Bad Lawyers

A pair of news stories today that don’t give lawyers that sterling reputation we’ve earned over the years…cough…ahem.

Stuart Levine, who admitted to cocaine romps and other hi-jinks in the Tony Rezko trial was disbarred today for overall sleaziness.

A far less salacious, but no less unethical issue, is that of Scott Robert Erwin who was charging his client by the lap dance.

Now, Stuart Levine had personal demons that caused him to spend the night doing crazy drug binges…but Mr. Levine has a lot more ’splainin to do. It’s easy for an attorney to talk about drugs and alcohol, lawyers have one of the highest addiction rates of any profession, but strippers in the office? Working off their fee?

Ironically, barter isn’t exactly unheard of in the legal world. When my dad was in private practice he had a client who couldn’t pay his bill. My parents had just built their house and had a gun metal gray front door. My dad’s client worked in a body shop and offered to paint it. So my dad had him color it Camaro Red (the Chinese paint doors red as a good luck symbol) and that satisfied the tab.

Of course, painting your house and taking your clothes off…different ends of the ethical scale.