Posted on 07/24/2003 2:41:23 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - The lawyer who represented Al Gore in the hotly contested Florida post-election recount in 2000 is now facing ethics charges in what one local newspaper described as a "bizarre" case.
The Florida Bar's grievance committee found probable cause to charge David Boies with three counts of ethics violations. The ruling on July 10 accused Boies of misconduct, giving financial assistance to a client and improperly supervising other lawyers.
The bar's finding is comparable to an indictment, and a judge appointed by the Florida Supreme Court will hear the case. No timeline for resolving the matter has been set.
Boies could be barred from appearing in state courts in Florida if the bar finds him guilty of the charges. He is not currently licensed to practice law in the state, so he cannot be formally disbarred. However, Boies is allowed to practice in the state on a case-by-case basis.
Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), called the charges against Boies "very strong."
"The bar is notorious for not punishing wayward lawyers. The fact that this case has gone this far with a lawyer as prominent as David Boies really underscores the seriousness of these charges," Boehm told CNSNews.com. The NLPC is a conservative legal watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.
In addition to representing Gore in the losing recount effort, Boies headed the federal government's anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft and has been consistently recognized as one of the nation's most influential lawyers by the National Law Journal.
Corporations such as CBS, DuPont and the New York Yankees have also been among Boies' clients.
Boies' office refused to comment on the ethics charges when contacted by CNSNews.com on Wednesday, but James Fox Miller of Fort Lauderdale, a business partner of Boies, was quoted by the Palm Beach Post Saturday as saying: "It's a shame [Boies has] been accused of something like this, and I'm upset about it."
Miller, the former head of the Florida Bar, said that Boies had never been censured during his legal career, which has lasted more than 30 years.
'Bizarre legal battle'
Boies' ethics charges stem from what the Palm Beach Post called a "bizarre legal battle" involving a local dispute between two lawn-care companies competing for the lucrative Palm Beach territory.
The landscaping legal woes that led to Boies' ethics charges originated in a breach of contract dispute between the companies in 1996, in which Boies represented one of the parties.
The legal battle between Amy Habie, owner of Nical of Palm Beach, Inc., and Scott and Carol Lewis of Scott Lewis Gardening & Trimming has been waging for seven years. The underlying dispute was settled in 1998, but post-settlement disputes continue over legal compliance issues.
Boies' Armonk, N.Y.-based firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner provided years' worth of free legal service to Habie while paying other lawyers more than $400,000 in fees. Habie was made a chief financial officer in Boies' law firm, with a salary of $120,000 a year, according to the paper, which quoted court documents.
Repeated suits called 'a sad commentary'
Habie's lawsuits have resulted in her being sanctioned by the courts nine times over the years, including three contempt of court orders, according to Lewis.
Circuit Court Judge David Crow called the series of lawsuits by Boies on Habie's behalf "a sad commentary on the inability of the legal system and the courts of our state to resolve a simple contract dispute, when one is willing to litigate without regard to costs."
But Boies has a family trust that is a part owner of Habie's lawn-care company, holding a minority interest in the company, according to court papers.
Lewis, who has acted as his own attorney in much of the legal proceedings despite having no legal background, is not impressed with Boies' skills as a lawyer.
"I am a gardener," Lewis told CNSNews.com. "Everybody sees David Boies as a genius, and I don't see it. I see Goliath falling.
"Boies wants to be remembered for serving the law, but in this case, he acted above the law," Lewis charged.
State bar has tackled legal legends
Boehm pointed to famed attorney F. Lee Bailey's 2001 disbarment on ethics charges from the Florida Bar as an indication that the bar may not be intimated by Boies' powerful connections. "If I were David Boies, I would be very concerned about the charges," Boehm said.
The impact of being found guilty of the ethics charges on Boies may be mixed, according to Boehm.
"But the public does expect people that have as much influence as Mr. Boies to behave responsibly, and this could have a very negative impact on his career," Boehm added.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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I fear he's home free
"I am a gardener," Lewis told CNSNews.com.
The gardener beat him?
No, and that's impressive.
For the big words, I'll open a separate window to Merriam-Webster Online
Well Kazaa, Morpheus, and the rest have all won againist RIAA, so much for not being able to win.
Boise is an absolute failure, his performance in Florida was proof of that.
Phil Beck took each of Boise "expert wittnesses" and one by one disemboweled them, it was fun to watch.
You need to get your fact straight.
They are the ones who are illegally distributing other people's copyrighted software, since they are currently in violation of the GPL, but are still distributing kernels.
They also want to sell per-seat licenses to software that cannot legally be licensed that way.
But, you knew that already, didn't you? You just had to get in your daily (or is it hourly) shot at Linux.
To say Boise is some techno wizard is a stretch. Boise doesn't use a PC and is well known for being proud of that.
I've met numerous lawyers but only a couple that I thought had any real imagination. Overall, they create more problems than they solve and they only solve problems when it appears that the money they have been paid to work on solving a problem is about to run out.
Yes it was. I met Mr. Beck at the time, he liked the poster sign I held on the courthouse steps (many thanks to Registered) and even gave me an official copy off the top of a stack he had of a legal brief he was dropping off at the court that day.
Morpheus/RIAA trials are still going on, guess we'll just have to see how they all turn out. I hope Morpheus loses like Napster did because I don't support the free and unregulated distribution of copyrighted material. Apple's new system is far superior.
Isn't kazaa hosted in some foreign country? Indonesia or some other area close to there?
Yeah it would be. Which is why I never said it. Tech industry was the quote, I believe. Sorry you missed it.
Well that is clearly your opinion, but I guess we'll have to see if anyone is willing to bring those charges forward. So far we haven't seen anyone willing to do so. If you are confident of your own ability to make this charge in court, by all means, be my guest.
However, several of the authors of various parts of the kernel have already filed a lawsuit against SCO on this basis, and we will learn more in the discovery phase, which has not yet arrived.
The Judge ruled that the Universal vs Sony case applies. (Sony Betamax VCR)
Apple's new system is far superior.
But Riaa has been accused of antitrust for wanting to control the music downloads.
She'll get on her knees for anyone who carries the stench of Klintoon
Haven't seen anything about this. Is this overseas perhaps?
How could I not remember? It's not that often that a lawyer lies to the court so boldly. Pullen v. Mulligan denied dimpled ballots were indicative of voter intent. Boies stated that Pullen upheld dimples as evidence of intent.
Sounds like the fix is in.
There are people talking about filing such cases, but I don't think it could have happened yet because until SCO actually sells one of these licenses, and some money changes hands, they haven't actually done anything.
So far they haven't even made an offer to sell such a license, and I doubt they ever will. An "offer to sell" has to include a description of the thing to be sold, a price, and a set of terms and conditions. You'll notice they have carefully stayed away from naming any of those things. They are simply blowing smoke in the air, saying things like, "Well, it'll sorta be like this and the price will be similar to other things." But no actual offer to sell at a price.
I suspect they will never, ever, offer for sale anything called a "license to use linux." All the paperwork will say you're buying a license to use UNIXware. The threat will remain unstated in the offer-to-sell, and in the paperwork. There will therefore never be an on-paper "violation of the GPL" for a kernel developer to sue over. SCO wil say they are not licensing linux; they are licensing their own product, UNIXware, which these fine people decided to buy out of the goodness of their hearts.
They have to do it that way, because otherwise they open themselves up to charges of 'misrepresentation of need.' They can never actually come right out and say, "You need to buy this in order to run linux." They could only say that after their claim to owning something in linux is upheld. To date it has not been, and it may never be.
I look for a very clever just-this-side-of-the-law "encouragement" from SCO to buy UNIXware licenses. They'll never say you need it. It'll be more like the mob... "Nice bank account you have there. Shame if anything should happen to it." But nothing directly tied to the UNIXware license.
It'll be interesting to see whether SCO ever actually sues anybody, the way they say they're going to. It's an easy bluff to call. The first guy in the barrel gets an all-expenses-paid defense from OSDL. That's cheap, and it tells everybody else to relax — the case will still be in court when Hell freezes over. SCO can file more, but those are natural "consolidation" candidates because they're all the same issue. Bluff called; FUD alert cancelled. Tune in six years from now, to see if anything's changed.
Ah, you must not have dial-up like I do. It takes too long to pull up another site like that on dial up. I have always liked spelling, I don't know why. Not always good at it, but I like it.
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