Gifford Teaches CLE on Dishonesty - What Irony

Gifford Teaches Dealing With Dishonesty:  What Irony  

Wyoming Bar Watch, are you aware Mark Gifford is going to teach a CLE for dealing with dishonest lawyers?   He is the perfect person to teach this CLE because Mark Gifford is the most dishonest lawyer, in my opinion.   Gifford tells outright lies or white lies when you deal with him.  As an example, he arbitrarily creates deadlines for responses and tells those of us dealing with him this is a drop dead deadline after which matters will get worse.  These are not real deadlines and his stating they are is a lie.  As another example, he alleges and has charged at least one Wyoming lawyer for representing his own interests at a hearing when Gifford represented himself in his latest divorce.  His divorce records are on file in Laramie County.  This is dishonest conduct.  

He is fully conscious of the power he holds as bar counsel and he uses this power to intimidate lawyers far less knowledgeable of the system.  How does the Wyoming State Bar tolerate Mark Gifford teaching a CLE on honesty while being aware that the same Mark Gifford has reportedly lied to and cheated on three prior wives and reportedly engaged in an affair with a Wyoming State Bar employee?  I say reportedly but Gifford has never denied that he cheated on his former wives or affiliated sexually  with a Wyoming State Bar employee while she was married.  Maybe the bar takes the position that it takes a thief to catch a thief and so the biggest liar  is qualified to teach a course on dishonest lawyers.  There is more dishonest conduct.  Mark Gifford had the disciplinary code changed so he could investigate lawyers without complaint and uses the professional rules for his own vendettas and dislikes; reportedly has had lawyers who represented other lawyers investigated for challenging the ethical charges; intimidates lawyers who represent other lawyers into bad deals; misrepresents the severity of (mis)conduct; breaches confidentiality by talking about lawyers in the system; and overcharges lawyers hoping (as has been true) the BPR will figure some charges should stick.  Don't forget that Gifford can investigate and charge members of the BPR and so fairness is really impossible.  

These are not the acts of an honest person in my opinion.   Beyond all of those bad acts, Mark Gifford terrorizes lawyers he pulls into the disciplinary system with the threatened loss of their license.  I've talked to people who have gone through discipline  and so should you.

I just cannot get past the almost unbelievable fact that this unethical lawyer - Mark Gifford - is bar counsel.  What a poor choice from the state bar and judiciary. 

Gifford intimidation

COMMENT:  I was investigated by Gifford and I could not find an attorney to really represent my interests.  I called attorneys who advertise they represent professionals in disciplinary complaints.  I called attorneys my attorney friends recommended.  These attorneys all said or implied the same thing:  There is no fairness in this system and my two options were to do whatever Gifford said or represent myself because these folks were too afraid to buck Gifford.  I hung up the phone from talking to the last of these lawyers and it hit me.   Gifford created a system, and the Wyoming Supreme Court stood idly by, where we cannot get fair treatment.

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Bar Counsel Should Seek Fairness Not Wins

Wyoming Bar Watch:  No one is talking about the most appalling part of Gifford's conduct.  His desire to win above any attempt at fairness.  

For those paying attention you will read that Gifford takes extreme positions.  Gifford pleads many rule violations when the evidence supports far fewer violations.  Gifford seeks extreme punishments for most when the evidence is not so.  This is what he has done in both Custis cases.  Gifford alleged multiple rule violations and reportedly sought disbarment.    This is an old tactic Gifford used when he was a lawyer in Casper.  He would ask for far more than he should and allege far worse conduct but the jury, like the Board of Professional Responsibility, would split the baby.  This same tactic is sometimes used by criminal prosecutors.

Criminal prosecutors are intended to take this role.  They prosecute, defense attorneys defend, and a neutral as possible jury decides.  Bar counsel is not a prosecutor.  Bar Counsel is supposed to evaluate the case fairly and not for a win.  But that is not what Gifford is doing.  I've known Gifford for years and he wants only the win.  The facts are secondary or irrelevant.  When I read on Wyoming Bar Watch that Gifford helps pick members of the BPR my jaw hit the floor.  Not only does he work with these people day in and day out, he picks or nominates some of them.  Outrageous!  

Wyoming needs bar counsel who can be fair.  This job is not a win at any cost job but that is how Gifford treats it.  Think how stressful and intimidating this process must be on the lawyers and their families caught in the process.  For most lawyers the process is new.  Different rules apply.  Gifford and the BPR deal with these every day but the accused does not.  The accused is already at a disadvantage.  In my part of the state lawyers will not represent other lawyers in the disciplinary grievance process because of Gifford's small-mindedness and fear he will prosecute them.  

It makes more sense for Wyoming to appoint volunteer lawyers to do this job.  Or have a rotating group of lawyers.  To let one lawyer use this post to assert his view and position over the rest of us is flat out crazy.  The BPR needs more frequent rotation too.  To have one bar counsel and one set group of BPR members creates the very appearance of impropriety.



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The extreme punishments of the BPR.

The Board of Professional Responsibility recently issues a report and recommendation for the public censure of Frank Jones, a Wheatland attorney.  The underlying facts of leading to the censure are that:

- Jones was contacted by folks with a property dispute.  
-  The dispute was with a prior client of Jones and Jones thinks he told the new folks that he represented the other side but he offered to help and see if litigation could be avoided.  
-  Jones did not get any conflict waiver in writing.
-  After working for a way to resolve the dispute, Jones wrote the new folks that he could not represent them, that he had a conflict in that regard, and that he was in the role of negotiator.  
-  The injury to the new folks was delay.  The opinion does not say whether Jones billed the new folks but implies he did not.  You can read the BPR report at:  www.courts.state.wy.us/documents/opinions/2015WY114.pdf.  

Jones has a history of discipline.  He was disbarred in 1995, admitted to practicing law while disbarred, and later reinstated in 2004.  

The confusion for anyone paying attention is how did Jones deserve a public censure under these facts.  First of all, these so called ethical violations are what Wyoming attorneys do.  It does not appear Jones billed the new folks and he tried to peacefully negotiate a resolution for folks.  Jones might have needed to do a better job of disclosure and timeliness but, at worst, this conduct is a private reprimand.

The hard facts at this point are that the Ed Moriarity bar complaint and public censure had defined what conduct merits a public censure.  The short list is this:

1.  Filing more than one frivolous complaint; 
2.  litigating those frivolous complaints for years; 
3.  in a very public forum with lots of newspaper coverage;
4.  lying to bar counsel;
5.  misrepresenting the facts to bar counsel and to the court; 
6.  forcing the state to spend millions of dollars in defense and costs;
7.  admitting to multiple rule violations including 1.2, 3.1, 3.3, 4.4, 5.1, and several counts of Rule 8;  and 
7.  being unrepentant about this conduct 

EQUALS A PUBLIC CENSURE IN WYOMING.  Note:  you can read the Moriarity complaint in Arizona at:  www.scribd.com/doc/234055407/Ed-Moriarity-Bar-Complaint.

Its time for bar counsel, the BPR, and the Wyoming Supreme Court to issue consistent discipline.  If Ed Moriarity deserved the public censure then Frank Jones deserved nothing or at worse a private reprimand.  The high water mark for a public censure has been set in the Ed Moriarity case.  Other Wyoming attorneys deserve equal treatment to Mr. Moriarity.  The members of the BPR have clearly forgotten what it is like for small practitioners to practice law and are holding bar members to impractical and heightened standards.

RESPONSE:  Bonner is not the problem. The problem is Gifford.  And the BPR.  Gifford is, well, overly interested in female attorneys or all females. I don't know any other way to nicely describe it. The way he leers at me makes my skin shiver.  This is a man not at all fit for his role or for leadership.

Is Bonner the problem?

COMMENT:  Brad Bonner is part of the problem. He and Gifford were partners when I was in Casper. Bonner left because he knows Gifford's personality. But Bonner did nothing to find decent bar counsel when he was bar president. Maybe the new bar president can do better. Doubtful. All of us seem scared.

COMMENT:  The problem is not just Gifford, its also the Board of Professional Responsibility.  The lawyers on that board are guilty of the same things for which they punish others.  Hypocrisy for sure.  Gifford is a liar and dishonest and sneaky, but his masters overlook it.

A Broken Bar Counsel

The appearance of an ethically broken Mark Gifford at the Wyoming Annual Bar Meeting re-reminded me that somebody at the wheel better get the balls to shut his rampage down.  The man is out in public with Sharon Wilkinson and the entire bar and anyone paying attntion - like the press might someday -  knows the Wyoming State Bar not only tolerates a cheater but appoints him as the leading lawyer on ethics.