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Thanks for the link. The families likely don't have many affordable places to turn. The name shocked me since I'd seen it while searching on the NLG, and on how VVAW recruited people for their theatrical 'atrocity' testimony, and then up it comes again here when I clicked on this random FR thread with a vague title. The affiliation mentioned elsewhere could just have been that he's been involved with cases the NLG folks glommed onto and not have a thing to do with actual membership or common ideology. I jumped the gun and assumed it must mean membership, and that makes me as guilty as the press was when it assumed the word 'operative' meant 'covert operative' when Novak used it in reference to Plame.

Since my nephew's a Marine over there and the antiwar wingnuts threaten to undermine what he's fighting for I'm getting a really bad trigger finger on this keyboard. I shouldn't use it so readily, instead pinging others and just asked them to add what they know about the guy without saying more.

As to the question "Should clients inquire about their lawyer's membership in groups which could have a conflict of interest with the case?" They shouldn't have to ask. The lawyer should be absolutely transparent on such things so their clients can weigh the pros and cons of using his services. He should be transparent even if he's the only choice the client has.

That's not to say that this gentleman is a member of anything or that he hasn't been transparent to his clients. I certainly didn't prove his membership in anything and only the clients can judge his transparency, so I requested that my post be deleted.