Lawyers who made loans to judge could face charges

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- When more than a dozen lawyers were making clandestine loans to a former municipal judge who has admitted having a gambling problem, they also were taking a gamble that could lead to criminal or ethics charges against them, federal prosecutors say.

Former Judge Deborah Neal, who resigned her $123,744 a year job in November, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of mail fraud stemming from more than $28,000 in loans from lawyers and a bonding company that she failed to report to the Missouri Supreme Court.

In her plea, Neal acknowledged that she not only solicited money from lawyers -- some of whom had cases over which she presided -- but she also gave some of them preferential treatment.

As part of the deal, the former judge must provide the Missouri Supreme Court Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel a list of the attorneys who gave her the loans and the amount of those loans.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roseann Ketchmark said the loans, which Neal received between 1996 and 2004, involved more than 14 lawyers and a bonding company whose clients appeared before her.

"This leaves open the possibility of prosecution of the attorneys," she said Tuesday. "They also face ethical consequences."

If any of those transactions are determined to have violated ethics standards, the lawyers' names could be forwarded to the state Supreme Court for possible disciplinary action, said Maridee Edwards, chief disciplinary counsel.

Barbara Glesner-Fines, an ethics professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City's law school, said some of the loans might simply be cases in which an attorney truly wanted to help the judge, without any thought of receiving preferential treatment.

"It smells awfully fishy, but I can see an attorney not thinking about their professional responsibility because they are thinking as a friend, not as an attorney," Glesner-Fines said. "It does not excuse misconduct, but it does explain it."

She noted that before graduating from law school, all law students must take ethics courses that cover rules of professional conduct.

Under the Missouri Bar's rules of professional conduct, it is considered professional misconduct if a lawyer engages "in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;" "in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;" or knowingly assists "a judge or judicial officer in conduct that is a violation of applicable rules of judicial conduct or other law."

While the loans appear to violate ethics codes, Edwards said that doesn't mean all of the lawyers who gave Neal money will face disciplinary action.

"There could be a number of innocuous situations where the loan of money doesn't impact anything," she said. "The primary issue is whether this would affect justice or whether it would affect clients' representation.

"If an attorney had loaned her money but had absolutely no connection -- there are 26,000 practicing attorneys in this state -- if someone loaned money to a judge and never ever has a vague, remote possibility of interacting with the judge in a procedural sense," that might not be treated as seriously as cases in which a lawyer is perceived to have gained from making a loan.

Of the roughly $28,000 in loans she received, Neal paid back less than $10,000, prosecutors said.

Glesner-Fines also noted that attorneys tend to see themselves as enablers and "fix-it" people, even as their own behavior sometimes strays toward the extreme.

"Lawyers have a much higher rate of addictive behavior than the general public," she said. "Things like substance abuse, alcoholism, and more recently since the boats arrived, gambling addictions. And there are some professional mindsets that make it really hard to face addiction problems.

"Lawyers are great excuse-makers. They're also very good enablers, which speaks to part of their professional identity. At the core, a lawyer is a servant who helps people solve their problems."