
Dr. Orly Taitz, who’s leading the OC charge that President Obama wasn’t born in this country and lacks a US Birth certificate, is having her own credentials as a lawyer questioned.
According to a post in the blog, A Candid World, Taitz attended an online lawy school and her degree and license only permits her to practice law in California. From their post:
Although Taitz is a member of the California Bar, she’s not listed as a member of the American Bar Association (check for yourself). Nor is her “law school†(William Howard Taft University) accredited by the ABA. Because Taft is a distance-learning school only, Taitz’s degree entitles her, at most, to practice in California, as her school candidly admits.
Rules of attorney discipline forbid the practice of law without a license – i.e., without sitting for and passing the bar exam, after graduating from an ABA-accredited school. Her correspondence degree is a limited exception, only useful in California. So, any action in which she appeared as counsel of record outside the state would constitute practicing law without a license, in violation of California disciplinary rules. Has “Dr.†Taitz violated this rule? Does her appearance before the Supreme Court, in filing documents for the frivolous, since-dismissed case Lightfoot v. Bowen, therefore subject her to discipline?
…
Further, Taitz’s “consent form,†posted on her site to solicit & induce ill-advised members of our military into suing the President, may constitute an unethical attorney solicitation. Under the California rules, attorney “communications†may not contain dramatization, or “confuse, deceive, or mislead the public.â€* Tricking enlisted men & women into frivolously suing the commander in chief at least flirts with that line. Smart lawyers don’t cut the disciplinary rules this close.”
Because Obama’s mother was born in Kansas and is an American citizen, the president could have been born in Panama (like John McCain was) or on Mars, and still be considered an American Citizen. The right wing media of Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs have seized on this issue. Yet no one questioned McCain’s citizenship because he was born of American parents on a US military base.
I have no brief for a nutjob like Orly Taitz, but this article reveals a disturbing lack of understanding of how lawyers are licensed.
An attorney who passes a state bar exam is never admitted to practice before all states – just the one whose exam he/she passed. If you have a case in another jurisdiction, you must either pass that state’s bar, be admitted under reciprocity courtesy rules in that state (which seldom happens for California lawyers, because California doesn’t give such reciprocity to lawyers from other states itself), or associate in as counsel for the case in question as co-counsel with a local attorney.
The ABA is a voluntary trade group, just as is the AMA (to which an increasingly small percentage of the nation’s doctors belong).
Practice before the Supreme Court is generally limited, as is practice before each individual Federal District Court and Curcuit Court of Appeal, to those who apply for and are granted admission. This is usually procedural once you’re admitted to practice in a state (though the Supreme Court has some additional rules).
Thus, her California bar membership, however obtained and from whatever law school, allows her the same privileges as an Order of the Coif grad from Stanford.
Of greater interest is the notion of client solicitation, but those rules have been so relaxed over the past generation, in text and in real world enforcement, as to matter little any more. They’re easily gotten around, and easily complied with.
Taitz is a classic nutter, in my opinion. We don’t need to provide even indirect support for her conspiratorial view of the world by making frankly half-baked attacks on her like this. “A Candid World,” or whoever came up with this stuff, should know better.
This is really simple. You’re on vacation, someone breaks into your home and steals your things….even giving some of it to the poor. Then, you found out that they were liberal in their political persuasion. I hardly think it would matter and you would surely press charges to ensure it didn’t happen to anyone else. Whether Conservative or Liberal, we all need to take a deep breath and seek the TRUTH about everything. Blind allegiance is at the root of many of our current social and economic problems. Wise up and demand the FULL TRUTH from ALL our POLITICIANS.
According to MSNBC, Taitz is full of shit – the so called ‘Kenyan birth certificate’ is a forgery by virtue of the fact that it represents Obama’s birth in the city of Mombassa, Kenya in Aug of 1961 – the trouble is, there WAS NO city of Mombassa, Kenya in 1961!
It’s true. The city of Mombassa, in 1961, was part of the province of Zanzibar, Tanganyka (now Tanzania) in 1961! The city became part of Kenya only three years later, when Zanzibar was ceded to Kenya from then Tanganyka (Tanzania), so the ‘Kenyan birth certificate’ could not be genuine, since it says on it very clearly that the city is Mombassa, Kenya, even though at that time it was Mombassa in the province of Zanzibar, Tanganyka. Since it doesn’t say that, it can’t be authentic, simple as that. It has to be a fake, and in fact it is dated in 1963, almost a year before the city became part of Keyna in the first place.
In addition to that, the ‘Kenyan birth certificate’ has been found to be an online copy of a real birth certificate from, of all places, Australia – AUSTRALIA! So, I guess that means Obama is really an Aussie, which is okay with me!
~Johnny-O