Helpfully included is the actual petition filed by the Florida Bar seeking an emergency suspension. The petition is bottomed on Florida specific rules, including their very specific Rule 4-8.4:
A lawyer shall not (d)engage in conduct in connection with the practice of law that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, including to knowingly, or through callous indifference, disparage, humiliate, or discriminate against litigants, jurors, witnesses, court personnel, or other lawyers on any basis, including, but not limited to, on account of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status, employment, or physical characteristic.
While California has adopted to more vanilla version of Rule 8.4(d) that refers only to conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, it is not inconceivable that our new rule might give discipline prosecutors a vehicle to reach similar certain types of conduct that up to now have seemed beyond reach of the California discipline system since the demise of the “offensive personality” statute in 1997 after it was found unconstitutional vague in United States v. Wunsch.
David C. Carr ~ Ethics Lawyer
David C. Carr, an attorney in private practice in San Diego, California, specializes in ethics advice to lawyers, California State Bar discipline defense, and attorney licensing.
Mr. Carr is a 1986 graduate of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Following several years of practice in commercial law and business litigation, Mr. Carr joined the State Bar of California as a staff attorney in 1989, where he served as a staff attorney, a discipline prosecutor and a manager in discipline enforcement office before returning to private practice in 2001.
Mr. Carr is a member of the San Diego County Bar Association, where he is active on the Legal Ethics Committee. He is a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL), the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, and the Association of Discipline Defense Counsel (ADDC), where he served as president from 2008 through 2011. He is also a member of the State Bar's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (COPRAC) for the 2018-2021 term. Mr. Carr is an adjunct faculty member at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where he has taught professional responsibility.
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