Government Lawyers
Personnel Board Upholds Firing of Calif. Lawyer Who Questioned Labor Regs
Posted Nov 10, 2008, 09:53 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A California state employment lawyer who criticized emergency regulations on employee meal and rest breaks says he’s considering a lawsuit after he failed to win his job back.
The State Personnel Board ruled last week that lawyer Miles Locker had undermined the trust essential to the attorney-client relationship and upheld his firing, the Recorder reports. The board cited critical e-mails and Locker’s July 2005 speech to the San Francisco Barristers Club. Locker was fired in February 2006.
In the speech, Locker said he was speaking as a private citizen when he criticized a decision by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue emergency regulations that lessened the penalty for missed meal breaks.
Locker’s "flippant" and "discourteous" remarks had harmed the lawyer’s working relationship with leaders in the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, the board said in its 3-2 decision (PDF posted by the Recorder).
Locker told the Recorder he was considering a lawsuit. "I think it's a very sad day when government agencies try to shoot down that free exchange of ideas between practicing attorneys," he said. "This is really something that I believe was protected by the First Amendment."
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