How does one sue a State ?

How does one go about suing a State ?
What court does one file when one sues a State ?
Have other State Bar's deregulated their membership's execution of the profession ?
Does "rule of law" apply to the institution and the State that supports it ?

The foundation issue is negligence by the Virginia State Bar to ensure diligent counsel based upon the dismissal of strategy complaints. By its current policy the Bar expects damaged clients to provide oversight of its members failed strategies through the courts. A victim is expected to find another counsel to represent the failed service, the original issue, be able to absorb the damages, sacrifice time from work and afford both counsels. Effectively quadrupling the victims problems. This is not a solution for a client who expects competent service to be rendered by a certified member. The victim gives up, tries to absorb the damage, punishment and attempts to go on with their lives, the service provider can continue to fleece other clients without consequences. This is not effective policy or oversight by an institution that was supposed to ensure the integrity of the profession. Without the policy of documenting or acknowledging "strategy" complaints a prospective client cannot identify whether one is hiring counsel who demonstrates a "strategy" of competent representation or dismissing and processing a demographic.

When extenuating circumstances/material specific to a case are not presented to the courts a competent ruling on the case cannot be rendered. The court's judgments are in question. There is a possibility that the failed strategy is based on a biased court, a kangaroo court. Maybe from the attorneys experience they know that a doctor or video is irrelevant to the courts, that the individual is automatically "presumed guilty" regardless of mental state or circumstances.

I will not rehash the individual issues of the eight Virginia attorneys we retained and one service in the last eighteen years that supports my position of discrimination and predatory practices by members of the institution. We have experienced the following through "strategies" of the Bar's attorneys:
*) Discrimination - religious and economic.
*) Emotional distress.
*) Financial distress.
*) Facilitation of predatory business practices through policy change and lack of oversight.
Here is the "rant" describing our experiences of "failed strategies", http://home.comcast.net/~styx.cml-lsm/01/Cases/prolog.htm , spare the childish ad hominem argument as those are a reflection on the source. Neither do I lay claim to being "smart", which means that I am supposed to be able to depend upon those that I hire to represent my interests competently in a diligent manner.

What brought on this post was that in an attempt to resolve my unemployed, injured, bankrupt, suffering depression, bipolar disorder, girlfriend's legal issues we retained another attorney. This attorney sent two invoices, the first reflected that we had a credit remaining from the retainer, the second one two weeks later did not reflect the money paid, the credit amount and demanded more money, which I paid including a letter requesting an explanation for the discrepancy. That was November 2007, I sent another letter again expressing my concern in January 2008 to both the original firm and his office, the "verbal" claim is that documentation was sent - we have not received it. The check for additional money was cashed so the first letter was received, allegedly services rendered, identifying that he had the correct address. This is March 2008. This parallels our experience with a legal service, that I subscribed to in 2006, they "said" that they sent a letter of referral which we found out about after a year of complaints to the service and a complaint to the Bar. This service cost us two years of not addressing our legal issues. The latter experience highlights the expected response from the Bar who considers this "strategy" and at the maximum a return of some of the funds in question. The lack of diligence in business causes us concern with the counsel of this attorney, did he represent my girlfriend competently or did he collect my money and "process" her ? In my letters I broached future business to complete my girlfriends issues, requests for expected payments and even this did not illicit a response, but he told my girlfriend that he wanted her business on the phone and that alleged papers were sent ?

With each failure I have submitted my concerns to the Virginia State Bar addressing our representation and attorney desertion of a probono client, its failure to ensure the competency of the profession. Both myself and my girlfriend have suffered emotional and financial damage. Most of the damage was done to my girlfriend who is apparently not a "client of choice", I expected professional service from those that I paid to represent her interests. The institution was aware of the accumulation of our concerns with their membership. The institution had ample opportunity to address the items presented, defuse the issue and chose not to. This was the last thing my girlfriend or myself expected or wanted. Again I state that my goal is to resolve our outstanding issues, obtain some compensation for damages and leave Virginia with its corruption. One result of the Bar's failure to address is that it provided me with time to address.

This forum does not accept the presentation of experience and does not address what one does when an attorney deserts, chooses a "dismissive" strategy, questions whether the Bar used ones settlement to payoff others. The Virginia State Bar and local members recommended all the counsel that we retained, the one with the highest accolades was the one that deserted all their clients. Heck the response here on this forum is to get an attorney and get fleeced again. Makes me feel like I am back in a third world country expressing dissatisfaction with a product or service and this little guy is whispering about another guy around the corner that will be better.

I cannot trust the "profession" in Virginia to provide competent counsel to represent my interests in a diligent manner. Therefore one must consider channels to address without the "diligent" counsel of this profession or outside the infected theater. It would be helpful to make a list of attorneys that do address legal malpractice for each state, think I found one in Virginia.

It would be helpful to make a list of attorneys that do address legal malpractice for each state, think I found one in Virginia.

I found several hundred attorneys who do legal malpractice simply by using the find a lawyer box on the right.

In Virginia

Your post is ridiculously long. No one is likely to read the entire thing. You should condense it to include only the most pertinent information.

"How does one go about suing a State ?"

The same way one sues any other defendant. The question is whether the state is subject to suit or immune.

"What court does one file when one sues a State ?"

Depends on the nature of the claim. The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars most suits against states in federal courts.

"Have other State Bar's deregulated their membership's execution of the profession ?"

That's too vague to answer. What does it mean.

"Does "rule of law" apply to the institution and the State that supports it ?"

That makes no sense at all.

What happened?

Did you lose your case, blame your attorney, complain to the Bar, and the Bar didn't find that he did anything wrong?

I'm guessing that the state Bar is immune from lawsuits for arriving at that kind of decision.

Your basic option is to file a malpractice lawsuit against your attorney and prove he did something wrong.

The problem is, if you check back to his previous posts is first, he wasn't the client, he just paid the bill which gives him no rights to assert regarding how the case is handled, and second, I believe the statute of limitations has run. Then there's the problem that the state bar has found no wrongdoing. He doesn't agree so now he wants to sue them...

Jowey, you need to give up the ghost as it were ... this is not the place to post a rant (I know, you disagree that it is a "rant"), but you know these types of posts aren't welcome here. You've been posting about this stuff since last year. By now, you should know something about how the civil litigation system works (you're free to sue the VSB and others if you like, but I suspect such a suit will be quickly dismissed on various grounds).

Thanks found 102 for Virginia. I do know that when I did look before, several years ago using search on this site none showed up.

Remember talking to one of these attorneys when girlfriends attorney deserted. They stated that nothing could be done, case was damaged and probono client was irrelevant. Never did confirm whether the deserter received the settlement outside of court in those five years.

Nine attorneys, eighteen years, questions on the effectiveness of their strategy.

Virginia State Bar had ethical mandates before 2000 that could be applied to "strategy" complaints, after 2000 strategy is dismissed. The strategy statistic is not documented, one cannot identify whether a member is diligent in their representation chooses a strategy based on other factors, such as race, gender, religion or economic status. I am not discussing effective strategy, it is dismissive strategy, a member not bothering to contact doctors, obtain police reports, video or overlooking dates.

The institution cannot identify whether their member is consistently diligent in their representation or not. Does their member demonstrate a pattern of failure, of processing their clients without regard to supporting material ? This information is not available for a prospective client to make an informed choice. All of our attorneys were allegedly competent.

Sorry about the "rule of law" phrase, you are right it makes no sense at all in this context.

Consistently.

The Virginia State Bar dismisses "strategy" failure, expecting a damaged client to go into a cycle of debt enforcing the integrity of the institution.

1) Recently we are running into a "they said that they were diligent" response and that is accepted by the Bar.
2) Girlfriend had a breakdown, doctors messed up medication, pharmacist called the police. Police assaulted me. Attorney did not bother with store video, incongruities in the police report, lack of witnesses. I tried to obtain the store video and could not. This was good attorney strategy according to the Bar.
3) Attorney deserted all their clients, stole settlements, to this day we do not know whether he obtained an out of court settlement.
There are more.....

The point being is that the Virginia State Bar does not maintain documentation of such strategy failures. Maybe we were not pretty enough, maybe the attorney had a "bad hair day", maybe the attorney was too busy multi tasking that they lost track of the case, maybe they do not like us. Maybe this lack of diligence is more common than the claim.

I do suspect that the Bar has had laws legislated that protects itself from failure of duty and allowing performance without strategy.

I cannot afford to censor these members, they know this and so they execute a minimal strategy dismissing even provided material. The client has no leverage, even if it is a log of "questionable strategy".

The civil litigation system does not work.

Maybe I would quit if these members would do their jobs and actually perform a service. I would love to friggin let you all play in your little pond. I cannot afford to ensure the integrity of your profession by repeatedly hiring others till my assets are consumed. This is a profitable predatory implementation.

Our latest attorney does not seem to understand invoices and that questions are raised when the amounts do not tally up and where are the papers ? This bad business practice makes us question his diligence in representation.

Thought we had counsel after the last fiasco with the legal service, who two years after a case, a multitude of requests for counsel resulting in court without counsel they say that they sent a letter of referral. I do not know where these letters are going, we have a POB which we check diligently. We didnt get the correspondence so send another copy, it is not in our best interests to dismiss such things.

But those are whimsical soft issues that are easily dismissed and results in a denial of counsel as the Bar identified by claiming no wrong doing because they said they did no wrong.

This forum has not addressed the issues we have experienced and I have presented such as:
1) Desertion by an attorney.
2) Failure to use available material.
3) How does one handle an attorney who executes a "strategy" that dismisses such witnesses as "social services".
4) What options are available when an attorney does not respond to requests (our letter problem).
5) How does one handle an attorney that is multitasking a clients case and dismisses their issue.
6) Lastly an oversight institution that dismisses performance issues such as strategy. So that future clients cannot make an informed choice - note all our attorneys had a high recommendation.

I should not be able to point at things in our experiences and question the performance of a professional. Our experiences highlight the lack of functional oversight and point out that once one hires a "professional" ones problems are not over, they may be compounded.

I love the nebulous "but I suspect such a suit will be quickly dismissed on various grounds" - wow that was informative. At least this forum finally has "legal malpractice" available for discussion. I believe I came here in 2000 searching for a solution for the deserting attorney and the subject was not here.

This forum has shown some improvement and actually provided functional information, when "DOCAR" informed me that the list of "malpractice attorneys" was now available, just wish it was available several years ago. Our mistake has been to expect professionalism from the community, failing to respond to phone messages, correspondence or complaints are not the actions of professionals. We know that attempting to address a failed business process that happens to cost us representation is irrelevant, economic discrimination is a very effective method of fleecing - the claim being that it would cost too much to call the contacts or obtain identified reference material.

In this thread the response has been that executing a suit against the Bar over the issues identified will not work, a nebulous response.

I suspect that it would not work because of bias, this is based upon two personal experiences with the courts. The first time we were without counsel, we had listened to opposing counsel "rant" about Christian law, adulterers, murderers and misstate facts for about half an hour. I stood up to address the court, said "your honor" and was told that they had heard enough, I was prepared with documents and material to refute the statements of the last half hour. Confused I stated that I thought that I was supposed to be able to at least present our case, for my misunderstanding the law the judge threatened contempt. The second time was when I was on trial for resisting arrest, the hospital, CVS, misstatements on a police report incident. After being told by counsel that video and missing witnesses were irrelevant I accepted a deal with the prosecutor. For his deal I listened to the Judge "rant" for five minutes about how I deserved to spend more time in jail - I had kept my mouth shut. This judge never "heard" any material, did not present any additional material supporting their disagreement with the deal. I will never forget cop yelling to the back of the store that "I knew the law" and "should be treated accordingly" while laughing. So I have no illusions as to the competence of the courts and their whimsical interpretations.

I know that real professional organizations are accountable for claims of service, performance and product. As a result they have implemented various "management" processes to ensure quality ISO 9000 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9000 ), TQM ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Quality_Management ) and Six Sigma ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma ). However the institution that claims to be the certifying agent for attorneys fails to maintain a metric that could identify performance and quality of service. The institution cannot tell me whether one of their members has a higher failure rate, more complaints from clients of certain ethnic, gender or economic populations. Such a statistic could identify a member that discriminates against a population or is just a poor performer. I also noted that in 2000, when my girlfriends attorney deserted, that the Virginia State Bar no longer addressed "strategy", did not document performance or consistently poor service. The Bar does not implement quality control and cannot identify whether its members are creating the illusion of representation.

"Rant" - "A speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence." Now I have provided facts as I have perceived them, I have avoided angry rhetoric, but have expressed frustration on this public forum that is supposed to answer questions about and from the legal community. I have also observed that the "truth" seems to illicit violent responses from those that are taking advantage of a deception, a scammer or thief that is caught denies it the loudest. On this forum I am pointing to our experiences with the legal profession and some problems that I have observed with its implementation. In the old days the Virginia State Bar used to have "Canon 8 A lawyer should assist in improving the legal profession." apparently this is no longer a concern.

Is there a more appropriate forum to discuss the problems with the legal community ? I have already posted on http://www.politicalgroove.com/blogs/jowey/ and http://www.rumbleville.com/showthread.php?t=428 it has been identified that this forum can only handle one liners and simple issues.

In our latest case I presented a letter describing the issues that my girlfriend needed to have addressed as she has a communication problem and avoided being around. This was done hoping that as a professional this member of your community would address, get paid and everyone could go on. Mixed up invoices, failure to respond with a copy after being informed by phone messages that we have not received any correspondence. This brings up questions with the counsel, did they take our money, "process" their client and run ? How long is too long to allow one of your members to "fail" - especially with outstanding money ? How does one override the threat of implied failure when one confronts an attorney on their questionable strategy - especially when one cannot afford to buy competent representation ? Where is the competent representation statistic kept, not just wins but customer "satisfaction" ?

Cliff's notes for those reading impaired:

*) Suing the Bar as a negligent institution based upon damages, intent to provide a facade of integrity, dismissal and discrimination will not work.
*) Biased courts will only "interpret" in their best interests, suing the Bar is not in courts best interests as it would identify a lack of integrity in the population.
*) Performance and strategy is irrelevant as long as attendance is kept and right form's filled out. Quality management systems are available but are dismissed - because the population is diligent and self regulating.
*) If a client is not of an "accepted" population, it is okay for an attorney to process them, no record of "strategy" complaints are kept, no performance statistic is maintained to prove either way.
*) I have presented several scenarios that we have personally experienced yet no solutions are presented on this forum.
*) Just how diligent will the Bar research a deserting member ?
*) What is a client supposed to do when their attorney deserts, the case is damaged and the Bar laughs at them ?
*) One has to wonder why the prisons are so full ?
*) One has to wonder why judgments are slanted ?
*) Yes, I know this is out of the scope of this forum - status quo must be maintained.

Shucks all good strategy....

We may just be at an impasse with your situation. No one on the message board can "solve" your problem.

Many posters are willing, and have been willing, to offer information, but in the end, this is a discussion
forum.

At the site, we have acknowledged that there are problems with some lawyers, which is why we have provided this specific board for people to share experiences/knowledge.

We've listened to those who have come to the site and understand that there is a desire for a lawyer
rating system.

We're looking at how we might implement this effectively without skewed results. It harkens back to the customer service issue of someone who is happy with service may tell 10 people but someone who is unhappy with service may tell 100 people.

Legal cases, in the end, generally have someone who may be considered a winner and someone who may be considered a loser.

Sharon

Finally an intelligent response.

As you claim this is a discussion forum and I proposed a subject of discussion. Just because the subject is unpopular does not mean that it is invalid. This community claims to be a place for solutions however I see posturing and demeaning responses from this forum.

I suspect that the problem with "some" lawyers goes beyond the 10%. There is no collection of this metric, in fact with the Virginia State Bar I have observed the dismissal of the strategy metric. You are right about the skewed results and would require an unbiased review of the "strategy" complaints. I myself considered developing a site and noted this "complication", my solution would be to allow "all" complaints against an attorney be registered and let future customers rate them. The market would then determine the "success" or "failure" of an attorney. The attorney would have incentive to provide competent customer service.

As it stands with the avoidance by the certifying institutions and forums to register this metric no customer can be sure of what they are buying. This is a reflection on the certifying agency, other professions require a certain competence in their membership. The product or service of this profession is strategy. When strategy is dismissed the profession becomes a fraud.

I asked one main question in this post, how to go about suing the Virginia State Bar for negligence ? Read the responses. I cannot trust having competent counsel for this issue, neither can I trust that I would have an impartial court - the act would send a message.

I would not be here again if it was not for another attorney that I paid who seems to have a problem responding to invoice questions, yet can demand more money. For three years I have been trying to get my girlfriend out of a situation, I would note supporting items in a correspondence and then pay the bill. The latest failure to respond gives concern as to the competence of this attorneys counsel. Now as before I might be able to get some of my money back but the problem is not resolved. We as clients have no effective leverage against incompetent counsel. The Bar responds to such issues with a dismissal. I am fed up with "playing" with a dysfunctional implementation of jurisprudence.

I will admit that the desertion of an attorney not only damaged my girlfriends injury case but also cost us the ability to find out why the previous attorney had us prepare for an "abuse of process" action against another and then dismiss us - were they bought off ? Every time that we trust one of these "professionals" it costs us, not them.

I will never forget those Virginia State Bar attorneys at the hearing of our deserting attorney. When my girlfriend limped up to them and asked about her case they informed her that she was a probono client, would get nothing and laughed. We had been waiting five years, our attorney was stealing settlements, did he steal my girlfriends in those five years ? Combined it cost her ten years. The bar and members contacted dismissed my girlfriends plight - real funny isnt it.

I have a military background and some knowledge of performance, strategy and tactics. Before and after an operation there is a briefing and debriefing. No bought attorney has preformed as a tactician executing an operation in a theater. The corporate world has developed management systems to ensure quality and customer service. Yet the oversight institution dismisses such "management". My father was an old school attorney, he noted that his profession was infected, that rather than adhering to the law it had become a stage performance, a whimsical theater and that the laws were becoming irrelevant. The profession remains static, other solutions to disputes will be found and those on the board will lament that society is collapsing.

This claims to be a discussion forum. Does this mean that one should not present unpopular issues here ? Just what is the purpose of this forum then ? A placebo for ranters such as myself ? Some of your readers should look up the meaning of the word "rant" and while you are at it "discussion" also...

It isn't subject to being reduced to a number, or a 'metric' as you put it.

I work in criminal defense. Most of my clients are unhappy because their cases resolve with penalties. Do you think it is fair I get evaluated by people who don't know what they are talking about?

'Bad attorney. Couldn't save me from a license suspension.' The suspension is mandatory by state law and the judge has no discretion. Your choice was the deal or trial, and you chose the deal. Your choice - not mine.

'Bad attorney. Another attorney said he could get this dimissed.' Guess what - you should have hired that attorney rather than going with me.

'Bad attorney. He was completely rude to me.' Guess what - the state never dismisses just because the defendant says this is a waste of taxpayer money. You wouldn't listen, so I had to start being a jerk.

Those are the complaints I'd get, among others. Almost all complaints would be from criminal defendants who don't like the result that is a consequence of their actions, not mine.

Many CLEs wind up with a 'Top Ten Clients to Avoid...' Among the very top, the prospective client who just complains about all the prior attorneys he's had to fire...