Ethics Corner

In the Maryland case of Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland v Christopher Edward Vasiliades, the Maryland Supreme Court disbarred the attorney for conduct including authoring and sharing biased and prejudicial language on his public social media accounts which he also used to advertise his legal practice. At a hearing, the judge concluded that Respondent’s conduct violated Maryland’s Rule 8.4(e) as his words “speak for themselves” and are replete with racial, homophobic, and sexist slurs often insulting to women. The hearing judge concluded that the content reflected poorly on the legal profession in the eyes of a reasonable member of the public and were therefore prejudicial to the administration of justice as well as violating Rule 8.4(e) since the attorney was acting in his professional capacity as he advertised his law firm from the social media accounts used for the posts.

In a case from South Carolina, In the Matter of Traywick, the South Carolina Supreme Court suspended an attorney for six-months by agreement. In that case, the South Carolina Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) received complaints from forty-six different individuals regarding statements made by Traywick on his Facebook page, a public page identifying him as an attorney and referencing his law firm. ODC identified 12 of the 46 statements as tending to bring the legal profession into disrepute and violating the letter and spirit of the South Carolina Lawyer’s Oath. The Court suspended Traywick for six months noting his comments were “not expressive, they are expressly incendiary. The statements were intended to incite, and had the effect of inciting, gender and race-based conflict beyond the scope of the conversation Respondent would otherwise have with his Facebook friends. The fact that Respondent is a lawyer exacerbated this effect.”

My takeaway? These two consequential decisions remind us that being a lawyer is a privilege, not a right.