The Other Side of the Story on The Lawyer Who Represented Himself

Last week, I posted here about Denver lawyer, Mark Brennan, harshly criticizing him for representing himself in a before a disciplinary board that is threatening to pull Brennan’s license for doing nothing more than zealously representing his client and achieving an outstanding result.  In the post, I agreed that the Board’s complaint was unjustified, but because I did not know the entire story (I relied only on the accounts at Colorado Lawyers’ Weekly), I faulted Brennan for not having an attorney represent him at the Board.  Mr. Brennan called me to correct the record.  He explained that representation would have been futile because the outcome of the case was pre-determined.  During our one hour conversation, Mr. Brennan was courteous, reflective and principled.   Mr. Brennan had every right to be upset about my post and yet he took the time to calmly educate me about the facts.  In short, Brennan was completely different than the way that he has been portrayed.

In any event, after speaking with Mr. Brennan and reviewing the other coverage at Westword.com and Know Your Courts, I agree that Brennan is absolutely right.  This proceeding should have never been brought.   Mr. Brennan won a $1.2 million verdict for his client and significantly, not a single juror believed that Mr. Brennan had acted inappropriately at the trial (indeed, several said that would hire him themselves).  Even the video that I posted depicted just 20 seconds out of a three day trial (and indeed, why was the single segment designed to make Mr. Brennan look bad posted, rather than all of the video?)  I have posted Mr. Brennan’s explanation below, in bold, with the hope that justice will prevail in this case. 

The outcome is predetermined. The City, Blackburn, and their friends in high places, e.g., Finegan, Mullarkey, Farber, Brownstein, et al., are determined to make an example of me for the great crime of getting more money for my client that either he or the City ever imagined possible.  They want to send a clear message to any other idealistic advocates for the little guy (who are not part of the inner circle immune from prosecution for much greater misconduct because of their political, ethnic, school, or other ties) who might entertain the notion that the federal courts offer redress for subversion of justice by public officials.

To be sure, my rage (unfiltered by counsel my $10,000 limit on disciplinary fees prevented me from hiring) aided them in their goal of obscuring the truth concerning my conduct.  Perhaps if one of the many "leading members of the bar" I contacted this spring for assistance would have been as generous in the service of justice as I was to Mr. Cadorna, I might have been represented.  Those who did not turn me down flat out (and most did), lest they offend the City or Blackburn, indicated it would cost me another $50,000-100,000 to defend myself against what I knew to be a predetermined outcome, lest the case would never have been brought.  I am not about to spend savings I will need to get my daughters through college, which they will start in 2010, when I am bound to lose regardless, not because the evdience is against me, but because the system is.

Until Ikeler, in his closing, requested indefinite suspension with the necessity of reapplication, a degree of discipline reserved only for thieves and incompetents, I managed to remain RELATIVELY equanimous.  I fear, however, that put me in such a rage it was all I could do not to take his head off, on the spot.  That I did not is a testament to my self-control.

OARC and the Establishment let the prosecutors who put Tim Masters in prison for 16 years (for a crime they knew damned well he did not commit) off with a "censure", when they should have been impeached from their judicial positions, disbarred,and themselves prosecuted for conspiracy, subornation of perjury, and obstruction of justice.  Yet again, those who enforce the law demonstrated, as the City did in railroading my client, they deem theemselves above it.

As my father often said, "Believe half of what you read, and none of what you hear." 

The Post’s coverage was inaccurate and tendentious.  For instance, even Blackburn poohed-poohed the notion that I engaged in 75-80 separate instances of "misconduct", as falsely alleged by the City in support of its new trial motion.  He identified only 15 or so, each of which I have repeatedly identified in numerous pleadings as under no circumstances rising to the level of misconduct warranting a new trial, let alone discipline. 

Yet, the reporter, a Latina obviously incensed by my reference in other quarters to one of the City Attorneys as a chula and pendejo, terms with which my blood ties to numerous Mexicans and extensive travel in Mexico have acquainted me, did a sloppy hatchet job in which she falsely reported that I was admonished 75 times by Blackburn, which is nonsense, and failed to refer to the extensive testimony that proved my innocence of any punishable wrongdoing in the Cadorna trial.

Moreover, Cara DeGette, who, I learned after the hearing, is the Managing Editor of Colorado Law Week, the Independent, SenateBillNews, etc., and is, as you and Ben know, Diana DeGette’s sister, colluded with OARC to arrange for the presence of a video camera in the courtroom, in the guise of honest reporting.  It was actually a subterfuge by which OARC sought to document further misconduct by me that they can use to support their next case against me, which they have long planned to achieve my disbarment in retribution for my success against the City, in the service of their masters in the Democratic Establishment. 

DeGette is, of course, close to her sister, as well as Cole Finegan, one of the architects of this witch hunt. 

They did not bother to webcast anything that portrayed me in a good light, and there were hours of testimony that portrayed me in a very good light, including the testimony of the jury foreperson that completely exonerated me, and exposed Blackburn for the outlaw that he is. 

They webcast only a few minutes, consisting of the chickenshit contempt citation Lucero assessed for my referring to one of Blackburn’s minions as "mousy", which is kind, and a confrontation with Ikeler, after he demanded my indefinite suspension, in which he deliberately violated previous instruction by Lucero that he not approach me at the lectern, and approached me from behind while I was facing the judges, but gesturing in his direction, in an attempt to provoke me for the benefit of the cameras. 

When he walked into my outstretched arm, I held him back as would a teacher hold back a line of students.  When he attempted to press by me, I exerted greater force to restrain him and he lost his balance backward.  This, of course, has been portrayed by my enemies as a "shove" by me, when in fact Ikeler was the aggressor.