S.C. Bar plan would put discipline data on Web

Site would give public information about lawyers who had been punished

By RICK BRUNDRETT

rbrundrett@thestate.com

Disciplined lawyers

If you want to know whether a lawyer has been disciplined in South Carolina, the answer soon might be a mouse click away.

The S.C. Bar — the state’s professional organization for nearly 12,000 lawyers — is considering a revised proposal to post attorney disciplinary actions on its Web site.

Last fiscal year, the state Supreme Court disbarred three attorneys, suspended 12 others and publicly reprimanded 11 more, court records show.

“The Bar has an obligation to protect the general public,” said Hilton Head lawyer John Jolley, chairman of the Bar’s Professional Responsibility Committee. “It’s important to make sure that information is available in a fairly easy, accessible way.”

Currently, only about a dozen states, including North Carolina, post attorney disciplinary actions on Web sites, according to the Bar.

The Bar’s 187-member House of Delegates, which establishes policy for the organization, will consider adopting the resolution at its biannual meeting Friday in Charleston.

Delegates initially adopted the proposal in January. But there were concerns about wording, and no disciplinary information has been posted on the Bar’s Web site, Jolley said.

The initial proposal would have required every disciplined lawyer — whether living or dead — to be listed, Jolley said. Under the latest resolution, that information would be posted for 75 years or until the lawyer dies.

Jolley said if the latest resolution is approved, he expects the information to be available on the Web site “in the next couple of months.”

Bar spokeswoman Leigh Thomas said her organization is compiling information on disciplined lawyers from existing computer databases and paper records in older cases.

Jolley said the Web site information likely would be in a searchable database, so users could type in a lawyer’s name. Under the proposal, the site would include links to state Supreme Court rulings on the disciplined lawyers.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal supports the proposal.

“It’s a matter of public information,” she said. “It’s all in the public domain.”

Currently, anyone can search the Judicial Department’s Web site for rulings on disciplined lawyers. But it’s not as easy to find as the Bar’s proposed site, and rulings are available only dating back to 1997.

John Crangle, the attorney-director of the state chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said he thinks the Bar’s proposal is a good idea. But he said some lawyers might object to having prior disciplinary records posted on a Web site.

“It’s much easier to get attorneys to bite on something prospectively rather than retroactively,” he said.

Jolley said he hasn’t heard any complaints from lawyers since the January meeting.

“We’re not trying to put some scarlet letter on Bar members. We’re trying to be even-handed about it.”

The Bar’s Web site can be found at http://www.scbar.org/.

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.