October 2009

Letters to the Editor

Bar News welcomes letters from readers. We do not run letters that have been printed in, or are pending before, other legal publications with overlapping readership. Letters must be no more than 250 words in length, and e-mailed to letterstotheeditor@wsba.org or mailed to: WSBA, Attn. Letters to the Editor, 1325 Fourth Ave., Ste. 600, Seattle, WA 98101-2539. Bar News reserves the right to edit letters. Bar News does not print anonymous letters, or more than one submission per month from the same contributor.

Mark Johnson, in the August Bar News, writes that the legal profession is a monopoly controlled by the Supreme Court through an express grant of power in Article 4 of the State Constitution. Article 4 grants judicial power to the Supreme Court and contains no grant of authority to regulate lawyer conduct. Lawyers are the opponents of the court in that their job is to protect their clients from the power of the court. They are not part of the judiciary, and the court has no inherent power over them. Nor is the legal profession a monopoly because lawyers compete with each other and other professions. Separation of power requires that legislation of lawyer rules and judging of lawyer rules be in different branches of government. Prosecution must be in the third branch. As it now stands there is no check or balance against the acts of the Supreme Court. The constitution also provides that justice in all cases shall be administered openly and without unnecessary delay. A system of adjudication which is concealed from the public and everyone except lawyers and judges violates at least the spirit of this provision. The same is true of mandatory arbitration.
 
Roger B. Ley, Astoria, Oregon

WSBA GENERAL COUNSEL ROBERT WELDEN RESPONDS: The Washington Supreme Court has held “that the regulation of the practice of law in this state is within the inherent power of this court” and that “the power to make the necessary rules and regulations governing the bar was intended to be vested exclusively in the supreme court, free from the dangers of encroachment either by the legislative or executive branches.” Graham v. Bar Association, 86 Wn.2d 624, 631, 633 (1976), citation omitted. In addition, lawyer discipline in Washington is public. See Disciplinary Notices, p. 51.