make the freepers wet their pants....

They will no longer have that to crow about.

[ktlyon]

2. hopefully he will go for it in Arkansas

then I'm sure if he took the test he would pass

[dubyaD40web]

3. President Clinton's Bar Suspension Ends Thursday

President Clinton's Bar Suspension Ends Thursday

After five years of banishment from the legal profession, President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath to questions about his relationship with a White House intern.

Mr. Clinton's suspension from the Arkansas bar, which he formally agreed to a day before leaving office in 2001, expires on Thursday. It is unclear whether the former president will seek reinstatement to the bar, but officials in Arkansas have been preparing for such a request....

A professor of legal ethics at New York University, Stephen Gillers, said he expected Mr. Clinton would seek to reclaim his Arkansas bar membership. "It would just be personal vindication," the professor said. "If he is admitted, he may see it as confirmation of his claim that the original transgression was not as bad as some made it out to be." Mr. Gillers said a law license also could help Mr. Clinton financially, by allowing him to become a rainmaker at a New York or Washington law firm....

While there appears to be little standing in the way of Mr. Clinton's reinstatement to the Arkansas bar, rules for admission in New York and Washington could pose a challenge to him quickly joining those bars. Admission by reciprocity to the New York bar requires that an applicant show that he or she has spent five of the last seven years working as a lawyer....Mr. Gillers noted that at any point Mr. Clinton could try to gain admission to the New York or Washington bars by taking the bar examination. Like other bar applicants, he would also have to demonstrate good moral character.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2006/01/president_clint.html

[Brundle_Fly]

4. whoohoo

and maybe he'll make himself the special prosecutor for the NSA case....


maybe....


eh?

[Brundle_Fly]

5. whoohoo

and maybe he'll make himself the special prosecutor for the NSA case....


maybe....


eh?

[Deep13]

6. What a fucking joke!

Yeah, I'm sure he was sweatting out the hours until he could start representing divorce clients and accident victims in Arkansas. The whole thing just seemed like a really peevish way to take a shot at a great man.

[catabryna]

7. Under the Rules of Professional Conduct...

The Arkansas Bar had to take action whether politics were involved or not. I didn't like it, but I understood why Bill voluntarily gave up his license. He would have been suspended or disbarred. In the early 1990s when I worked for Bar Counsel at the State Bar of Nevada in the attorney discipline department, we had to handle the license reinstatement of impeached Federal Judge, Harry Claiborne who had been disbarred. If old Harry could get his license back, and he did, so can the Big Dawg.

[cmkramer]

8. If I remember correctly

Wasn't this a result of some rightwing legal group -- not Larry Klayman -- who sued to have Clinton's law license suspended? If I recall, all Clinton-appointed judges recused themselves leaving only Freeper types to decide the case.

In the end, as part of his "settlement" with the Independent Counsel, Clinton agreed to the 5-year suspension and to a lifetime ban against arguing cases before The Supreme Court.

[catabryna]

9. Well, they may have pushed for it...

whoever the Freep was, however, he/she/they/it suing to have his license suspended is just not how it's done. Now, of course, you can sue for whatever you want, but a lawsuit was not going to result in the loss of his license. Not just any judge can yank a law license. There are procedures that have to be followed and the initiating event is generally a written complaint to the Bar Association (or whatever authority has jurisdiction in a particular state) at which time an investigation is initiated which can either be dismissed for referred for further action. It would have mandated some sort of an investigation.

That being said, I'm sure there were negotiations between the disciplinary authorities and Bill's attorneys and this was probably best way to handle this. Disciplinary actions are supposed to be private until they result in some sort of public discipline, but we can be assured that there would have been nothing private about this matter and had he tried to keep his license... well, all hell would have broken loose and it would have resulted in another circus.