Comment about the State Bar of Texas and Politicians

In this election year there is a strong focus on ethics. Both candidates claim to be agents of change and emphasize their commitment to purge the government of corruption. Down with earmarks, pork and payouts. Clean the government and don’t tolerate corruption at any level. Politicians and other elected officials are public servants whose number one priority is to serve the public and not their own personal interests.
Or so it should be.
It is not in Texas.
In Texas, the State Bar refuses to discipline attorneys who commit serious crimes. An attorney can defraud his/her client, forge a client’s signature on the back of an insurance check and cash it, commit insurance fraud and other felonies that merit disbarment and jail time, and the State Bar of Texas will not discipline say attorney and allow him/her to continue practicing law in Texas with clean records. Any questions regarding as why the State Bar of Texas breaks Texas law by doing so remain unanswered. According to the State bar of Texas, their decisions are confidential and they don’t need to explain why they decide not to discipline an attorney who commits Professional Malpractice.
Who knows how many attorneys are in Texas practicing law when they should have been disbarred, courtesy of the State Bar.
Texas politician are no help either. The public can write to them and lead with them for some help, to no avail. Southern-Fried-Justice at its very worst.
We need transparency in the government. Regardless of which candidate will be elected by year’s end, we need transparency now. We need a government that doesn’t tolerate corruption and protects the public, something the State Bar of Texas, and Texas politicians, are unwilling to do.
Too much pork in the barrel.
We need change. We need a government that doesn’t treat the public as its private property, as if we were the serfs of old. We need a government that combats cronyism and will do what is in the public’s best interest.
A government that will never allow the State Bar of Texas to break Texas law in order to protect a dishonest attorney who committed felonies.
A government unlike the one we have now in Texas.
A real government.
We need change.
Let’s hope we get it.

The Convenient Death of Attorney Bryan Stone

THE CONVENIENT DEATH OF ATTORNEY BRYAN STONE

Bryan Stone wasn’t a criminal mastermind, as the State Bar of Texas would like the public to believe. He was short and overweight, and had a small practice when I first met him. Bryan Stone wanted to be successful, and for that he needed to play ball with the big boys at the State Bar of Texas. He needed to obey their orders, even if that meant breaking the law, and breaking the law he did. Bryan Stone took my case only to damage it as much as possible and prevent justice from being served. However, he couldn’t keep up the pace of his deceit, and eventually it caught up with him. A year after both him and attorney Ilene Smoger forged my signature on the back of the insurance check and cashed it, Bryan Stone ran out of lies on why it was taking so long for the insurance check to arrive. In desperation, he had his former partner call my new attorney begging her not to proceed with my case because they would get in a lot of trouble. Strong words coming from the mouth of a lawyer, pleading with a colleague not to do the right thing. The night before he was supposed to tell my new attorney the whereabouts of the insurance money, Bryan Stone met with somebody inside his car at a parking lot in Dallas, Texas. That night Bryan Stone died of a gunshot to his head.

The next day I received a call from my new attorney telling me that Bryan Stone’s former partner called her to let her know of his death, and that the insurance money was gone. Bryan Stone’s former partner kept calling my new attorney and directing her, which I thought was unusual. After that, my new attorney sent me a report painting Bryan Stone as a criminal who’d defrauded many, many people, including somebody for over a million dollars. She insisted I could never recuperate my money because too many people were after his estate, and I had to forget about the insurance money both Bryan Stone and Ilene Smoger defrauded me.

Later, I found out that was a lie.

In 1971, the Client’s Security Fund of the State Bar of Texas was created to refund clients who’ve been defrauded by their attorneys, or whose attorneys have died before the client could collect the money. I qualified for both requirements. However, there was a big problem: Ilene Smoger. She and Bryan Stone had cashed my insurance check after my name was forged on its back. Her name was on the front of the check (even though I had fired her as my attorney because she had already defrauded me of a previous insurance check). The State Bar of Texas was doing everything in their power to protect her, and that meant breaking every single law in Texas. They wouldn’t - couldn’t - allow me to learn about the Client’s Security Fund and have me file a petition for the insurance money they owed me. The check had been cashed by forging my signature, and both Bryan Stone and Ilene Smoger’s names were listed as the attorneys representing me. So my new attorney wrote me a wild report depicting Bryan Stone as a master criminal who owed money to everybody and their mother. She never mentioned once the Client’s Security Fund, even though that was the place for me to request my money as it is the normal procedure.

Another Texas lawyer breaking the law. Déjà vu all over again.

Bryan Stone wasn’t a criminal mastermind, as the State Bar of Texas would like the public to believe. Bryan Stone was a patsy. We all know what happens to patsies in Texas.