In the past few years there have been numerous reports of Maine lawyers engaging in sexual relations with their female clients in the course of representing them in divorces and other legal matters. Judging by the number of reports this may be a bigger problem than anyone realizes.
In the most recent case an attorney was reprimanded for having a sexual relationship with a female client he was representing in a divorce and protection from abuse matter. The judge ruled that he should have merely obtained signed informed consent from her of any potential conflicts of interest.
One would imagine that a personal, emotional, and sexual investment in a divorce proceeding would be an insurmountable conflict of interest that should disqualify any attorney who is so personally involved, yet there are many such cases in Maine and the rules have massive loopholes.
And what is not being reported are any cases of females engaging in sexual relations with police or prosecutors who may have direct or indirect conflicts of interest. Nor anything about police officers who abuse their power to win favor with attractive damsels in distress.
One sheriff’s deputy in Maine who was marginally involved in a case decided to unofficially approach the woman in the case and offer her his personal help. She lost her parental rights and was making false criminal allegations as a way to game a child custody battle.
The deputy created a police report, then withheld and destroyed exculpatory evidence in violation of a court order, and then used his official standing to advocate for the woman as a witness in a criminal case. He was even caught committing perjury. The unanswered question is what motivated him to engage in such misconduct?
If men with power even remotely imagine sexual opportunities with a damsel in distress, or if women even subtly use their sexuality to gain influence, it can profoundly personalize and pervert the course of justice. And in cases where there are actual sexual relations with police or with officers of the court, then due process becomes corrupted beyond redress.
One former longtime Maine District Attorney settled a lawsuit against him for openly referring to the women around him as “sluts” and “whores.” Beyond all the clutching of the pearls that followed, one adult question remains–why did a long time District Attorney feel that the women he was dealing with warranted such labels? Was it due to the number of false sexual assault claims being made to his office or was it the reputations of some of the complaining women? It is a question worth asking.
Recently, a Maine judge was placed on leave and subsequently two females filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual harassment at an out of state conference. One woman is a drug court employee, and the other woman is a district attorney who claims the judge propositioned her for sex within 3 minutes of meeting her. Arguably the most troubling lawsuit allegation is that he was:
“known to show favoritism toward young, attractive, female drug treatment court clients. Judge Budd treats such clients more favorably than male clients, or clients that he does not deem sexually attractive.”
Such alleged gender discrimination by a presiding court judge appears to be another civil rights abuse scandal that will never be investigated by the Maine Attorney General.
Some of these sexual relationships might seem like some depraved win-win arrangements if they were not done at the expense of all the innocent men who might be unfairly or more aggressively prosecuted, or punished, or end up losing their children, their assets, their freedom, and even end up losing their life.
Apparently men are just not sexy enough to get equal justice, or even get any legal aid representation in their divorces. When the courts are done with men, many are left broke and broken.
It is no wonder why the male suicide rate has been off the charts for many years. No media outlets ever report how many men are driven to suicide as a result of legal abuse and the loss of their parental rights. Many of these men are veterans who are driven to suicide by the abuse in the divorce court.
And what do some of these cases say about the women who are willing to trade sex or get in to relationships with their divorce attorney in the course of their legal cases? Are these women victims?
There is silence about this from the radical feminist groups who have spent decades corrupting the justice system at every level to the point that it is Constitutionally unrecognizable. Perhaps these groups view such sexual relationships with attorneys as female empowerment.
But such attorney/client relationships don’t seem to end well for the men, and no surprise, some ironically end up facing false abuse or ethics complaints when such relationships run their course.
Earlier I mentioned loopholes in the ethics code. According to American Bar Association rules, sexual relationship between an attorney and his female client apparently does not violate ethics rules so long as the relationship precedes the legal representation. In other words, so long as the lawyer engages in a sexual relationship with his female client in the course of her extra marital affair or before he starts legally representing her, than this is considered ethical under the ABA rules. Or, the lawyer and his female client could simply claim they were in a relationship prior to the legal representation, and who could disprove that in a course of a mere ethics complaint?
Perhaps the Courts should just issue clear guidance concerning how their own “officers of the court” should be providing legal services to divorcing women who they are having sex with.
Likewise, it would be helpful for men to know exactly who do they have to sleep with in order to find justice in the legal system? Because like the courts, and the gender discriminatory legal aid agencies, even the suicide hotline phones on Maine bridges don’t work for the desperate men that need them most.
Vladek Filler Blog 