Monday, July 9, 2001
Page 9
PERSPECTIVES (Column)
Needed: Strong Candidates to Compete With The Breakfast Club's Designees
By ROGER M. GRACE
My wife, Jo-Ann, is a “joiner.” She’s a member of the State Bar Committee on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, secretary of the Foundation of the State Bar of California, a member of the Executive Committee of the Central City Assn., and a member of the Board of Directors of the Levitt & Quinn Family Law Center. As if that weren’t enough to keep her from getting bored, she chairs a group of early-risers who conspire over eggs and bacon to shape the outcome of elections to the State Bar Board of Governors.
Today I’m going to discuss the doings of her crack-of-dawn brigade, content in the knowledge that my wife’s inherent sense of fair play and her commitment to the First Amendment will preclude any thought of reprisal on her part over the content of this column. On the other hand, if you don’t hear from me again…
Anyway, the group, known simply as “The Breakfast Club,” has had, over the past four decades-plus, a near perfect success rate. Those it endorses win election to District 7 (Los Angeles County) slots on the Board of Governors, and those it doesn’t endorse desist from running or lose.
The group acts as a self-appointed nominating committee whose wishes are not easy to buck—though it would be delightful to see a good candidate succeed in doing so some day, just to show that there’s a spark of democracy left in the process.
The Breakfast Club’s wishes have not been thwarted since 1981. That year, Phyllis Hix, whose bid for an endorsement was spurned by the early-bird group, decided not to retreat, but instead amassed endorsements from the likes of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, Southern California Defense Counsel, and the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn. The “Independent Bar Committee” was formed, which endorsed her, and she trumpeted a designation of her by the Lawyers Club of “well qualified.”
She trounced The Breakfast Club candidate, Don Mike Anthony, by a vote of 4,497-3,946. (Anthony subsequently gained election to the board in 1984).
Over the past two decades, however, no candidate with impressive credentials has taken on a Breakfast Club-backed contender. For example, when Pasadena attorney John J. Collins of Collins, Collins, Muir & Traver lost the endorsement in 1995, he simply stayed out of the contest that year, securing the endorsement the next year, and gaining election to the board.
In essence, State Bar elections are determined by four or five dozen lawyers gathered for breakfast in downtown Los Angeles.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t suggest there’s anything inappropriate about lawyers who want top-notch representatives from this district on the State Bar’s board banding together to recruit and support candidates. It’s commendable. What’s to be bemoaned is that The Breakfast Club is the only group performing that function—hence there’s no competition, and that one group, in essence, hand-picks the representatives from District 7. How much more salutary it would be were there a competing Lunch Bunch, High Tea Coterie, or Midnight Snackers, putting up their own candidates.
Anyway, The Breakfast Club does what only it does, and this year ordained that the two District 7 vacancies to occur this year are to be filled by former Attorney General John K. Van de Kamp and by local bar leader Patricia Lobello-Lamb, of the San Dimas law firm of Lamb, Morris & Lobello. Van de Kamp, understandably, drew no opposition. Lobello-Lamb did. Her opponent is Matthew Cavanaugh of the Century City law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Ballots were mailed last week and must be returned by Aug. 17.
Is this the year The Breakfast Club’s hold on State Bar elections in District 7 is to be broken?
I sure hope not.
I say that not simply because Jo-Ann presides over The Breakfast Club this year. Rather, it’s because The Breakfast Club has put a worthy candidate in the ring, and no other worthy candidate has entered that ring.
At this point, I should note that I’ve known Pat Lobello since the late 1980s when my wife started bringing me along to meetings of the Italian American Lawyers Assn.—a group Pat headed in 1991. (My wife, by the way, was president in 1996.) On the other hand, I have not met Cavanaugh, to my knowledge.
But this is not a matter of friendships or personalities. It’s a matter of qualifications.
Lobello-Lamb has headed not only the IALA but the Eastern Bar Assn., and was a trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. She’s been involved in State Bar affairs, having served as a member of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. She’s also been a member of the board of directors of a legal services program, and has chaired The Breakfast Club. Lobello-Lamb, 59, has been in law practice for 33 years.
By contrast, Cavanaugh, 38, a lawyer for less than 12 years, has never headed, nor been an officer of, any local bar group (though he chaired a technology/intellectual property committee in Orange County and later here). He has never been involved in the State Bar—and yet he seeks membership on its decisionmaking body.
He hasn’t earned his stripes.
Undeterred by his utter lack of qualifications for the leadership role he covets, Cavanaugh craftily seeks to turn his lack of distinction into a plus. He begins his candidate statement by proclaiming:
“It is time for everyday members to govern the state bar.”
Lobello-Lamb is, of course, a member of the State Bar every day. But I think that in the context in which Cavanaugh is using the term, he means “ordinary”—undistinguished.
What he’s saying is: “Hey, all you ordinary lawyers—I’m ordinary just like you, so vote for me.”
This reminds me of the late U.S. Sen. Roman Hruska’s retort when a U.S. Supreme Court nominee of President Richard Nixon, G. Harrold Carswell, was labeled “mediocre.” The Nebraska Republican responded:
“Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance?”
Well, Carswell did not make it to the nation’s top tribunal, and Cavanaugh should not succeed in his quest for membership on the State Bar’s governing body.
There are six members of the board who are not lawyers, under cockeyed Jerry Brown Era legislation. There’s one who is elected by the California Young Lawyers Assn. who may not be older than 36. Of the 22 members of the board, only 15 are chosen by the membership of the profession the organization is set up to regulate and serve.
Those 15, chosen by district, should be lawyers who have toiled in the bar’s vineyards and who have demonstrated sound judgment and leadership capacity. They should not be nameless, faceless “everyday” lawyers like Cavanaugh.
Cavanaugh is not running simply on a platform of being ordinary. He also has a pitch. In his candidate statement, he says:
“Lawyers practice in an increasingly competitive international economy. We now compete significantly against non-lawyers, who are not subject to the strict rules under which lawyers labor, such as those regarding fee sharing and conflict of interest....
“The bar should drop its expensive crusades, like those over MCLE and public policy, and make its chief goal helping lawyers succeed in the modern economy.”
This rhetoric will no doubt garner votes for Cavanaugh. In bemoaning the competitive disadvantage lawyers suffer because of ethical restrictions imposed on them, he is strongly hinting that, as a member of the Board of Governors, he would push for a loosening of such restrictions so that lawyers could make more money. Clearly, he is running as a proponent of helping lawyers rake in more revenues. He declares that the “chief goal” of the State Bar should be that of “helping lawyers succeed in the modern economy.”
But should the “chief goal” of a quasi governmental body be the promotion of the financial interests of those regulated by that body?
Should the “chief goal” of the Medical Board of California be that of assisting doctors in maximizing revenues?
Indeed, should the enhancement of personal, pecuniary interests of professionals even be the “chief goal” of purely voluntary associations, such as the American Bar Assn. or the American Medical Assn.?
From an intellectual level, an attorney would have to answer “no.” Yet, the gut reaction of many lawyers—perhaps a majority—to Cavanaugh’s waiving of a banner emblazoned with “More Money for Lawyers” is going to be a positive one.
What we have is a young obscure lawyer engaging in demagoguery to ferret votes for a high position for which he has demonstrated no aptitude. The prospect that he will win should not be discounted. There was once an obscure lawyer who engaged in demagoguery and pulled a surprise win over a sitting judge, bagging a post on the Citrus Municipal Court. His name was Patrick Murphy.
When The Breakfast Club’s control of Board of Governors elections is ended—and, sorry Jo-Ann, it should be—it should come as the result of a solid candidate who is not the designee of that club stepping into a race and, like Hix in 1981, pulling endorsements of top lawyer groups, such as ABOTA. Or, bar groups should simply put up their own candidates.
There should be excitement connected with the State Bar races. There should be real contests. As it is, many of the elections simply go by default to The Breakfast Club candidate—and when someone not blessed by that group does compete, it’s apt to be the likes of Ron Silverton. Silverton in 1996 opposed John Collins and in 1997 ran against Deputy Attorney General Clair Slifkin. He’s an ex-convict who regained his license after having been disbarred, and ran on a platform of ending the State Bar’s disciplinary system.
Cavanaugh is not an ex-convict and has never incurred public discipline as a lawyer, or, for that matter, in his other profession, as a real estate broker. But he, like Silverton, runs as an outsider, apparently hoping that lawyers having any frustrations with the State Bar will cling to his candidacy. Like Silverton, he runs sans credentials, the engine of his campaign powered by chutzpah.
If Cavanaugh doesn’t get elected to the Board of Governors, he could follow in Silverton’s footsteps by next running for a judgeship. Perhaps he’s already preparing for that. Since last year, he’s been an adjunct professor at Whittier Law School. Adopting the oft-used technique pioneered by former Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patrick Murphy in his 1992 campaign for the Citrus Municipal Court, he could run as a “lawyer/law professor.”
Copyright 2001, Metropolitan News Company
UPDATE: Cavanaugh won. See Matthew Cavanaugh Pulls Off Upset in Board of Governors Race