Publisher's Notebook

San Diego lawyer Erubey Lopez had a meeting scheduled with a criminal client last Tuesday.

He arrived at the local jail, where the client was residing, turned over his cell phone per jail procedures and went to the waiting room where lawyers and clients confer.

An officer locked the door and presumably went to get Lopez’s client.

That was a big “presumably.”

A half hour passed.

An hour passed. Lopez was fuming. He kept punching an intercom button, trying to get the guards’ attention. No luck. He banged on the door. No better luck.

Finally he gave up and waited.

The good news is that the waiting room did not turn into the Tomb of the Forgotten Lawyer. After four hours, a guard heard Lopez and freed him.

An official from the sheriff’s office called with an apology, but it may not be enough. Lopez is mulling whether to file a lawsuit.

San Diego’s NBC 7 has the story.

H/T to Steve Emmert for the link.

A Missouri lawyer is facing first-degree murder charges in the death of her father. She allegedly used an unusual weapon: a forged document.

The Kansas City Star reports that Susan Van Note is accused of attacking her father and his girlfriend at his home in Lake of the Ozarks. The girlfriend died of gunshot and stabbing wounds.

The father, shot in the head, was taken to a Columbia hospital. Van Note showed up with a document giving her the power to make end-of-life decisions for her father. Doctors removed him from life support and he died.

Prosecutors charged that the father’s signature was a forgery.

Trial is scheduled for November of next year.

You probably know that if you are a practicing lawyer, you can get out of jury duty.

The Virginia Code provides an exemption in § 8.01-341. In addition to exempting the president, the governor and any judge of any court, the section says at (5) that “licensed practicing attorneys” get a pass from “serving on civil and criminal cases.”

The reasons for the exemption are not completely clear.

In part it may be rooted in the 6th Amendment guarantee of a right by an “impartial jury.” U.S. Supreme Court cases addressing this right get into the “fair cross section” principle – somehow lawyers may not qualify.

Or maybe lawyers know too much and will second-guess counsel in the case.

Or perhaps there’s a concern that lay jurors might give too much deference to an officer of the court sitting in the box with them.

Every few years, some member of the General Assembly attempts to amend this section to remove the attorney exemption and throw lawyers into the general jury pool. They all have failed; the most recent attempt came in 2004.

But even with the exemption, what happens if you actually want to serve on a jury?

That very question was raised in Arlington recently. Circuit Clerk Paul Ferguson had a practice at juror orientation of asking if anyone in the venire was a lawyer. If the answer was yes, the person was politely shown the door.

From time to time, he said, lawyers would ask to stay and serve. So Ferguson wrote to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for his opinion on the issue of whether a lawyer can serve as a juror, despite the exemption.

Cuccinelli’s short answer: Sure, why not?

The AG said that the Code section doesn’t bar a lawyer from jury service if the lawyer is willing to waive the exemption.

Cuccinelli made several other observations about Code § 8.01-341:

• The exemption covers “licensed practicing attorneys,” not “attorneys in Virginia.” In other words, a licensed practicing attorney working in the District of Columbia, Maryland or any other state can invoke the exemption.

• “Practicing” means just that – the attorney is engaged in the business of law, rendering legal services or otherwise working on behalf of clients.” In other words, if you just have a law degree and a license from the bar, but you work in a different field, you are not exempt.

Ferguson said the Attorney General’s opinion is good news. Arlington has a large lawyer population and now he will have a larger pool from which to draw. And the AG’s distinction about “practicing” lawyers will be useful. Many people with an active law license live in the D.C. suburbs but work in the District at a government job.

Real world question: So what do you think will happen to any lawyer who wants to waive the jury service exemption?

Given counsel’s ability to use a peremptory strike, how long do you think that lawyer actually will last in the jury box? How fast is a New York minute?

The people who passed the February 2010 Virginia bar exam are now lawyers.

The Virginia State Bar held its Admission and Orientation ceremony yesterday at the Richmond Convention Center. The seven justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia were there; the spring and fall admission ceremonies are the only times that the court meets outside its home on Ninth Street all year.

If you go to an A&O ceremony, you’ll feel a wonderful energy and a sense of satisfaction filling a very large room. The attendees made it across one finish line and are starting a new and different race. Lots of families are there too — proud spouses, proud parents, kids who don’t quite know what’s going on, only that Mom or Dad is really, really happy.

I’ve been serving as the sponsor for the Washington & Lee law school graduates at the spring ceremony for about seven or eight years now. To appear before the high court while welcoming fellow W&L grads to the bar is one of my favorite tasks. I never fail to flash back to a fall day in 1985 at the grand ballroom at the old John Marshall Hotel. Ponder a minute, and I’m sure your own swearing-in day will float back from memory, whether it was in the Supreme Court Building, the John Marshall, the Richmond Marriott or the Convention Center. A pretty good day, wasn’t it?

To the crowd yesterday: Well done, and cheers!

How many decisions have we featured over the years in which a lawyer or a law firm is forced to bring suit to collect an unpaid fee, and a judge whacks it down? Sometimes a lot. Sometimes the lawyer gets only pennies on the dollar.

That’s time out of that lawyer’s life that he or she will never be able to put to good use for another client. When all you have to sell is your time and expertise, one of those results can be a gut-punch. And you know what? Invariably, those cases are highly popular.

Out of Henrico County this week, here’s something new: A law firm sued a client for unpaid legal fees…and got every penny it asked for.

Click here to check it out.