Columbia law prof facing probe over campus-protest comments says firm ‘abruptly’ dropped her as client

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 09:15:06 +0000

Law Professors

Columbia law prof facing probe over campus-protest comments says firm ‘abruptly’ dropped her as client

October 22, 2024, 3:50 pm CDT

A Columbia Law School professor has said in an ethics complaint a law firm “abandoned” her as a client during a probe of her comments about campus protests “with no notice and no explanation.” (Photo from Shutterstock)

Professor Katherine Franke said she had hired employee-side firm Outten & Golden to represent her in a school investigation of her January comments supporting pro-Palestinian students in an interview with Democracy Now!, an independent news program. She learned that she had been “abruptly” dropped in a July 12 letter, according to an Oct. 16 press release posted last week on X, formerly known as Twitter, along with her ethics complaint.

The Outten & Golden lawyer representing Franke, Kathleen Peratis, resigned in protest.

Reuters, Bloomberg Law and the Columbia Spectator have coverage.

Franke filed the Sept. 12 ethics complaint with an attorney grievance committee in New York. In a letter attached to the complaint, Peratis alleged that Outten & Golden dropped Franke as a client “because they believed that Professor Franke had become politically controversial.”

Adam Klein, managing partner at Outten & Golden, said in a statement the firm did not violate ethics rules, according to the Columbia Spectator. Klein said the firm dropped Franke after deciding that it would not handle employee speech matters related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“We did this after much consideration, and with the good of our firm and the well-being of our diverse workforce in mind,” the statement said.

The law school investigation initially stemmed from this comment by Franke: “So many of those Israeli students who come to the Columbia campus are coming right out of their military service and have been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus.” The school was investigating whether the comment constituted harassment based on national origin.

In the press release, Franke said firms have an ethical duty of loyalty to their clients after they agree to represent them.

Franke said on X her treatment by Outten & Golden “is part of a larger profession-wide problem, a McCarthy-ite reprisal against anyone who defends the dignity and rights of Palestinians. In job interviews, firms are asking my law students: ‘Are you, or have you ever been, a defender of Palestinians?’”

Klein told the Columbia Spectator that Outten & Golden was representing Franke on a pro bono basis, but the required internal approvals were not secured. Peratis told Bloomberg Law that any allegation that she circumvented firm rules before taking on the case were “absolutely, flatly false.”

Peratis told Bloomberg Law that she continues to represent Franke through the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization.

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Is ex-DOJ official facing ethics trial for ‘thought crime’? His election-fraud letter was based on sincerely held belief, lawyer says

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 16:42:24 +0000

Ethics

Is ex-DOJ official facing ethics trial for ‘thought crime’? His election-fraud letter was based on sincerely held belief, lawyer says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2024, 10:01 am CDT

Jeffrey Clark, then-assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14, 2020. (Photo by Susan Walsh/The Associated Press)

A former Department of Justice official accused of drafting a letter with false allegations of election fraud that he hoped to send to Georgia officials did not violate ethics rules, his lawyer said at a disciplinary hearing Tuesday.

Jeffrey Clark, who was the acting chief of the DOJ’s Civil Division, is facing ethics charges for “”what amounts to a thought crime,” Clark’s lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, said in an opening statement Tuesday.

Law360 reported the remark. The Washington Post, Legal Ethics Roundup, Law.com and Reuters are among the other publications with hearing coverage.

Clark had asked other department officials to sign the letter, but they refused, according to the charges by the District of Columbia Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Clark then told those officials that former President Donald Trump had offered him the job of acting U.S. attorney general, and he was thinking of accepting it if the letter was not sent.

The two officials, then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen and then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, told Trump that he should expect all the assistant attorneys general to resign if Clark became the acting attorney general. Clark did not get the job.

Clark’s draft letter claimed that the DOJ had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia.”

Hamilton P. “Phil” Fox III, the lead prosecuting attorney in the discipline case, said Tuesday during the hearing Clark engaged in “coercive tactics to get this letter sent” and what he was trying to do “was essentially a coup at the Department of Justice,” according to Law360.

MacDougald emphasized that the letter was never sent, the Washington Post reports.

“This was an internal debate and an internal disagreement. The letter was never released by Mr. Clark or by the president,” he said. “Mr. Clark did nothing wrong in having a different opinion from his Justice superiors, especially when it was sincerely held, as the evidence will show.”

Clark is also facing criminal charges in the Georgia election-interference case against Trump.

The ethics charges allege that Clark tried to engage in conduct involving dishonesty by trying to send the letter with false statements, and that Clark tried to engage in conduct that would seriously interfere with the administration of justice.

The hearing, which is streaming live on YouTube, is happening before a committee of the D.C. Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility, which will make a recommendation to the full board if it finds ethics violations, Reuters explains. After action by the full board, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has the final say on discipline.

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Columbia law prof facing probe over campus-protest comments says firm ‘abruptly’ dropped her as client