WTF?
I didn't attend tonight's meeting, but Lloyd just phoned, and evidently Jerry Ulrich has been displaced as city council attorney by Stan Robison.
I'll let the Highwayman provide the rest of the story in due time, but he also says that during non-agenda item public speaking time, Robison and council president Dan "Wizard of Westside" Coffey took ex-kingpin Jeff Gahan's place in publicly urinating on the Constitution v.v. a request to consider redistricting.
Whooo-eee. Stay tuned for a fuller report.
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Let me propose a theory: he was unable to bend the constitution to the council’s will.
The council did not want to redistrict. They asked their attorney to defend them in a redistricting lawsuit. Their attorney was unable to stop the lawsuit but the law was clear cut. They sent him on a fool’s errand and he accepted.
This poses at least two issues regarding an attorney’s professional responsibility:
First, Mr. Ulrich never formally represented the common council. Under Rule 1.13 of the Indiana Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct, his duty was to the citizens of New Albany. If the client’s representatives (the council members) requested that he act in a manner that went against the interests of the citizens, he had a professional duty to refrain from acting as the council wished.
Second, Mr. Ulrich, as an attorney, had a duty to render candid legal advice, even if that advice was not what the council wanted to hear. The official comment to Rule 2.1 reads:
“A client is entitled to straightforward advice expressing the lawyer's honest assessment. Legal advice often involves unpleasant facts and alternatives that a client may be disinclined to confront. In presenting advice, a lawyer endeavors to sustain the client's morale and may put advice in as acceptable a form as honesty permits. However, a lawyer should not be deterred from giving candid advice by the prospect that the advice will be unpalatable to the client.”
My understanding from the hearings is that every time Mr. Ulrich opened his mouth, the judge promptly saw through and rejected the attempt at an argument. There are legal gray areas but this was not one of them.
My question is why, when the law is clear, Mr. Ulrich went along with the agent and not the principle. Why did he not render his honest legal opinion that the redistricting lawsuit (or sewer management contract, for that matter) were clear cut? Why did other council members not ask Mr. Ulrich at the outset of these fool’s errand to formally opine and clearly articulate why these actions were in the best interest of the client (citizens) and did not violate his duty to the clients to give candid legal advice.
If Mr. Ulrich failed to tell the council about the unpleasant facts of the constitution, he should be held to account. If he did not represent the citizenry, there should be a similar accounting.
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