“Trump attorneys risk disciplinary action over wave of election suits”

John Kruzel for The Hill:

The possibility of Trump-allied attorneys facing disciplinary action was in many ways sparked by their woeful win-loss record in court. By some estimates, the campaign and its allies have prevailed in only a minor case affecting a sliver of Pennsylvania mail ballots, while at the same time losing or withdrawing in more than 50 rounds in state and federal court.

“Essentially, the rules require lawyers to screen out junk from the court in order to protect judicial resources, which are limited. Lawyers have a gatekeeper function,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “The abysmal failure rate of the campaign’s claims, and the fact that claims were filed even after many losses, reveal almost certain violations of these rules.”…

Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, said he’s generally opposed to what he called the “weaponization” of legal ethics. In 2017 he penned an essay for Slate pushing back against disciplinary charges filed by law professors against former Trump adviser and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

But Lubet said he views the election-related lawsuits differently to the extent that it can be shown that the lawyers submitted untrue claims in court filings.

“I would not make a similar argument in defense of an attorney’s false claims in federal court litigation,” he said.

Legal ethics rules generally prohibit lawyers from filing frivolous claims, which are those lacking in legal or factual support. Yet even if a legal argument is not considered frivolous, experts said, they can still violate ethics rules if made for an invalid reason.

“The federal rule forbids lawyers from invoking the judicial power for an ‘improper purpose,'” said Gillers of New York University Law School, citing efforts to raise funds or cast doubt on an election as examples of unethical purposes…

till, it’s relatively rare for public sanctions to be applied. According to Deborah Rhode, a law professor at Stanford Law School, fewer than 10 percent of all disciplinary complaints end with public sanctions.

But Rhode said it’s possible that courts or disciplinary bodies could view Trump’s post-election litigation in an especially harsh light given the weighty concerns at hand.

“The conduct of these lawyers was so egregious and the stakes were so high, given the way that suits fed doubts about the legitimacy of the election and the reputation of lawyers, that perhaps some disciplinary authorities will be moved to act,” she said.

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