A MAN IS ONLY AS GOOD AS HIS WORD

And commission executive director Barry Ginsberg’s word ain’t worth s**t.

I know those are strong words but let me tell you what these clowns just did. It used to be that I would advise anyone who spoke with commission staff to get the answer in writing because certain staff members would change their positions after the fact to cover their incompetency. Now getting it in writing doesn’t help.

Ginsberg sent me a letter telling me the commission would take no action to collect the late fee they had illegally imposed upon one of my clients until they decided if the lifetime bar applied to my legal representation of this client (a complete joke as I have blogged about before and thank you to all the former state employees high and low that have told me so). Barry’s letter was a reasonable position even if Miccio’s allegation was a transparent threat and attempt to silence this blog.

So imagine my surprise when the client called to tell me they got a collection letter from the special counsel Ralph imposing additional fees and threatening to refer the matter to the Attorney General (here’s a hint Ralph that’s right where we want to be talking to the AG about you and your agency. It never hurts to give the next governor a sneak peak at how truly screwed up you guys are).

Now aside from the fact that Ralph is violating attorney disciplinary rules by directly contacting a party that he knows is represented by counsel (and I will deal with that don’t worry) Ginsberg is the one who bears the blame this time.

If he knew Ralph was sending the collection letter than his word is worth s**t, he’s a liar and a person who cannot be trusted. Getting it in writing doesn’t matter because he has no honor.

If he had no clue what Ralph was doing he’s just an incompetent bungling fool that doesn’t have the ability to run a lemonade stand much less the Public Integrity Commission.

One way or the other the commission should get rid of one or both of these lawyers before they really hurt themselves and the commission.

Oops too late maybe Ginsberg et al should stop reading “management for dummies” and take the advice of a famous Canadian who said that "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence" (Dr Laurence Peter, 1919-90, Canadian academic, from the 1969 book, The Peter Principle, written by Dr Peter and Raymond Hull - Peter was the academic; Hull the writer).

Without a doubt Ralph and Barry have risen to new heights.