It's Not My Job

My father was an attorney, and is a retired superior court judge. As a result I BOTH enjoy lawyer jokes, and defend lawyers all the time. The public perception of the legal profession took a nose dive, after it was ruled the bar associations could not prevent lawyers from advertising. I don't believe this increased the number of shysters, rather the small percentage of ambulance chasers are now highly visible.

The American Bar Association just rated Alito as "Well Qualified." What a joke. It deeply bothers me he chose to betray the agreement he made to not hear cases dealing with Vanguard. I expect w to pick an overly conservative jurist, and as much as I don't like it, I can't fault someone for simply having opinions I find distasteful. I've written before how it angers me neither party seems to consider breaking one's word to be a problem. I consider it lying. It seems the ABA doesn't see things my way either, so I sent a snide note to their ethics staff, titled "Excusal for Recusal."

Suppose I agree to recuse myself from any cases involving the bank with my personal account. Does it really matter if I break the agreement and take such a case? What, if any consequences should I expect?

Now suppose I promote myself as a professional organization which serves as an ethics guardian, and for political reasons give a glowing recommendation to someone who has broken a similar agreement. Does that demonstrate a lack of ethics on the part of my organization, my profession, or both?

The group I wrote to is meant for questions coming from attorneys so likely it will be categorically ignored. Doesn't matter, it was mainly a vent. Though I am not an attorney myself, I resent it when the profession is needlessly smeared.