Reinstatement Denied for Disbarred Former Lawyer
A former lawyer who was disbarred on consent in 2015 lost his bid for reinstatement after the Disciplinary Board found that he failed to meet his burden to prove rehabilitation from the issues that led to his disbarment.
Neil E. Jokelson of Philadelphia was disbarred in 2015 after signing a Statement of Resignation in which he admitted to conversion of client funds. The disbarment followed a disciplinary history that included two informal admonitions, two private reprimands, and a public censure for courses of conduct that included neglect and failures to communicate, to refund unearned fees, to return client files, and to abide by court orders.
After seven years out of practice, Jokelson filed a Petition for Reinstatement. The Disciplinary Board found that his petition and accompanying questionnaire contained misstatements and failed to disclose material facts including discipline in other jurisdictions, lawsuits in the hundreds, and unsatisfied judgments.
In his testimony at his reinstatement hearing, contrary to the resignation statement he signed, Jokelson did not acknowledge that he converted client funds and objected to Disciplinary Counsel’s questions based on that premise. He only admitted to being bad at law office management. Jokelson’s testimony at the hearing focused on events occurring before his disbarment, and the Disciplinary Board found scant evidence of anything he had done to address the issues that led to his disbarment. He testified that he spent the period from 2018 to 2022 caring for his terminally-ill wife and later a disabled friend, but he offered no information on what he did between 2015 and 2018.
Jokelson called ten character witnesses, but all spoke only of his pre-disbarment skills, and none were familiar with the circumstances of his disbarment or were able to address his rehabilitation. One witness was unaware Jokelson had been disbarred, believing he was retired. The Disciplinary Board concluded that the character witnesses were well-meaning, but little weight could be given to their testimony as to Jokelson’s current fitness.
After an independent review of the record, the Disciplinary Board concluded that Jokelson had not offered the type of evidence that has generally been found to support a finding of rehabilitation. That failure, along with conflicting evidence of remorse, failure to address his practice issues, and lack of candor in his reinstatement questionnaire led the Disciplinary Board to conclude that Jokelson had not met his burden of proof. The Disciplinary Board recommended denial of his petition to the Supreme Court. On October 6, 2023, the Supreme Court entered a per curiam
Order denying Jokelson’s reinstatement.
Lawyer: If You’re Going to Keep My Client Jailed, Lock Me Up with Him
A Kentucky lawyer, frustrated with long delays in getting a competency evaluation for his client, came up with a startling
suggestion: if you’re going to keep my client in jail pending an evaluation, put me in with him.
In a motion, attorney Matt Pippin alleges that his client, Jacob Gonzalez, has already been imprisoned for more than a year which would be the maximum possible sentence he would face if convicted of the charges against him. He has been waiting for the state to schedule an evaluation to determine whether he is fit to stand trial. He has not had access to medication or treatment during this time.
In August of last year, a judge threatened to hold Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center officials in contempt of court for repeatedly failing to follow orders or perform competency evaluations. Hundreds of defendants have remained imprisoned indefinitely with their criminal cases on hold across the state. A KCPC official testified that there is a waiting list of over three hundred for evaluations, up from about eighty before the pandemic. Waiting periods were about eight weeks before the pandemic but have stretched out to a year or more. The system has resorted to performing evaluations by video conferencing to cut the backlog, but the steps taken have only reduced the backlog by about ten percent.
Pippin’s proposal is dramatic; he requests to be jailed in the same cell as his client with work release during the day so he can continue to represent clients.
"The point is to try to ease my client's suffering," Pippin said in an interview. "He is stuck and alone, and it has gone on long enough without any solution that it's become a moral issue . . . I don't know how to fix it, but I know how to make it a little better in the short term. And if I was there with him, I know that I could at least make him more comfortable."
Pippin acknowledges that his real goal is not to spend time in jail but to goad the system into performing Gonzales’s evaluation. "If KCPC knows that I'm sitting there waiting on them too, then they may be able to make an accommodation for him. I don't want to be incarcerated, but I don't want this on my conscience anymore. And I do think that there is a better chance of this being expedited . . . if there is some attention paid to it in any way."
Hip-Hop Star: My Lawyer Was Ineffective for Using AI to Draft a Closing Argument
Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a member of the hip-hop trio The Fugees, is
seeking to overturn his conviction on federal conspiracy charges by arguing that his trial counsel was ineffective, in part because he used generative artificial intelligence to draft a closing argument.
Prosecutors
alleged that Michel took millions of dollars from Malaysian businessman Jho Low to enhance Low’s image in the United States and to influence the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to derail the investigation and prosecution of fraud charges against Low.
In a new
trial motion filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, new counsel for Michel argues that his trial counsel, among other errors, drafted his closing argument using an experimental AI program which made frivolous arguments, conflated the schemes, and failed to highlight weaknesses in the Government’s case. The motion further argues that counsel had a financial stake in the program and publicly boasted about it. A
press release for the product, EyeLevel.AI, highlights the use of the software in Michel’s trial and contains a quotation from his former trial counsel stating that the program “turned hours or days of legal work into seconds”.
CaseFile Connect, the company that produces EyeLevel.AI, sent a statement to
Reuters denying the allegation that trial counsel had a financial interest in the company. Michel’s current lawyers assert that the company uses addresses in Encino, California, and New York which are also associated with Michel’s trial defense counsel.
The company’s press release promotes the use of AI as a tool to enhance the effectiveness of lawyers, but the allegations of the motion for new trial also serve as a cautionary tale that such technology is a tool ̶ not a substitute for the lawyer’s professional judgment.
Shoeless Joe Transcript Reveals: Maybe It Was So
As America’s attention turned to the World Series again, a new book sheds fresh light on one of baseball’s darkest moments: the Black Sox scandal arising from the Chicago White Sox losing the 1919 World Series. In the aftermath of the series, stories emerged that several of the White Sox players, including their brightest star, “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, had taken money from gamblers to throw the series. Although Jackson batted .375 during the series, he and seven other players were banned from baseball in the aftermath.
The case has been much romanticized in American folklore including its portrayal of Jackson as an unintelligent man drawn into a conspiracy without understanding it in the film
Eight Men Out. One legend suggests a boy implored Jackson, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” Later in life Jackson asserted, “I would have told him it ain’t so.”
A new
book reveals that a trial transcript from a 1924 suit Jackson filed against the White Sox has been revealed and casts Jackson in a different light. In 1957, a court clerk cleaning out old files found the 300,000-word transcript and turned it over to Robert Cannon, the son of Jackson’s lawyer in the case. Eventually, a copy of the transcript made its way to Jerome Holtzman, a longtime Chicago sportswriter and Major League Baseball’s Official Historian. In 2007, Dr. David Fletcher, a board-certified physician in occupational medicine and founder of the Chicago Baseball Museum, acquired Holtzman’s private papers, including the transcript. It provides the story for a new book,
Joe Jackson, Plaintiff, vs. Chicago American League Baseball Club, Defendant—Never-Before-Seen Trial Transcript, edited by Jacob Pomrenke and Fletcher.
Pomrenke and Fletcher note that far from being the uneducated rube he was portrayed as in the film, Jackson was a capable businessman who ran several businesses including a pool hall, a barbeque, and a liquor store. They report that the transcript reveals that Jackson admitted multiple times in his testimony before a grand jury probing the scandal that he was paid to throw the series. In fact, he complained that he was promised $25,000 but only received $5,000. At trial, Jackson testified that he couldn’t remember this testimony and denied that he sought or received any money. Pomerenke and Fletcher cite testimony from a banker in Savannah, Georgia, that a $5,400 deposit was made by Jackson’s wife in December 1919, two months after the World Series. Despite this evidence, the jury found in Jackson’s favor and awarded a verdict of $16,711 in favor of Jackson.
The trial judge was unimpressed. He criticized the jury for its failure to do its duty and set aside the verdict. He also threatened to refer Jackson to law enforcement for perjury charges due to the discrepancy between his grand jury and trial testimony, but no perjury charges were brought.
Maryland Supreme Court Posthumously Admits Black Lawyer Denied Admission 166 Years Ago
Over a century after his death, a Black man from Maryland finally won admission to the bar.
In a
ceremony held on October 26, 2023, the Supreme Court of Maryland granted admission to the state bar to
Edward Garrison Draper whose application was denied in 1857 solely because he was Black. Draper had
outstanding qualifications for the time. He was a graduate of Dartmouth in a time when few lawyers even held college degrees. He applied for admission to the bar in 1857, but the odds were long. Only four Black lawyers had been admitted in the entire country, and Maryland was a particularly hostile jurisdiction. A statute adopted in 1832 barred anyone other than white males from admission as lawyers. That law would remain on the books until 1888, although the first Black lawyer, Everett J. Waring, was admitted to the bar in 1885.
Draper’s application was denied by Judge Zacheus Collins Lee, a slave owner and first cousin of Robert E. Lee. However, Draper informed Judge Lee that he intended to depart for the African nation of Liberia and persuaded him to issue a certificate stating, “I have found him intelligent and well-informed in his answer to the questions propounded by me, and qualified in all respects to be admitted to the Bar in Maryland, if he was a free white citizen of this state.”
Armed with this document, Draper set off for his new home. Sadly, he passed away from tuberculosis barely a year after arriving in Liberia.
Former Texas Appellate Justice John G. Browning, who was involved in presenting the petition for Draper’s posthumous admission, said, “Maryland was not at the forefront of welcoming Black applicants to the legal profession. But by granting posthumous bar admission to Edward Garrison Draper, this court places itself and places Maryland in the vanguard of restorative justice and demonstrates conclusively that justice delayed may not be justice denied.”
