NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

The Commission on Fiduciary Appointments was created by Judge Judith Kaye, Chief Judge of New York State, to allay public concerns stirred by the protests of two Brooklyn clubhouse lawyers that they were being denied receivership work despite their 'unquestioned loyalty' to the Democratic Party in Brooklyn.
But see below for the "rest" of the story!

WHERE: Association of the Bar of the City of New York
42 West 44th Street, New York, New York

WHEN: Thursday morning , December 7, 2000, 9:30 a.m.

WHO: Judges, lawyer-fiduciaries, bank trust departments, and the public

WHY: WHY IS THE LAWYERS' IMAGE AT AN ALL-TIME LOW?

The organized bar and the Unified Court System have condemned "Pay-to-Play" practices, but the problem goes far beyond what appears on the surface. Witnesses will testify to gross procedural irregularities by judges and fiduciaries, and an apparent total lack of oversight of compliance with assignment/reporting rules by the Unified Court System.

WHAT:

Some of these court-appointed fiduciaries (mental-health guardians, guardians ad litem, trustees, receivers, referees), are engaged, not merely in "pay-to-play" activities, as these political court assignments are known in the trade, but actually use them as "play-to-prey" opportunities, engaging in unjust enrichment (make-work and "doubledipping") at the expense of the parties and their families, or outright conversion of property without due process of law, such as selling real property over which they exercise control (as fiduciaries) at lower-than-market prices to insiders. Abused litigants seek judicial accountability and protection from unethical lawyers.

SOME BACKGROUND MATERIAL

"Final Indignities" - a Pulitzer-prize-winning editorial investigation by the St. Petersburg Times of the breakdown of the probate system in Florida and how court-appointed executors and administrators rape estates: http://www2.sptimes.com/Pulitzer/PPMainMenu.html

POSITION PAPERS re "Pay-to-Play:

Association of the Bar of the City of New York "Contributions to Campaigns of Candidates For Surrogate, and Appointments By Surrogates of Guardians Ad Litem - Report of the Committee on Government Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York - July 1998 http://www.abcny.org

New York State Bar Association Report on "Pay-to-Play" http://www.nysba.org/media/2000/paytoplay.html

American Bar Association Report on "Pay-to-Play" http://www.abanet.org/media/jul98/play798.html

NYS Unified Court System Press Release 3/6/2000 re Pay-to-Play http://www.courts.state.ny.us/

NYS Unified Court System Committee to Promote Public Trust & Confidence in the Legal System http://www.courts.state.ny.us/pubtrust.htm

American Board of Trial Advocates 9/8/2000 A White Paper Containing an Overview of the Civil Justice System http://www.abota.org/archive/cjr2000.html

NOTE: Although the NYS court system and the organized bar have now publicly recognized a lack of trust and respect for bench and bar, none of these organizations address the rampant abuse by fiduciaries and judges under color of law, which has been a well-kept secret until now. Individual complaints to bench and bar are met with suggestions to "take an appeal or file a grievance," neither of which systems function to protect the public from corrupt judges and unethical lawyers. Nor do any of the position papers realistically approach the corruption problem, playing "ostrich" instead.