{"id":4532,"date":"2003-07-31T10:13:37","date_gmt":"2003-07-31T14:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/07\/31\/lawyer-for-clergy-sex-abuse-v"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:47","slug":"lawyer-for-clergy-sex-abuse-victims-takes-ethics-complaint-by-dioce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/07\/31\/lawyer-for-clergy-sex-abuse-victims-takes-ethics-complaint-by-dioce\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer for Clergy Sex Abuse Victims Takes Ethics Complaint by Diocese Public"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“High-profile” New York lawyer John Aretakis uses the press as an integral part of his many lawsuits on behalf of victims of clergy sexual abuse.  According to the New York Law Journal, he’s decided to go public with his fight against resulting ethics complaints, which he says are used by Albany’s Catholic Diocese to stifle his legal advocacy on behalf of his clients.<\/P>
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In the NYLJ <\/EM>article, captioned <\/FONT>Lawyer and Diocese Wage Ethics Battle in Public<\/A>, reporter John Caher (07-31-2003) writes:<\/FONT> “<\/FONT>An attorney’s right or obligation to publicly advocate for his clients<\/U>, and to make protected allegations within the confines of a lawsuit, is in sharp focus in an ethics complaint lodged against a plaintiffs’ lawyer at the center of the clergy abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, N.Y.”  (emphasis added)<\/P><\/FONT>
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The NYLJ article continues:<\/P><\/FONT>
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Aretakis, who was representing alleged victims of clergy abuse years before the national church scandal broke, is a particularly aggressive and media-savvy advocate who has used publicity and the threat of it in demanding settlements. <\/P>
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Church officials have repeatedly questioned Aretakis’ professional ethics, while Aretakis, a solo practitioner, has repeatedly suggested that the diocese and Bishop Howard J. Hubbard are attempting to stifle litigation by stifling the litigator. <\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/FONT><\/FONT>
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The ethics complaint at issue here was filed by Sister Anne Bryan Smollin, a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Aretakis.  Sister Smollin takes issue with questions raised by Aretakis about her qualifications and impartiality counseling clergy abuse victims.  In addition, she points to Aretakis as the source of untrue allegations about her personal life.<\/P>
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The story is also covered in today’s Albany Times Union<\/A><\/EM> <\/FONT>(“<\/FONT>Lawyer in church abuse cases faces complaints”, by Andrew Tilghman, 7\/31\/03), and various aspects of Artekasis’ battle against the Diocese have received much local tv coverage<\/A>. <\/FONT>In one recent story, Curtis Oathout, a primary plaintiff in an Aretakis sex abuse case, was granted his request to hire a new lawyer, after he cited “irreconcilable differences” with Aretakis, due to the lawyer’s <\/FONT>“unacceptable actions<\/U>” in his lawsuit against the diocese. (WTEN news report<\/A>, <\/FONT>posted June 19, 2003.<\/P>
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I can’t pretend to know enough about the facts to have an opinion on the outcome of this ethics investigation.  Absent a judge’s gag order, a lawyer certainly should be able to make truthful statements to the press, about a pending (and non-frivolous?) lawsuit.   Whether doing so actually helps the client’s cause is another matter completely.   I wonder if requiring “honorable” rather than “zealous” advocacy on behalf of a client would alter the lawyer’s ethical restraints or duties.  (See our posting<\/A> about Arizona’s deletion of “zeal” from its Rules of Conduct.)<\/P>
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Check out a recent article in Law Practice Management Magazine, <\/FONT>Dealing with the Media<\/A>: How to Protect and Enhance Your Clients’ Interests<\/EM>, for some do’s and don’t when dealing with the press. (by Monica Bay, <\/FONT>May\/June 2003, Vol. 29, Issue 4).<\/P><\/FONT><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“High-profile” New York lawyer John Aretakis uses the press as an integral part of his many lawsuits on behalf of victims of clergy sexual abuse.  According to the New York Law Journal, he’s decided to go public with his fight against resulting ethics complaints, which he says are used by Albany’s Catholic Diocese to stifle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1b6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14205,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions\/14205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}