From Law Office to Oval Office

Every four years, Americans go to the polls to elect the individual who will serve as our chief executive officer, commander in chief of the armed forces, head of state, and who, since the Truman administration, is known by the acronym, POTUS – President of the United States.  These individuals have brought numerous skills and diverse experiences to our highest office.  These experiences have included: architect, soldier, diplomat, Secretary of State, governor, postmaster, ordained Minister, school teacher, sheriff, journalist, U.S. Solicitor General, judge and vice president of the United States.

Significantly, of our 44 presidents (if one counts Grover Cleveland twice), there have been 25 individuals who were lawyers before becoming presidents, including William Howard Taft who became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court after he served as President.  In addition to Taft, who argued before justices he had appointed, seven other lawyer-presidents have appeared before the United States Supreme Court.  The most recent lawyer-president to do so was Richard Nixon when he argued the case of Time v. Hill in 1966.

Some individuals actively practiced law.  John Adams combined a lengthy career as an attorney with major contributions to the founding of a new nation.  His son, John Quincy Adams, successfully argued that the kidnapped and sold-as-slaves Africans should be treated as free men and released in Amistad [Part of our audio/visual collection available on display].   Rutherford Hayes and Benjamin Harrison handled several high profile cases, including sensational murder trials.   Abraham Lincoln was involved in more than 5000 cases, spanning his 25 year career.   He was also a postmaster and a captain in the Black Hawk war.  Lincoln was a skilled draftsman.  He utilized this skill in crafting a legally binding executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation.

Some presidents studied the law to further political aspirations.  Some, such as Lincoln and James Garfield, set their own course of study and read the law before being admitted to the bar.  Garfield is better known as a teacher, college professor and president, soldier, congressman and a Minister of the Disciples of Christ.  Others took the more traditional approach and attended law schools.  President Gerald Ford, in fact, attended three including a summer spent at the University of North Carolina School of Law.  Norman Gross has profiled the men who were both lawyers and president of the United States in his treatise,  America’s Lawyer-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Office [Available at on display - Call No. KF353 .A46 2004 ]. 

Test your knowledge of America’s Lawyer-Presidents by taking the quiz sponsored by the American Bar Association.

 - Susan Catterall -

A Cautionary Tale

On October 13, 2010, the ABA Journal featured a cautionary tale for all law students to take heed.  A lawyer from Kansas City, Carlos Romious, was disbarred for “for charging a soldier a fee of $3,500 an hour, shouting profanities at court clerks, brawling with court security officers and suggesting that a judge is pedophile,” according to the ABA Journal article, the National Law Journal and the Legal Profession Blog.  According to the National Law Journal, “Romious had originally agreed to represent the soldier for a flat $3,500 fee, but later claimed the amount was his hourly charge,” and in a different instance, according to the full-text of the Supreme Court the opinion (PDF), “the court says, Romious asked a judge whether he was a pedophile and said, ‘You’re going to sit up there with the audacity and the smugness of your holiness.’”  In addition to Romious’ “abusive and bizarre behavior,” as cited by the court, the court points to Romious’ interactions with courtroom personnel, including security officers and clerks.  Specifically, the court cited where “Romious brawled with security officers after he set off a magnetometer,  he called a court clerk a ‘f—ing b—-,’ said he wanted to ‘ ‘f—ing’ file his papers, and declared that he was smarter than anyone in the clerk’s office.”  As a result the court said Romious’ behavior had resulted in two criminal convictions, an active sentence in jail and a contempt citation. The court opinion outlines all of  Romious’ behavior, including outrageous statements against opposing counsel, demands upon the prosecution, attempts to file incomplete or otherwise improper documents, failures to appear for hearings and court proceedings, and numerous other strange interactions.

Are you curious about the professional rules of conduct for your state? If so, most states publish the rules of professional conduct on the web (either the state bar website or a website designated for court rules and procedure) for easy searching ability.  For example, based on the situation presented above, the hearing panel stated Romious violated “KRPC 1.1 (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 410) (competence);  1.5(a) (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 460) (fees); 3.4(c) (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 552) (fairness to opposing party and counsel); 3.5(d) (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 558) (engaging in undignified or discourteous conduct degrading to a tribunal); 4.4(a) (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 572) (respect for rights of third persons); 8.4(b) (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 602) (commission of a criminal act reflecting adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer); 8.4(c) (engaging in conduct involving misrepresentation); 8.4(d) (engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice); 8.4(g) (engaging in conduct adversely reflecting on lawyer’s fitness to practice law); and Kansas Supreme Court Rule 211(b) (2009 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 321) (failure to file answer in disciplinary proceeding). If you’re looking for the ABA model rules or other ethics materials, check out the ABA/BNA Lawyer’s Manual on Professional Conduct, which provides access to practice guides, indexes, highlights, ethics opinions, and ethics rules.  If you have a second, take a quick tour of the database!

What the ABA/BNA Lawyer’s Manual on Professional Conduct is:

Well known among the nation’s lawyers as the most authoritative source for news and guidance on virtually every aspect of attorney conduct and legal ethics, trust the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct to help you practice ethically.

What it helps you do:

Protect yourself and your clients by consulting this service as soon as a question arises, and avoid malpractice suits and disciplinary actions.

Each topical Practice Guide in the Manual includes an overview, detailed background information and analysis of the law, and descriptions of how courts and ethics committees have applied the law in particular fact situations.

Stay ahead with Current Reports on recent court decisions, ethics opinions, disciplinary actions, and other news, all fully indexed.

Refer to American Bar Association standards and ethics opinions in full text, materials on state ethics rules, and synopses of opinions by state and local bar associations.

Stay ahead with Current Reports on recent court decisions, ethics opinions, disciplinary actions, and other news

- Liz McCurry -