When Lawyers Don't Write
If you think your legal writing prof was kidding about the importance of attributing sources for your work (and indeed, the importance of actually writing, rather than copying, your briefs), consider this stern admonishment from a bankruptcy court in Iowa. The attorney apparently lifted 17 pages verbatim of an article written by two attorneys in New York and dropped it into "his" briefs. In fairness to this attorney, he apparently did bookend the stolen material with bits of introductory material and conclusions. And he wrote "argument" at the beginning. He never cited the article at all in either of the two briefs.
The attorney’s punishment, aside from what must be acute embarrassment, is to take a class in professional responsibility from a law school (" a continuing education class will not cure his ethical shortcomings" stated the judge), disgorge the fee he charged for writing the brief (he claimed 25.5 hours for preparing the two briefs), and inform the authors of the article of his plagiarism. That's the punishment from the judge, who also ordered the opinion be served upon the Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board.
I have to wonder how persuasive simply dropping half an article into a brief could ever be. The article in question, Why Professionals Must Be Interested in "Disinterestedness" Under the Bankruptcy Code, by William H. Schrag and Mark C. Haut, is a fine article, but presented as a brief (something its true authors obviously did not intend), it merely raised suspicions.
That's kind of the opposite of what you want a brief to do.
Surely what this attorney really needed was a legal writing class. (There I go again - favoring rehabilitation over punishment!).
Hat tip to the New Legal Writer (who credits The Volokh Conspiracy, TaxProf Blog, and Legal Writing Prof Blog.)
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