Readers continue to question Gail Prices Objectivity
It might also be time to start to examine what the Village pays for Gail Price’s services. She was supposed to have these hearing wrapped up by LAST June yet no end is in sight. By all appearances she plans to instruct the Planning Board to give Valley what they wanted last time or give them what they want this time. What do we pay her per hour? What financial motivation does she have to wind this process down?
On top of this conflict of interest, she is clearly not impartial and has allowed Valley and its disgraceful attorney to call all of the procedural shots.
It’s time to demand better.
Objectivity is one way to put it. Another way is to suggest the possibility that confusion exists, intentional or otherwise, as to who the client is, meaning who it is whose best interests are to be zealously defended at all times, despite the creative efforts of third parties to muddy the waters and gain tactical advantage during the course of a legal dispute or other administrative process.
If such confusion arguably exists, the ‘true’ client (not surprisingly, it is usually not too damnably hard to determine who this is) has an ‘issue’ that clearly sounds in the realm of attorney ethics. Investigations into attorney ethics have a tendency to immediately seize, and thereafter maintain a firm grip on the attention of the practitioner under scrutiny, since they could lose their license to practice or at least have it severely curtailed for a period of time. Attorneys are therefore well-advised to conduct themselves in a manner that stays well clear of a colorable claim that they have violated the canon of professional ethics in their state or other jurisdiction.
To the extent a given practitioner deliberately advances closer than their peers to the line where such a claim could be made against them, they are well-advised to know the lay of that particular patch of land better than their interlocutors so as to safely avoid a negative ethics decision in the event a complaint is lodged and an investigation triggered.
Most attorneys, being well-attuned to their surroundings, and motivated to stay in good repute, are well-advised in this area. Clients who suspect mixed motivations in their attorneys should take the issue up with their attorneys first. If the explanation they receive gives them no satisfaction, or if they still smell a rat, they should file a complaint with state authorities. Happily, investigations in this area are and have always been generally thorough and swift, and the resulting decisions reasonable, and just.