Will California Attorney Be Disciplined for Racist Comments?

Is a state bar obligated to discipline a lawyer who makes racist and threatening comments?

That’s the question in California where a concerned citizen is pressing for disciplinary action against Wayne Spindler, a lawyer who was arrested in May after making a criminal threat at a City Council meeting.

According to a Los Angeles Times article , Spindler submitted a public-comment card “depicting a body hanging from a tree, a burning cross, a robed Klan-like figure holding a noose — along with a sign calling Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson a highly charged racial epithet.” Wesson is African-American.

According to the article, Spindler often wears a KKK mask to meetings.

“You can be an attorney and still have a First Amendment right to free speech,” he told Big Law Business.

In response to Spindler’s actions, Eric Rose, who is a partner at strategic communications firm Englander Knabe & Allen and not a lawyer, started pushing for disciplinary action from the state bar, which has so far declined to do anything.

“I just happened to read an article in the paper when this all occurred and was quite offended by it and thought that someone should report him to the State Bar,” Rose told Big Law Business. “So I took it upon myself.”

Rose said he filed formal ethics complaint in May and heard back on July 14 that the matter had been closed because “there is no general ethical rule that attorneys refrain from an ‘offensive personality.’”

According to Rose, State Bar Senior Trial Counsel Ross Viselman wrote to him: “At this point, the District Attorney has not filed charges against Mr. Spindler. Of course, if Mr. Spindler is prosecuted, the State Bar will work with law enforcement and seek discipline, as appropriate.”

Viselman was not available for comment. A representative for the State Bar said its investigations “are confidential by law and there’s no public information regarding this attorney.”

Last week, Rose requested a review of the State Bar’s decision by its Complaint Review Unit.

He said Spindler’s personality isn’t the issue. It’s that Spindler’s actions violate the moral turpitude clause of the bar ethics (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6106).

“The Legislature empowered the State Bar to discipline attorneys who commit acts of moral turpitude even if the act was not committed in their professional role as an attorney, and even if no criminal charges could be applied,” Rose wrote. “Moral turpitude is generally accepted to be ‘conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals.’”

Robert A. Hufnagel, assistant professor of legal ethics at Irvine University and partner at Wait & Hufnagel, said disciplining an attorney due to racist activities is not without precedent, pointing to the matter of Matthew Hale and the Illinois State Bar.

In that case, Hale passed the Illinois bar test but was denied admission to practice based on his racist views.

For a more thorough summary of the details of that case,read Carla Pratt, an assistant professor at Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law, who wrote about the case in a 2003 Florida State University law review article.

“It stands for the proposition that the bar may legitimately exclude a person from the legal profession if that person participates in racist activities because such activities obstruct the administration of justice and undermine the core values of the legal profession,” Pratt concluded.

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