So began the conversation
that marked the beginning of the end of my 23-year career with the
Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility.1 In this as in several important life events,
excitement prevented me from handling the situation with poise and
composure. In fact, it likely
added to my expanding humility resume, which I am told may benefit
me in my next position.
Leaving as Director to become a judge is bittersweet. The exciting challenges that lie ahead are juxtaposed
with melancholy feelings over cutting ties with a system and a position
that has provided unlimited opportunities to learn the law, work with
truly excellent people, and experience a variety of legal matters
rarely afforded to most lawyers over an entire career.
Some have commented that the business of disciplining lawyers
must get old. Although lawyer
discipline is often difficult, frustrating and sometimes sad, I can
honestly say that after 23 years I enjoy working here just as much,
if not more, than when I started.
LOOKING BACK
When I started as law clerk over two decades ago, I never
dreamed I would stay this long, let alone be appointed Director. I vividly recall delivering my first dictation
to the word processing pool only to have the frustrated word processor
flip the cassette tape back onto my desk and chastise me “to learn
how to dictate, cuz we ain’t typing that crap.”
As a clerk I was also a hoax victim courtesy of one of
the office lawyers. Having
been told that I needed to keep my suit jacket on at all times in
case a Supreme Court justice visited the office, I endured at least
two uncomfortable summers before realizing that justice sightings
in the office were less frequent than solar eclipses.2 It is quite possible that ordeals of this nature
spawned my desire to become Director.
CHANGES
When I look back, I sometimes wonder how the office was
able to operate in the early years.
When I started, the office employed only five lawyers, it now
has nine. Our complaint tracking system was composed of
3 x 5 index cards written in pencil so that address changes
could be accomplished with an eraser.
Vetting a lawyer’s disciplinary record required manually searching
multiple sets of index card systems and often pulling the physical
files. Today, complaints are electronically logged
within minutes of receipt and lawyer discipline history is instantly
available.
At the beginning of my tenure, the advisory opinion service
had been suspended due to lack of resources.
In the late 1990s the volume of advisory opinion requests began
to exceed the number of ethics complaints filed each year.
Last year nearly 2000 advisory opinions were issued to Minnesota
lawyers and judges.3
In the early 1980s as today, the Director wrote this monthly
professional responsibility column.
The office lawyers also appeared at a handful of CLE
seminars. Now monthly ethics
columns appear in two publications and dozens of CLE
appearances are made by office lawyers annually. In addition, a wealth of Minnesota ethics resources
are available on the office’s Web site and by the time this article
appears, the public and the bar should be able to search the record
of all Minnesota lawyers who have been publicly disciplined.4
Other changes involve advancements in case investigation
and prosecution techniques. Trust
account audits to establish lawyer theft have evolved from pencils
and ledger paper to sophisticated electronic spreadsheets that track
individual client balances in color-coded fonts and calculate daily
shortages to the penny. Where necessary, experts are routinely secured
to provide forensic assistance in handwriting analysis, psychiatric
and psychological assessment, and more recently where proof issues
focus upon computer hard drive analysis.
Probably the most significant change, however, has been
the elevation of the status of professional responsibility and legal
ethics as a recognized discipline of law.
Twenty years ago, far fewer lawyers deemed professional responsibility
worthy of their constant time and attention.
Today it is the atypical lawyer or law firm who fails to make
professional responsibility a priority in the practice of law.
Cynical observers attribute the legal profession’s heightened
sense of ethics to the corporate scandals and indictments or ethical
lapses of government officials that have plagued the country over
the last decade. While these events may have played some role,
my belief is different. After
issuing over a thousand advisory opinions, it is my perception most
lawyers do not seek ethical guidance due to fear of professional discipline,
but because as professionals they appreciate the value and importance
of ethical compliance and the role it plays in delivering quality
legal services.
THANK YOU
After this many years, there are too many people to thank
by name in a single article. To
the Minnesota Supreme Court I express my sincere appreciation for
the opportunities provided to me, not only as Director but also as
a young lawyer, and then a not-so-young lawyer, to argue numerous
cases. When I first started,
I longed for the day that I could argue cases without the attendant
anxiety and stomach butterflies. Some
time ago I realized that that day will never come and that anxiety
and butterflies are “good things.”
One of the true benefits of employment with the office
has been the opportunity to work along side truly great lawyers. The list of Lawyers Board chairs during my tenure
(Bob Henson, John Levine, Charles Kennedy, Greg Bistram, Chuck Lundberg,
and Kent Gernander) is legendary.
If a Hall of Fame existed
for the Minnesota bar, all would be charter members.
I owe a debt of great gratitude to former directors under
whose tutelage I acquired much of the knowledge and skills that enabled
me to become Director. Special
thanks to Bill Wernz and Judge Ed Cleary.
Bill not only taught me volumes about legal ethics, but had
enduring patience with me as a young, sometimes over eager lawyer.
Ed schooled me in the art of being politic without being political
and broke a long-standing curse,5 thereby paving the way for my judicial
aspirations.
I will miss my dedicated and loyal staff, some with whom
I have worked for my entire 23 years and many others for more than
a decade. Many things have changed over these years:
when I started I was a nonlawyer, unmarried without children,
and did not possess a single gray hair on my head. As I leave, I am about to become a judge, have
a lovely wife, two wonderful children, and am just happy to still
have hair on my head regardless of its color.
What has not changed or even wavered during this very long
time is the staff’s undying loyalty and ongoing commitment to quality
performance.
Finally, I would like to thank the lawyers of Minnesota. During my term as Director there was nothing
but unanimous support for aggressive but fair enforcement of the ethical
standards. The respect demonstrated
for my office is a testament to your commitment to being true professionals. I include in this group those lawyers whose
association with me took place under less than ideal circumstances. Many of you exhibited class and professionalism,
even in the most arduous times. The respect and dignity you afforded me as Director
did not go unnoticed. I’ve
had a good run. c
NOTES
1. On November 3, 2005, Governor
Pawlenty announced that he was appointing Fridley lawyer William Ekstrum
and me to the two Washington County District Court openings created
by the retirements of Judges Gary Meyer and Steven Muehlberg.
2. Ironically,
nearly a decade later, Justice Paul Anderson turned this urban myth
into reality with his regular appearances in the office to express
the Court’s appreciation for the staff’s efforts.
I doubt that rarely, if ever, was I wearing a suit jacket.
3. In 2004 there
were 1,147 ethics complaints and 1,974 advisory opinion requests.
4. The Web site
address is www.courts.state.mn.us/lprb. For over 20 years, records of public discipline
have been available to the public upon request. By mid-December 2005 the office hopes to go
online with a feature on the Web site enabling the public and the
bar to search public discipline decisions by lawyer.
5. The Curse: a former Supreme Court justice once theorized
that because of the nature of lawyer discipline work, no lawyer employed
in the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility would ever be
appointed to judicial office.
KENNETH L. JORGENSEN is director of the Office
of Lawyers Professional Responsibility.
He has served the cause of lawyers’ self-regulation in Minnesota
for over 20 years.
