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Barry - I truly appreciate this response. A pleasure to read.

I guess I felt that individuals had approached law firms to seek assistance with fighting the mandates and other restrictions. I just thought they would speak out based on how many people were approaching them with problems. But there was silence.

I work in healthcare. I did not realize attorneys are under threat of disbarment based on who they are representing. That. . . that is quite depressing.

We have forgotten what is right. We have forgotten our purpose. I feel much like you. I worry about what is to come. Reasoning, logic and evidence are useless against these people. This won’t get turned around because people suddenly realize the danger we are in.

This is going to get painful. I would feel better about things if I thought that pain would wake people up but I’m not even sure of that.

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You should know that in days gone by, when I had little to fear from the Leviathan State, I put myself in harm's way often. When I was a minor official in the Chief Counsel's office, I woman who worked there told he that she had been improperly solicited by the Deputy Director for whom she worked. She told me she was leaving as a consequence. I proceeded to disclose his obnoxious behavior to the Administrative head, stating that if nothing were done about this I would make both his life and those who covered for him miserable. He was told that if he were ever to make an unwanted sexual advance on anyone, he would be sent to Alaska. When I was in law school, a woman who worked as a secretary, fearing for her job, told me that a law school professor, a black man, had threatened her if she did not accede to his sexual overtures. I went to the assistant dean and told him if this man were not removed from the school, there would be hell to pay. His contract was not renewed. As a lawyer in Chicago, when I determined that the senior partner of my firm had committed tax fraud, I resigned immediately and brought the matter to the attention of the criminal section of the IRS. He was tried and convicted of tax fraud and went to jail where he died. As a senior official in the Chief Counsel's Office, I resigned to protest reorganization changes that brought politics explicitly into the administration of the tax laws. My letter of resignation to the Commissioner's Office included Latin which I did not translate but which they had translated for them. As a tax partner at Deloitte, I resigned because the Firm would not remove a moral derelict who not only was in charge of my office but who was also on the Firm's Board. Efforts were made to assuage me, buy off my silence but I do not bluff. Instead I disclosed the entire sordid episode to 350 of my partners. I got death threats for exposing our dirty linen. So in the 30+ years after I stopped representing criminals whom I did not like, I resigned from all 3 positions I had held. Some might conclude that I simply could not hold onto a job. These days though, I suppose I am well out of harm's way. My wife though knows what I am capable of if I am ever once again to find myself in the arena.

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Just a damn shame society has come to this.

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My husband was a gov official. If an employee had even a dui…they were GONE! The times, they are a changing…and not for the best.

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