WP: Appeals Court Nominee Let His Bar Dues Lapse

[kskiska]

President Bush's most recent nominee to the federal appeals court in Washington practiced law for three years in the District without a valid license because he did not pay his annual dues to the local bar association.

Thomas B. Griffith reported in his nomination questionnaire that his membership with the D.C. Bar -- a requirement for practicing law in the District -- was suspended from November 1998 until November 2001 "due to a clerical oversight." During that period, Griffith was the legal counsel representing the Senate in the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, in 1998 and 1999 and a partner in the D.C. law firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding in 1999 and 2000.

Griffith, who now is general counsel for Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and whom Bush nominated last month to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, declined to comment on his licensing lapse when reached by telephone yesterday.

The Justice Department acknowledged the lapse yesterday and said Griffith took the appropriate steps to be reinstated into the D.C. Bar as soon as he learned of the problem in late 2001, after he moved his practice to Utah.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13945-2004Jun3.html

[DoveTurnedHawk]

1. Uhh...As a Lawyer, I Can Say This Is a Major Fuckup

Returning your bar dues and satisfying your mandatory continuing legal education requirements (assuming DC has those) are a fundamental given. You have to do that shit every year (or in the case of MCLE, every couple of years), or else.

I guess I could see some high-fallutin' senior partner type delegating that payment to his law firm assistant, but if it were me, I'd still check to make sure that KEY task had been accomplished, each and every year. And the assistant who screwed that up would be fired IMMEDIATELY.

DTH

[jburton]

2. Faith-based law practice

He would fit in with the * administration very well.