Lawyers and Accountability (Editorial)

The Arkansas Supreme Court building in Little Rock (Dustin Nevill)

It would be nice to think that human nature has improved remarkably during the last 20 years, but, somehow, we doubt it.

But as our Mark Friedman reports in this week’s issue, the number of lawyers publicly disciplined by the state of Arkansas in the last 20 years has plunged from 102 in 2005 to eight in 2024. The number of formal complaints filed by the watchdog over the state’s legal community has also declined.

The Office of Professional Conduct, overseen by the Arkansas Supreme Court, is responsible for disciplining lawyers in Arkansas. The new chief of the office, Robert Brech, has promised to investigate the reasons behind the decline in disciplinary actions and to address a yearslong backlog of pending discipline cases.

We have another suggestion for the OPC and the Supreme Court: Consider making complaints against lawyers available to the public, just as the Arkansas State Medical Board makes complaints against physicians. As Friedman reports: “Complaints that never go public are not likely to discourage attorney misconduct because potential clients or clients never learn about them, critics say.”

Arkansas lawyers, who can hold clients’ financial well-being or even freedom in their hands, should be held to the same standards of accountability as are Arkansas doctors. And Arkansans should not have to wonder whether the OPC is doing its job.