Is That Legal?

And you gotta love the entire Senate Judiciary Committee sending her back to supplement her questionaire, like a student being told to revise and resubmit an essay that doesn't really answer the assignment....

As Specter said, "And your revised questionaire can get no better than a C at the very best. It just wouldn't be fair to other nominees who've completed it right the first time to give you full credit."

Eric's right--you have to really be not thinking about being a lawyer to ignore your dues like that. I've been a member of the D.C. Bar for over 20 years. They give you tons of notice, many reminders, and as he said, a generous grace period. I've never come close to forgetting, and it's not because I'm that "meticulous."

In fairness I think most attorneys at big firms rely on the firm's adminstrative departments to handle things like bar dues. I've never actually paid my own dues--when I get the renewal notice I send it to accounting and forget about it (if I got a second notice, of course, I'd be all over someone to make damned sure they got paid). So I suppose there's some a smidgeon of room to think that her bar dues got missed in Texas because someone in the back office screwed up, and in D.C. because it wasn't something she was used to dealing with. Still doesn't make her look good, though.

I am strongly opposed to the Miers nomination, but this is a bogus criticism, at least as far as the Texas one goes. She worked for a firm in Texas; the firm would handle it, not her.

I recently had the same thing happen to me in NJ. I gave the first notice to accounts payable; they evidently didn't pay it. I got the reminder notice and forwarded it to them with a note; apparently they still didn't pay it, and my license was suspended for 3 days. (At that point, I took it upon myself to make sure it was done PDQ.) But you don't get confirmation that it has been paid from the state, so there's no indication, until the suspensions are announced, that the dues haven't been paid. The firm bears responsibility, not her. No reason she would have even known.

I don't know how it works in DC; since she's not at a firm, presumably she's responsible for paying her own, so she should have taken care of it, so it does reflect on her. Still, this is a pretty minor administrative matter. I understand that when "She's very detail oriented" is one of the few points in her favor, even minor mistakes will be seized upon, but this is trivia.

While she was suspended, did she practice law? She was working at the White House in an advisory capacity: did she offer legal advice or counsel while she was not in good standing?

If the DC Bar doesn't convene an inquiry, perhaps Congress should.