Steven Lever, Esquire | SUSPENDED huh?

New York. Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

On this date in the Empire State, Steven J. Lever, Esquire, an intel­lec­tual prop­erty attor­ney, for­merly with Kirkland & Ellis in New York City, was sus­pended by the New York bar after attempt­ing to arrange a meet­ing “to engage in an oral sex­ual act” with a female he believed to be 13 years old– via an Internet chat room– in 2004.

Turns out the “girl” he thought he was chat­ting with was really a offi­cer of the law who was not trolling for sex but for pedophiles. Upon arriv­ing at the ren­dezvous, Lever was greeted by the officer’s col­leagues who also weren’t inter­ested in engag­ing in oral sex with him.

Monsieur Lever, admit­ted his trans­gres­sion to his employer at the time, Kirkland & Ellis, who fired him forth­with– their likely logic was that he used a KE com­puter for “per­sonal” rea­sons he hadn’t yet been convicted.

Monsieur Lever pled guilty to “attempted crim­i­nal sex act in the third degree”– a mis­de­meanor– in 2005.

Thereafter, the mat­ter of attor­ney dis­ci­pline was referred to a “ref­eree” who, cit­ing a vari­ety of mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances, rec­om­mended that mon­sieur Lever’s con­duct war­ranted a six month sus­pen­sion.  With that, the case was referred to the New York Court System’s Appellate Division, first depart­ment.  A a five judge panel was con­vened in 2008 to review the matter.

The panel agreed that mon­sieur Lever “brought shame to him­self and to this State’s Bar”  by prey­ing “on minors for pur­poses of sex­ual grat­i­fi­ca­tion.”  What they couldn’t agree on was how much shame Lever had brought to the Bar.  Was sus­pen­sion suf­fi­cient pun­ish­ment for an act that had “shamed” the bar for approx­i­mately four years or had mon­sieur Lever’s mis­de­meanor brought so much shame on the Bar over the past four years his behav­ior mer­ited dis­bar­ment– of course it likely wasn’t mon­sieur Lever’s fault the “Bar” took four years to review the case.

In a prece­dent set­ting deci­sion, the three judge major­ity on the panel, jus­tices Luis A. Gonzalez, Eugene Nardelli and James M. McGuire, decided to sus­pend mon­sieur Lever for three years cit­ing Lever’s admis­sion of respon­si­bil­ity and the fact that “after his arrest, he vol­un­tar­ily entered sex offender treat­ment and all evi­dence in the record sup­ports the therapist’s opin­ions that such ther­apy appears to be work­ing and that the like­li­hood of respon­dent repeat­ing the mis­con­duct was low.’”

Therewith the major­ity set the impor­tant prece­dent that attempted, pre­med­i­tated, sex with a minor does not bring enough shame on the “Bar” to war­rant dis­bar­ment.  And nei­ther does being a “reg­is­tered” sex offender.

The minor­ity justices, David B. Saxe and James M. Catterson, vig­or­ously dis­agreed.  Justice Catterson, opin­ing for the two of them wrote: “because I believe that a con­victed and reg­is­tered sex offender has for­feited the priv­i­lege of admis­sion to the bar and the ele­vated sta­tus of the offi­cer of the court, I must respect­fully take the unusual step in a dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ing and dis­sent… I believe that any penalty short of dis­bar­ment would not com­port with the stan­dards to which a mem­ber of the bar should adhere. I do not believe that we can rec­on­cile the sta­tus of reg­is­tered sex offender with that of a mem­ber of the bar in good standing.”

Justice Catterson will be our nom­i­nee for Attorney General. Saxe and Catterson get it.  They deserve to append their names with Justice.

America’s aris­toc­racy, our “offi­cers of the court” have dug an enor­mous hole for them­selves. The major­ity Justices in this case don’t get it.  They don’t decide the level of shame an attorney’s behav­ior brings to the “Bar”– the pub­lic does.

This “pub­lic” expects offi­cers of the court to abide by the rule of law and the rules of the pro­fes­sion.  More so even, than accoun­tants, doc­tors, engi­neers and other pro­fes­sion­als.  Because, as Justice Catterson points out, they occupy an “ele­vated” posi­tion in soci­ety.  Respect for that posi­tion is not earned because they attended law school, passed a Bar exam­i­na­tion or were appointed or elected to a posi­tion of power– those are indi­ca­tions of work ethic, intel­li­gence, socio-economic posi­tion, etc.  Respect is earned by a person’s self­less and eth­i­cal adher­ence to the rules by which they expect oth­ers to also adhere.

What’s your opinion?

Further read­ing regard­ing this case: [NewYorkPersonalInjuryAttorneyBlog] [New York Law Journal]