OMFG, WTF!
Two prominent Boston lawyers have been disbarred for ethics violations. Here's the story in full as reported by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and the decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court - one for Crossen and one for Curry. But in short, Gary C. Crossen1 and Kevin P. Curry were reportedly disbarred for hatching the following plan to discredit Judge Maria Lopez and force her to recuse herself from presiding over the famous Demoulas case/internecine family battle in Superior Court:
1. Tell your clients that the presiding judge, Judge Lopez, is biased and that the case is 'fixed'.
2. Hire a private investigator to set up a sham job interview with Lopez' law clerk.
3. During the fake interview, question the law clerk about Lopez' personal character, professional character, and decision-making process in the then-ongoing lawsuit. Oh, yeah - and secretly tape-record it!
4. Use the tape recording to coerce the law clerk into signing affidavits against the Judge.
The tactic failed.
One attorney commented (very aptly, I think), when someone suggested that a mob mentality was at work: "....they conceived of the scheme, which was blatantly -- nay, insanely -- unethical from its conception, and they nurtured it from a disturbed infant through crazy adolescence and into full-grown lunatic....[r]eally, it departs from the 'What Were They Thinking' category and veers strongly over the line into well-established 'WTF' territory.""
Ain't no denying.
1 Also, Crossen apparently was a former prosecutor, chaired the Judicial Nominating Committee, and was twice ethics counsel to Republican governors.