National News
New York Adds Attorney Disciplinary Records to Online Database
March 06, 2015 posted by Steve Brownstein
It’s gotten easier to find out if an attorney practicing in New York has been publicly censured or suspended.
New York’s official online database of registered attorneys now includes disciplinary history records, reports the Associated Press.
The state’s attorney database has allowed a user to find out if an attorney is registered and from which law school he or she graduated. But, unlike similar websites in most other states, the database didn’t say if an attorney has been sanctioned. To dig up that information, a prospective client had to search the web for news stories about the attorney or search for disciplinary opinions on the court’s website or through paid Lexis or Westlaw accounts.
New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said the public has a right to access those records, “however uncomfortable or inconvenient the facts may be,” according to the AP report.
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers told Law Blog that the added disciplinary records are an “important” step toward transparency. “The goal is to ensure that an unsophisticated client can discover a lawyer’s disciplinary history,” he said.
The professor, who teaches on legal ethics, has leveled a number of criticisms at New York’s attorney sanction system.
Most sanctions against New York attorneys take the form of a private reprimand and still aren’t publicly available. Mr. Gillers has urged the state court system to make those records accessible.
The lack of a statewide disciplinary authority in New York has led to inconsistent sanctions, the professor said.
“This is a first step, and we continue to examine the issues that Professor Gillers raises,” New York court system spokesman David Bookstaver told Law Blog.
