Every lawyer has disappointed clients, and none are so disappointed as those from whose case a lawyer withdraws. Most often these motions to withdraw take place in confidence, with sealed records, to protect the client's secrets.
I've a stalker or two here who insists on leaving snide comments. They use pseudonyms but the idiosyncratic sound of their need is evident to me. I am not going to post the comments.
Why, William Dorriss asks? What about their First Amendment rights? No one is abridging those rights. People are free to speak or not. But I am not a government agency and I control the editorial content here. I don't feel such a slave to principle as to tolerate anonymous slander from folks who won't leave a real name.
Neither will I be baited into breaching the attorney-client privilege. Lawyers are permitted to withdraw from a case with the court's permission for all sorts of reasons. Some of those reasons would be devastating to a client's well being if told to the world at large. But I have said it before and I will say it again: lawyers are ill-equipped to deal with the psychiatric ills they see in a practice. This is especially evidence in those borderline and paranoid souls who think that the world revolves around their hurt.
Sticks and stones won't break my bones, but I see no need to take pot shots from cranks who know damn well that their secrets are ones I must keep.
