The Mississippi Bar Association lags behind the rest of the Southeast in helping consumers file bar complaints or obtaining a lawyer's disciplinary history. While most of the bar associations make such information available online, Mississippians must still use a telephone and the good ole U.S. Postal Service that once employed Eudora Welty.
Most bar associations in the Southeast provide complaint forms that can be downloaded in pdf format. Some even go so far as to provide online complaint forms to the aggrieved. A customer-friendly bar association, yes, those do actually exist.
But Mississippi being Mississippi means it stays stuck in the past. Want to file a bar complaint? Call the bar and ask for a complaint form. The bar will mail a complaint form through snail mail. The consumer can either return the complaint again using snail mail or submit it in person to the Bar.
A bar official said the process filters out complaints that do not rise to the level of bar complaints. For example, many consumers call to complain that the lawyer will not return their phone calls. The bar will communicate to the attorney that he or she needs to contact the client. Such conduct does not necessarily rise to the level of a bar complaint. Filtering out such "complaints" prevents them from clogging the bar complaint process.
Is Mississippi stuck in the mud when it comes to filing bar complaints? Compare Mississippi to other Southern states.
Complaints available for download: Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma
Online complaint submissions: Missouri, Texas, Tennessee
Complaints only available via telephone or snail mail: Mississippi, South Carolina
Unfortunately, the Mississippi bar's failure to serve the public in modern fashion doesn't stop with bar complaints. Want to check out a lawyers disciplinary history on the bar's website? Good luck. Most states post such information online but not Mississippi. The bar's website doesn't mention any disciplinary actions taken against attorneys unless they are currently suspended or disbarred.
Some states post disciplinary actions by year while others post them under a lawyer's profile in the bar directory. The Mississippi bar will provide a lawyer's disciplinary history over the phone or in response to a written request.
The bar publishes lawyer discipline in its quarterly journal, the Mississippi Lawyer. The magazine is available to the public online but the Bar made it tougher to obtain information against wayward attorneys from the magazine.
Once upon a time, the Mississippi Lawyer was available in a pdf format. An interested citizen could download the magazine and use pdf tools such as the zoom feature to read the bar discipline section. Somewhere along the way, the Bar discarded the pdf format and began using an online viewer that has no zoom feature (I had to zoom out to 30% to be able to read it). What appears is a page of tiny print. One has to screen save the disciplinary page, crop the desired information, save, and then expand for reading. It's a whole lotta trouble just to see which lawyers got in trouble. To make matters worse, the most recent Mississippi Lawyer issue available online is from Spring 2019.
Compare Mississippi to the rest of the Southeast.
Alabama: Disciplinary actions posted online back to 2007.
Tennessee: Disciplinary actions for at least the past five years are posted online.
Georgia: Disciplinary history is posted online.
Texas: Disciplinary history is posted under a barrister's bar online profile.
Arkansas: Disciplinary history posted online.
Florida; 10-year disciplinary history posted under lawyer's online profile.
South Carolina: List of actions taken against lawyers prior to 2019.
North Carolina: Discipline orders posted online.
Virginia: Disciplinary decisions posted online.
Missouri: Nothing posted online
Oklahoma: Nothing posted online.
Mississippi: Nothing posted online.
Louisiana: Reported in bar journal but the journal is posted online in pdf format and is current.
Simply put, the Mississippi Bar is dead last in the Southeast when it comes to serving the public. Consumers have to jump through too many hoops to check out lawyers. The Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure drew quite a bit of heat several years ago when Consumer Reports blasted the Board for not making disciplinary actions taken against doctors available to the public on its website. The Board took the hint and made its website much more consumer-friendly. Patients are now able to see Board actions taken against doctors online. Earlier post.
Kingfish note: It is 2020. The public should be able to check a lawyer's disciplinary history online and shouldn't have to speak to someone to file a bar complaint. It is the bar's job to protect and serve the public, not protect and serve the lawyers. Posted below is a collection of other bar association complaint forms that are posted online.
Let the gnashing of teeth begin.
25 comments:
Here's my complaint MS Bar - too many lawyer adds!!! I realize that several years back guys approved advertising, and I understand the need for them to do so, but please, I'm waving the white flag. How many times a day must we subjected to seeing the same two faces - and we all know to whom I refer. I beseech you out human decency, put some limits on their advertising and put an end to this cruel and unusual punishment.
10:10 am
It’s “ads.”
But I get it...I’m a lawyer and i cringe
Mississippi is behind on something --- the hell you say!!
Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court ruled that limitations on lawyer advertising are few and far between. The frequency of the ads is not one of them, much to all of our regret.
Cute headline KF- "Bar" and "Serving". It would be nice it the legislature would step in and create bar transparency via mandates, but the legal tentacles may be too tightly wound in the House and Senate. And as to the ads, people used to aspire for their children to become lawyers. No more...
Why can't I find out if my doctor has ever removed the wrong kidney? There is no repository to find out about claims against physicians.
Can't easily file a complaint?
Can't easily be getting up in the business of lawyers who might have com-plaints filed agin them?
Mission Accomplished!
I said it 14 years ago in highschool and it remains true today: Mississippi lags behind in technology access by 20 years.
I'm thrilled that the public cannot learn about the 11 bar complaints that have been filed against me. That would hurt my livelihood, no doubt.
11:20 a.m. said, "I said it 14 years ago in highschool..." 14 years ago?! Lawd, son, thanks for making me feel so old on a dreary Friday morning. Geez, my daughter has been out of college and married for longer than that.
@11:50
Class of 2000 here. Folks here call me a tide pod eating millennial but I'm 39 and have a teenager of my own.
Part of the problem -- in addition to the Mississippi Bar's being a generation behind the rest of the country in terms of technology -- is that the Mississippi Bar is what is referred to as a "mandatory" or "unitary" bar. That means, simply, if you want to be a practicing lawyer in Mississippi, you have to belong to the Bar. It is, in that sense, not an "association" (though often called that) at all, because no practicing lawyer has the discretion to disassociate or not to belong, if he/she wants to practice law in Mississippi. In Tennessee, the Bar is a voluntary association, and the disciplinary functions are handled by the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, which is an arm of the Tennessee Supreme Court. I've had a Mississippi license for over 30 years and a Tennessee license for almost 15 years. Frankly, I have found dealing with the folks in Tennessee much simpler over those 15 years.
"The Mississippi Bar Association lags behind the rest, the Mississippi bar's failure to serve the public, and simply put, the Mississippi Bar is dead last."
There, fixed it for you. Add to that there aren't many regularly-practicing lawyers in MS who could make it anywhere but within the good-ol-boy, home-cookin' of MS, and that we elect not only judges but appellate justices, and what does anyone expect? As to the appellate courts, Mike Randolph is the CJ of MSSC - enough said (or at least, enough such as KF will allow it) and of the 18 remaining appellate justices, none are exactly legal scholars albeit 2-3 are at least decent enough lawyer/jurists who generally appear to at least want and sincerely attempt to do their (objective) legal best. Thankfully, there are a few judges and chancellors sprinkled around the state to provide a glimmer of hope, but for the most part, it's more of the same who-you-know home cooking. And it sucks. But until the citizens demand changes and put their votes where their mouths are, it will remain just another category in which Mississippi brings up the rear. And that sucks, too.
I'm an attorney who's familiar with the Bar. That's all I can say because people read this site and I don't want to out anybody. Morale is pretty low over there right now. Things were running well when Larry was running the place, but the new director (newish she's been there for a couple of years now) has not taken the Bar forwards in any way. Instead she's made some friend hires, including a very well paid director of "compliance" (I thought that was General Counsel's job). Meanwhile there's not a single full-time IT professional in the building, which they have desperately needed for years. Instead of making friend hires and virtue signalling about their new diversity committees, they need to do their jobs. There are a lot of really good people that work in that building. This is a problem at the top. The MS Bar needs a new director.
I get nothing from the bar. time to abolish it. another anachronism.
Member since 1995. My dealings with the MSBAR have left me confident of a few things. There is no accountability, if you know the right people. A blend of corruption, incompetence, indifference.
The current issue of The Mississippi Lawyer is bigger print than the older issues. The older issues are just thumbnails and they won't resize.
The Mississippi Bar realizes not all people in Mississippi know how to download a pdf or how to use PC's,but, they all known how to use the postal system.
I agree with you The Mississippi Bar should have both system in place postal & online.
I said it 35 years ago in high school and it's still true today. The future is in fax machines and pagers.
10:14 - It's "I".
I've had very few bar complaints and they were all batshit crazy but the craziest one was filed by a criminal who stole a car from my father. He wrote the Bar that I tried to run him over. The Bar was actually going to take that to committee until I provided them with about 200 pages documenting the scumbag's extensive criminal history and his reputation for filing HUNDREDS of frivolous lawsuits. He's still filing them. And he's still in prison.
Oh yes, good ole Demario.
"Folks here call me a tide pod eating millennial but I'm 39 and have a teenager of my own."
If you were in high school 14 years ago, you were a 25 year old high school kid. And you're asking to be taken seriously?
Please get help for that Tide Pod addiction.
The Mississippi Bar is ridiculous. Extremely high mandatory dues, yet I have no idea where my money goes over there. They are definitely more employees than are needed, and overpaid as well. Abolish the damn thing.
Completely worthless entity. Go ahead and file a bar complaint. It will be in limbo for years!
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