How Bad Is Stephen Glass? ‘Morally Unfit to Be a Lawyer in California’!

Posted on | January 28, 2014 | 25 Comments

Are California lawyers particularly moral people? However low the threshold of morality to be admitted to the practice of law in California, disgraced journalist Stephen Glass failed to clear it:

The decision is long and citation-filled. It claims to make a rational, precedential case that Glass has not met the legal standard for being a lawyer in California. But reading it as a non-lawyer and a non-Californian, I’m instead struck by its anxious snobbishness. The Committee of Bar Examiners and the Supreme Court justices — every one a lawyer — don’t want to let Glass be a lawyer because they’re embarrassed that anyone could possibly think that he’s like them. He’s not one of us, dear.

David Plotz thinks this is wrong. and maybe he’s got a point: if we kicked all the liars out of journalism, where else could they go?

There are only 535 seats in Congress . . .

Category: Journalism

Comments

25 Responses to “How Bad Is Stephen Glass? ‘Morally Unfit to Be a Lawyer in California’!”

Evi L. Bloggerlady
January 28th, 2014 @ 5:28 pm

You nailed it. They do not want Stephen Glass in their club because they know many of them are just like Stephen Glass.
Trespassers W
January 28th, 2014 @ 5:46 pm

Lawyers have to find someone to look down on.
AMartel
January 28th, 2014 @ 6:07 pm

This is why God invented journalists. Duh.
As a California lawyer I welcome the advent of a real professional standard.
Art Deco
January 28th, 2014 @ 6:09 pm

The irony is that the high class bar is made manifest in Anthony Kennedy et al: practitioners of fraud in the service of subversion of democratic institutions.

Stupid times we live in.
Art Deco
January 28th, 2014 @ 6:11 pm

Actually, I suspect you would find that the rank-and-file general practitioner is neither particularly dishonest or a social problem. Big law is where you find the rent seeking, the prosecutors’ office and the family court bench the malice, and the appellate bench the pretentious fraud.
Escher's House
January 28th, 2014 @ 6:20 pm

Wow, the lawyer hate is heavy in here. I better leave.
DaveO
January 28th, 2014 @ 6:37 pm

Well, lawyers have stripped America of its freedoms, replacing them with codecils, very, very fine print, and created the Special Snowflakes.
I find it amusing that lawyers take offense at being called out about their destruction of the greatest nation on the face of the Earth since before the advent of history.

But stick around, the beer is cold and the water is warm. After you sign a release contract.
rustypaladin
January 28th, 2014 @ 7:16 pm

There are also Lawyers defending the Constitution and the freedom it enforces. There are good and bad.
Dianna Deeley
January 28th, 2014 @ 7:21 pm

That wasn’t Stacy, but can you blame anyone for not wanting people to think they are like Glass.
?
Mm
January 28th, 2014 @ 7:26 pm

But they’re perfectly OK with granting an illegal alien a license to practice law. Got it.
TC_LeatherPenguin
January 28th, 2014 @ 7:45 pm

“It claims to make a rational, precedential case that Glass has not met the legal standard for being a lawyer in California.”

But, if he’s an illegal alien… OPEN THE DAMN DOORS.
richard mcenroe
January 28th, 2014 @ 8:36 pm

What sort of idiot would WANT Glass to represent them in court?
ConstantineX1
January 28th, 2014 @ 9:36 pm

Morally unfit to be a LAWYER?!! IN CALIFORNIA?!!

Wow… What do you have to do to be that bad? Eat live babies on TV? Snuff out kittens with a blanket?
ConstantineX1
January 28th, 2014 @ 9:37 pm

Probably most likely. Most lawyers have the morals of Abortion Barbie or even worse. They hate having attention drawn to it.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
January 28th, 2014 @ 10:16 pm

I meant the State Bar of California (which is only a step above the State Prisons of California).
Adjoran
January 29th, 2014 @ 12:04 am

Yes, it should be noted that they just did exactly that.

There used to be standards of conduct that included NOT breaking the law.
Unix-Jedi
January 29th, 2014 @ 2:00 am

This is very true. The 99% totally ruin the reputation of the 1%….
How Bad Is Stephen Glass? ‘Morally Unfit to Be a Lawyer in California’! : The Other McCain | Dead Citizen's Rights Society
January 29th, 2014 @ 7:27 am

[…] How Bad Is Stephen Glass? ‘Morally Unfit to Be a Lawyer in California’! : The Other McCain. […]
Art Deco
January 29th, 2014 @ 10:44 am

Various components of the legal profession have been asking for it for some time. The thing is, there are a great many attorneys who earn ordinary incomes seeing to it that the transactions of society are in precise form and that people have their day in court. Then you have the Patrick FitzGeralds, the Anthony Kennedys, the Laurence Tribes, and the Vincent Sergis of this world.
AMartel
January 29th, 2014 @ 12:43 pm

True. I like my fellow Cali attorneys more often than not. Some are insufferable, some are insufferable and dangerous, but that’s no surprise. Dummies entrusted with power. And don’t look down on rent-seeking! Buying a property and renting it out takes real work as you have to have the money to buy the property in the first place. Tenant lawyer in the rent-control areas is another sinecure of the stupid.
AMartel
January 29th, 2014 @ 12:49 pm

Aw, bullshit to this whiny scapegoating. Most of the framers and the signers of the Declaration were lawyers so do we get to take credit for forming the union as well as destroying it? America has been undermined for generations by a persistent parasitical ideology. Good people have fought against it including lawyers. Enough with the friendly fire.
AMartel
January 29th, 2014 @ 12:51 pm

This is why I find the decision so very heartening. Illegal alien, come on down. Stephen Glass, no thanks please leave. Standard ahoy!
AMartel
January 29th, 2014 @ 12:58 pm

The State Bar of California siphons $400/year away from every Cali lawyer for the privilege of practicing law in California. Mandatory fee. A few years ago some Cali lawyers sued the State Bar of California for violation of the 1st amendment by forcing members to subsidize its political agenda social justice crap with their fees. After a second lawsuit brought to enforce the USSC’s ruling in the lawyers’ favor in the first lawsuit, fees were briefly reduced to around $40/year. They’re right back up again. Somehow.
Regular Right Guy
January 29th, 2014 @ 2:11 pm

On the other hand, I can’t think of a state that more deserves him.
FMJRA 2.0: Waiting For The Superb Owl : The Other McCain
February 2nd, 2014 @ 2:59 pm

[…] How Bad Is Stephen Glass? ‘Morally Unfit to Be a Lawyer in California’! […]