By the time I called the ABA about their boneheaded selection of Alberto Gonzales as “Lawyer of the Year,” I already knew they were backpedalling and trying to explain that it was not an honor, just a selection of which lawyer was most in the news. This rationale may work for a news magazine like TIME (Khadaffi Man of the Year, etc.), but it does not wash with the ABA Journal. This is the publication of a group of lawyers and we can’t call someone “Lawyer of the Year” without making it sound like a high honor. Is it any wonder we are getting our heads bashed in in public perception? We have to realize that such pronouncements feed the public’s view of lawyers. This selection of Gonzalez was so stupid that some lawyers don’t think it was accidental (see Mike Papantonio’s video blog on the subject at www.golefttv.com.)
Well, I left an angry message demanding a personal explation from the ABA’s “Office of the President” and never got a call back. Later though, the ABA issued a retraction and changed the title to “Newsmaker of the Year.” I still feel like I have a perjuring, Geneva-Convention-bashing, political firing hack of a so-called attorney saddled around my reputation as a lawyer. Way to go, ABA.
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