{"id":4590,"date":"2003-09-17T01:29:50","date_gmt":"2003-09-17T05:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/09\/17\/when-is-donation-solicitation"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:39","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:39","slug":"when-is-donation-solicitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/09\/17\/when-is-donation-solicitation\/","title":{"rendered":"When Is Donation Solicitation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Overlawyered.com<\/A> <\/FONT>raises important issues <\/FONT>in its Sept. 15 posting<\/A> on the connection between clergy-abuse survivor groups and plaintiffs’ lawyers who represent abuse victims.    <\/FONT>According to the featured Forbes article<\/A><\/FONT> <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>plaintiffs’ attorneys are among the biggest contributors to some survivor groups, while other groups — e.g.<\/EM>, Survivors First in Boston — refuse to take such contributions.  (Paid to Picket<\/EM>, <\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN>by Daniel Lyons, 09.15.03; free regis. req’d)<\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN> Forbes<\/EM> notes a strong difference of opinion between two prominent lawyers for clergy-abuse victims:<\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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“The symbiotic alliance makes Mitchell Garabedian squeamish. The lawyer last year negotiated a $10 million settlement for 86 plaintiffs in Boston, but he won’t give money to advocate groups because he believes the practice violates legal ethics guidelines. “It’s sort of a solicitation,” he says.<\/SPAN>

“Hogwash, say [Stockton, CA’s] Anderson, Drivon and Morey. “It’s not a solicitation. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a case from SNAP [Survivors Network Abused by Priests],” Drivon says.”<\/SPAN> <\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/DIV>
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This Editor agrees with Mr. Garabedian that such donations have at least the appearance of  impropriety.   A donation given with an understanding, or in anticipation, that clients will be referred to a firm looks an awful lot like solicitation.   And, donations given under pressure from a victims’ group — in order to prevent being blackballed or to assure consideration for referrals (or other forms of assistance and cooperation) — also put the law firm into unholy ethical territority.   The aura of impropriety that surrounds such donations should be a good enough reason for lawyers to beg off when asked to contribute to the survivor groups.  A little self-imposed discipline, stifling the urge to  contribute or to ask<\/EM> for such contributions, would go a long way towards instilling faith in the legal proceedings that surround the clergy-abuse scandals.  <\/FONT><\/DIV><\/FONT><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overlawyered.com raises important issues in its Sept. 15 posting on the connection between clergy-abuse survivor groups and plaintiffs’ lawyers who represent abuse victims.    According to the featured Forbes article plaintiffs’ attorneys are among the biggest contributors to some survivor groups, while other groups — e.g., Survivors First in Boston — refuse to take such contributions.  (Paid to Picket, by Daniel Lyons, 09.15.03; free regis. […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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-4590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1c2","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590","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=4590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14129,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4590\/revisions\/14129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}