{"id":4535,"date":"2003-07-31T20:34:07","date_gmt":"2003-08-01T00:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/07\/31\/balking-bar-advocates-should-"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:47","slug":"balking-bar-advocates-should-end-their-bay-state-boycott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/07\/31\/balking-bar-advocates-should-end-their-bay-state-boycott\/","title":{"rendered":"Balking “Bar Advocates” Should End Their Bay State Boycott"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Boston Globe reported<\/A> today that Massachusetts “bar advocates” are continuing to protest over their generally low pay and their failure to be paid for Fiscal ’03 services they have performed. (Bar advocates stage protest: They refuse cases on budget issues<\/I>, by Kathleen Burge, 7\/31\/03.) <\/I>Bar advocates are court-appointed attorneys for the indigent, who work in private law practice, and are paid by the hour.<\/P>
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In two postings<\/A> over the past weekend (July 26, 2003), this blawg reminded my Bay State colleagues that concerted<\/I> refusals to deal by otherwise independent sellers of services violate the antitrust law — even when done by professionals for quality of service or other public interest purposes, and even when done by “good guys” like low-paid court-appointed attorneys.  <\/FONT><\/FONT>I’m even going to cite the U.S. Supreme Court case again for them, <\/FONT>FTC v. <\/FONT>Sup. Ct. Trial Lawyers Ass’n<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/A>,<\/FONT> 493 U.S. 411 (1990).  <\/FONT>Unions of employees have specific antitrust immunity for strikes and boycotts.  Private attorneys simply do not.<\/P>
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Some of the protesting lawyers might have gotten the antitrust liability message. In the Globe<\/I> article, for example, Taunton lawyer Robert P. Kidd went syntactically out of his way to stress that each lawyer was acting unilaterally:<\/P>
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“Spontaneously<\/U>, attorneys like myself were just pushed over the edge,” said Robert P. Kidd, a Taunton lawyer refusing new cases. “Individual attorneys said: ‘Enough is enough<\/U>.  I can’t afford to take these cases anymore.’ ” <\/EM><\/P>
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Nonetheless, the article certainly suggests some coordination is going on (emphases added):<\/P>
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