Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Sorry excuse for a lawyer: Jay Grodner of Deerfield, Illinois

On December 1st, 2007, Jay Grodner, an attorney in private practice in Deerfield, Illinois, was caught red-handed defacing the car of Mike McNulty, a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. Sgt. McNulty was visiting a friend just prior to leaving on his second deployment to Iraq when Grodner apparently decided to vandalize his car by keying the paint because it bore Marine Corps. license plates and military decals on it. McNulty came out of the house and caught Grodner, who began to curse at him and utter anti-military and anti-war comments. Now instead of pounding Grodner into the ground as he would have been justified in doing (especially as the damage to his car totalled $2400.00), McNulty kept his cool and called the police, who arrested Grodner.

Now despite being observed directly and caught in the act, Grodner denied damaging the car and claimed that the people accusing him were only doing so because Grodner is Jewish. Then Grodner refused to accept even probation for his act, demanding a trial and then immediately filing for a continuance until after Sgt. McNulty's military leave expires on January 2nd, basically deliberately trying to delay the trial until there is no way for McNulty to appear in court. And Grodner even boasted that he did it because he was "not going to make it easy on this kid".

Jay Grodner is a contemptible human being under any set of circumstances because of what he did. Damaging the private property of another human being just because that person made a choice to serve in the military. As an adult, Grodner should know better and be able to exert more self-control. But as a lawyer and an officer of the court, his conduct is beyond the pale. Lawyers are supposed to be held to a higher standard and Grodner has demonstrated for the world that he is unworthy of continued membership in the bar.

Of course one only has to look to the website of Citizens for Legal Responsibility to see that Grodner has been accused of ethical misdeeds before. Their record on Grodner reads as follows:
In addition to being disciplined for being involved in a scheme to forging documents, it has been reported to CLR that attorney Jay Robert Grodner has since then engaged in a conflict of interest with his clients, has abandoned his clients, has engaged in false billing, has engaged in a fraud upon his clients, provided ineffective assistance of counsel, and has engaged in a "fraud upon the court".

So I ask you--why is this guy still allowed to practice law? Why would anyone hire this guy to represent them? Why isn't the Illinois State Bar taking some sort of action?

If you find his conduct troubling, you too can file a request for an investigation with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission by clicking here. And the information that you'll need regarding Grodner's practice is:
Jay R. Grodner
Law Offices of Jay R. Grodner
Principal Office-Deerfield
625 Deerfield Road –Suite 406
Deerfield, IL 60015
Phone: (847) 444-1500
Fax: (847) 444-0663

Downtown Chicago
30 N. LaSalle St. - Suite 1210
Chicago, IL 60602
Phone: (312) 236-1142
Fax: (312) 236-6036
Web: http://www.jaygrodner.com


Frankly, it's attorneys like Grodner that give the rest of the profession such a horrendous reputation. And personally, I'd trade a thousand Grodners for even one more good American like Sergeant Mike McNulty, USMC if I could and I'd make that trade anew every day.

Story credits:
Blackfive and Michelle Malkin

2 comments:

  1. Fraud on the court by officers of the Courts has become a national pastime. We have attorney's who have confessed to more than 19 false affidavits and yet the Dept of Justice has given them clemency and allowed them to keep the keys of the vault they are pelfing.

    the Justice Dept has declined, for several years, to prosecute more than $300 million in fraud and 19 acts of perjury connected to the eToys bankruptcy case, that benefited Mitt Romney's Bain entity in 2001, when Romeny was still a managing partner at Bain.We pointed out the fraud and corruption, that resulted in the WSJ story on July 25, 2005 where TBF law firm accepted a plea deal that gave them immunity, allowed the $300 million in fraud to continue and the law firm of TBF to pay only a $750,000 fine.The Director of the US Trustee's and the Asst US Trustee then resigned.www.wjfa.net/bk/etoys.htmlThe law firm of MNAT represents Bain in the KB Toys bankruptcy case where Bain and the CEO of KB, Michael Glazer paid themselves $100 million in cash before KB filed bankruptcy.MNAT and TBF worked on the eToys case, without disclosing the fact that they also had connections to Bain/KB and then sold the eToys assets to Bain/KB for discounts in the tens of millions and defrauded the publc shareholders of their company. Now eToys is on the stock exchange again as KIDS. All of which is SEC fraud.We, just last month, discovered that the US Attorney in Delaware, that has declined to do anything about the fraud, Colm F Connolly, was a partner with the MNAT law firm in 2001, when the fraud and perjury began.If Romney can enjoy protection from prosecution before he becomes a President, what do you think will happen after?

    www.laserhaas.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for posting this- I had not heard of this incident, but have now done my bit to spread the word over on my own blog.

    ReplyDelete