Legal Ethics
N.J. Solo Reprimanded for Telling Party She Should Be Cut Up, Shipped to India
Posted Jun 3, 2009, 06:37 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A New Jersey solo practitioner has been reprimanded for telling an opposing party in a courthouse hallway that she should be cut up and sent back to India.
Lawyer Joel Ziegler and his opponents differ on the exact wording, the New Jersey Law Journal reports. His opposing lawyer, Barbara Worth, says Ziegler told her client: "I'll have you cut up into little pieces, or little bits and pieces, put in a box and sent back to India, or wherever it is you come from."
The 2001 remark came after Worth’s client testified in a child custody battle that had angered Ziegler, the story says. The New Jersey Supreme Court said Ziegler violated ethics rules requiring courtesy and barring conduct detrimental to the administration of justice.
The Disciplinary Review Board had alleged another error on Ziegler’s part—a letter he wrote to Worth intended to intimidate her. The letter said Ziegler would "prove to the court that your client is an unmitigated liar. There is no way that we will give up custody, so I suggest that you prepare yourself for a 'Battle Royale.' "
Ziegler told the New Jersey Law Journal that Worth’s client had made false accusations about the father he represented in the custody battle. "The heat of battle sometimes gets the best of you," he said. "I was steamed. I lost my cool."
"I have been a lawyer 43 years and that was my first offense."
Headline pronoun corrected at 9:20 a.m. CT.
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