I’ve taken the NYSACDL to task lately (actually, for quite a while now), but this latest issue has generated a fair number of emails.  While the vast majority are from people I either know or who appreciate my shining some light on things that members would otherwise learn, I few have questioned both my information and motivation.

First, I don’t hate the association.  I am amazingly disappointed in what’s become of the association, but my criticism of what is happening always includes my view of what I think should be happening. In other words, it’s a message, of what is going wrong as well as what the right thing to do would be.  That it’s taken as hatred by some shows either serious self-esteem issues (an endemic problem within the Board, by the way) or abject defensiveness. 

I worked long and hard from the inside of the association, as chair of the Amicus Committee (when there was a committee), director and vice president.  But the nature of the association changed over time, in some ways for the better but in more important ways for the worse.  When it reached the point that I, in good conscience, could not add my name to the actions of the board, I resigned. That’s what honorable people do when they find themselves unable to support something.

The NYSACDL, or some facsimile, is vitally necessary to the welfare of the private criminal defense bar, if it understood its mission and if its stewards had the courage of their convictions.  At the moment, they don’t even have convictions (no pun intended).  The association has been wandering around lost for years, and most of the board doesn’t even realize it.  They are either too busy patting themselves on the back, trying to figure out how they can further their personal ambition, to wonder why the association exists, or so moved by glorious platitudes that they refuse to recognize why it exists.

Should the NYSACDL somehow right itself, recognize its mission and serve its members, I will support the association vigorously.  Until then, I will say what’s wrong.  I can do that.  If the officers weren’t so afraid that I will spill their secrets and ruin their dreams of glory, they might call me the loyal opposition.  Instead, they just snipe at me behind my back.  I don’t mind. It’s what I expect of them.

An interesting point.  I wish I felt that I could, but I don’t for a number of reasons.  First, I’ve tried to make many of the general points that are included in my posts in the past, but unless they were spelled out in excruciatingly clear, brutal language, they went right over people’s heads.  Nuance never played well.  Not only did they not get it, but they easily shrugged it off when it wasn’t strong enough to compel attention.  In other words, it’s all fine to maintain decorum provided you don’t mind it being easily ignored. 

As for collegiality, this has been one of the factors that has led to the downfall of the NYSACDL as a viable force for the criminal defense bar.  Everybody’s scared to death of offending anyone else, and even the slightest hint of wrong raised whines of hurt feelings, followed by denials, apologies, sobbing and acts of contrition.  Is it cowardice?  In part, but it’s also the desire to be perceived as good, nice and friendly by others in the bar, whether in the hopes of a referral or just the general desire to be liked.  It’s precluded, however, any real discussion of problems and any attempt to arrive at real answers.

As I was informed following the latest resolution, it was a victory of consensus.  Consensus.  That’s what the association believes is more important than right and wrong.  Making everybody happy, or more precisely, offending no one since very few end up happy, is the goal.  Whether they achieved that goal with a worthless resolution I don’t know, but they passed up, yet again, a chance to do the right thing by choosing consensus.  Mind you, appeasing 10% of the membership at the expense of 90% isn’t really consensus.

This wasn’t the NYSACDL of old.  It had guts.  The directors and officers fought like cats and dogs, and fought hard. Right and wrong mattered.  People were offended all the time, but they were tough enough to take it.  And the end result was that the association stood up for the private criminal defense bar, no apologies necessary. 

So if you want collegiality, and are prepared to give away the purpose of the association to achieve it, then you will find this board to your liking.  As for me, I’m happy to decry the blue wall of silence, and equally happy to call out the association when its hiding behind the pinstripe wall of silence.  When did criminal defense lawyers become so afraid, so fragile, that they can’t stand up to a challenge?  I’m terribly sorry that I’ve caused so many hard feelings, particularly because I like many of the individuals involved, but I refuse to be part of the teacup brigade or another grocery clerk for the association.  And if they hate me for not being collegial, so be it.  I can take the heat.  What I can’t take is the rampant fear of criticism

Greenfield,

Is it that bad?  Has the NYSACDL gone that far astray?  Can it survive?

Yes, yes and I don’t know.  Put aside the rhetoric and look at the nuts and bolts.  It runs some CLEs, but so do plenty of others. Some of the CLEs are decent, some pretty awful.  It does some amicus work, but mostly by riding the coattail of the NACDL.  It certainly isn’t leading the pack within New York State.  It throws a dinner to honor a prosecutor that loses money (though how much is unknown as they aren’t revealing numbers this year).  And it has a listserv that a very small proportion of the members use, and half of the users do so for self-promotion.  If this what you signed up for?  It this all you want out of an assocation?  Are excuses almost as good as accomplishments?

Whether it can survive is a financial matter. It’s on the balls of its heels financially, the Morgy dinner have been a disaster.  And yet, the board and officers learned nothing from the fact that members stayed away in droves.  The list of reasons why it might not survive is long, but there’s only one thing that will give it life, serving the nuts and bolts needs of the members. Instead, they think only of gaining and keeping members as a means of collecting money, not because members are the reason why there is an association in the first place.  That attitude is, and should be, the kiss of death.

And by the way,  if any officer or board member wants to find out what I’m up to, all they have to do is ask.  Instead, they send emails to each other whining about how mean I am to them and proving, yet again, that they don’t have the guts to stand up to the slightest criticism.  What a bunch of cowards.