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President of Women's Bar Causes Atty. Pawlick to Shake His Head in Disbelief This letter from the President of the Women's Bar Association, Patricia Rapinchuk, who lives in Northampton and works at Robinson Donovan, Springfield, caused Atty. Ed Pawlick to shake his head in disbelief this week. Her letter to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly about Pawlick follows. Then you will find the letter from Pawlick that triggered her epistle. Let us know what you think. * * * * * Gay Marriage Letters Struck Insulting Tone To the Editor: Much has been written about the decline in civility among lawyers in the last decade. The erosion of common courtesy and collegiality in the interactions of lawyers does a disservice to the legal profession. Perhaps for some lawyers, the practice of law is no longer a profession, but merely a business, wherein impersonal or abrasive confrontations have replaced the tradition of congeniality among members of the legal profession. The letters from Edward Pawlick ("'Goodridge' Coverage Is A 'Disappointment,'" Jan. 26) and James Gettens ("SJC's 'Goodridge' Decision Is 'Perversion' Of Constitution," Feb. 2) are evidence of this trend. These letters were not only insulting in tone, but were unwarranted personal attacks on the chief justice and other Supreme Judicial Court justices. While reasonable minds may disagree about the merits of the Goodridge decision, reading these letters was the equivalent of witnessing road rage on paper. In the long days ahead as citizens across the commonwealth continue to debate Goodridge , reasonable minds should be able to agree that, as attorneys and officers of the court, this is a time that calls for the best from all of us. Personal attacks only serve to diminish our profession as a whole. The chief justice continues to set the bar high and demonstrate her respect for different opinions and the co-equal branches of government. We thank her for her leadership. Patricia M. Rapinchuk The writer is president of the Women's Bar Association * * * * * 'Goodridge' Coverage Is A 'Disappointment' To the Editor: The major bar associations in Massachusetts continue their enthusiastic embrace of gay marriage, which is definitely a partisan, political matter. And Lawyers Weekly has, unfortunately, become something of an accomplice. This is a disappointment to many lawyers. Everyone can remember back to 2002, when the president of the Boston Bar Association, Joan Lukey, weighed in on gay marriage. She decided in 2002 to allow the BBA to oppose the Protection of Marriage Act. She did this based upon the decision of the 19-member BBA Council, despite the opposition of many members. She wrote to the members that such a decision is "difficult when the association is confronted with issues on which our membership cannot reach consensus." Lukey revealed that her organization was sharply divided. She said a lot more, but you don't have space to print it. She even said that the proposed legislation, which would have stopped the Supreme Judicial Court from doing what it has done in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health , was superfluous. "The law of Massachusetts already prohibits same-sex marriage," Lukey said, "and therefore it seems to the Boston Bar Association that enacting a statute which again prohibits same-sex marriage has a stigmatizing and unnecessarily discriminatory effect on gays and lesbians." Believe it or not, that was said by the BBA after Goodridge had already been filed. Your "news" story on page 2 of the Jan. 19 issue is following right along with the current BBA position of not allowing dissent. Your story, "Briefs Submitted On Gay Marriage," is nothing but a shill for those in some law schools with radical/liberal beliefs. When that story is dissected, one discovers nothing but the deans of two law schools, Stanford and Yale, agreeing with the radical Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe and the 88 professors he rounded up, which probably add up to three or four professors from each of a couple dozen schools. Does that really overwhelm you? Your saccharine "Lawyers Of The Year" story about Goodridge attorney Mary Bonauto a few weeks ago was also kind of sickening. The whole Goodridge case was merely a drama, scripted by Arthur O. ("Pinch") Sulzberger Jr. of The New York Times and Margaret Marshall in 1999, when Pinch took complete control of our local newspaper, The Boston Globe. Bonauto was given the part of the star litigator. She and Margaret Marshall merely followed the lines that were given to them by Sulzberger. The evidence, although circumstantial, is overwhelming. Despite the vigorous proselytizing by SJC Chief Justice Marshall, she was able to convince only three of the six judges to vote with her. And she still had to cast the deciding vote herself. The three dissenting judges were all fired up in their outrage, and that is not too strong a word to use. None of the stories in the popular press wrote about the dissents. This has always been a very collegial court, and this was far from a unanimous decision. Justice Robert Cordy was so upset that he wrote a brilliant expository opinion about the reasons for continuing traditional marriage that was even longer than Margaret Marshall's opinion. As the founder and CEO of Lawyers Weekly until its sale in 1997, my political views and those of the writers and editors were never allowed on the pages of this paper. That was a stringent rule that members of the editorial board came to understand, if not to love. It's too bad that the apolitical nature of Lawyers Weekly is now being compromised, not on the editorial page, but on the news and feature pages with stories that are contributing to the appearance that lawyers everywhere are in favor of gay marriage, even though we all know that is not true. Lawyers Weekly should return to its original tradition of remaining impartial on all political issues. That would serve the legal community as it deserves. Then we might once more have real diversity and tolerance in Massachusetts. J. Edward Pawlick |
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