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Tuesday • January 30, 2007
KBA moves Client Assistance Program into Office of Bar Counsel
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About eight or ten years ago, the Kentucky Bar Association launched the KBA Client Assistance Program ("CAP") as a way of helping Kentucky lawyers and their clients resolve disagreements and misunderstandings outside of the disciplinary process.
At that time, the KBA emphasized the fact that the Client Assistance Program was separate and distinct from the Office of Bar Counsel; that it was managed by a Program Manager who was not a staff attorney in the Office of Bar Counsel; and that the CAP Office was, in fact, located on a different floor of the Bar Center in Frankfort.
For all of those reasons, Kentucky lawyers were encouraged to communicate with the CAP Program Manager in response to client complaints, taking comfort in the knowledge that they were not communicating with a representative of the disciplinary process. That message was communicated to the general membership of the Bar at Annual Conventions and District Bar Meetings, and also through columns in the Kentucky Bench & Bar magazine.
I have learned, however, that the KBA recently moved the Client Assistance Program into the Office of Bar Counsel. The CAP Manager has also become a Deputy Bar Counsel, like the six other Deputy Bar Counsel who prosecute disciplinary cases under the supervision and direction of the Chief Bar Counsel.
It appears that the KBA decided to make that change in order to move toward a "central intake" approach to the handling of bar complaints and other reports of attorney-client disagreements.
There are legitimate arguments in favor of that approach; in fact, it is the approach recommended in the ABA Model Rules for Disciplinary Enforcement. See ABA Model Rules for Disciplinary Enforcement, Rule I ("Comprehensive Lawyer Regulatory System"), paragraph B ("Central intake"). It should be noted, however, that the ABA Model Rules also recommend that all disciplinary matters be handled by a Disciplinary Board that is separate and distinct from the Bar Association, unlike the disciplinary process in Kentucky. See Id., Rule 2 ("The Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court").
In light of everything the KBA stated and represented to the membership of the Bar several years ago regarding the operational and functional relationship between the Client Assistance Program and the Office of Bar Counsel, it seems that the KBA ought to make some conspicuous announcement and explanation of the recent change in the Kentucky Bench & Bar magazine and at District Bar Meetings.
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Criticism of Deckard appointment misunderstands the position ... |
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