A little while back, I posted about a Virginia lawyer who had been suspended after being drunk and disruptive while attending a CLE. At the time, I speculated about what the ethics infraction might have been – making a false statement in terms of filling out the paperwork on attendance. I was in the ballpark, but not correct. The order regarding the suspension makes clear that the lawyer was disciplined for violating Virginia’s version of RPC 8.1 by falsely denying that he was intoxicated in his response to the bar accusations against him. RPC 8.1 in many jurisdictions, including Tennessee, requires a lawyer not only to refrain in connection with a disciplinary matter from “knowingly mak[ing] a false statement of material fact,” but also prohibits lawyers from “fail[ing] to disclose a fact necessary to correct a misapprehension” the lawyer knows has arisen in the disciplinary proceedings.
Thus, RPC 8.1 presents a powerful weapon that disciplinary authorities can wield when they so desire and amounts to something that is very much the polar opposite of a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination even though disciplinary proceedings are often described as “quasi-criminal” in nature.
Of course, we all should still be able to agree with the general concept that being drunk at a CLE is a bad, bad idea. There are lots of other ways that problems with alcohol can get lawyers into disciplinary trouble. A more straightforward example of a Tennessee lawyer whose now been publicly censured, in part, because of a DUI and a judicial finding, in a custody dispute, that he had serious alcohol problems can be read about in this pithy press release from the BPR.