In recent years, there has been an increase in publications that rate attorneys.  The question for today is, “Can those lists be trusted?”

What made me think to post on this issue is a recent Court of Appeals decision.  The case was a Salt Lake criminal case.  The defendant was convicted and filed an appeal.  The Court of Appeals reversed because the defense attorney, Patrick Anderson, was ineffective during jury selection.  The Supreme Court didn’t disagree with that but said the conviction should stand because the error was not serious that absent the error, the jury would have likely convicted the defendant anyway.  Now, the Court of Appeals has again reversed the conviction.  This time it is because the same defense attorney was ineffective during the trial.  The Court of Appeals said, “It is bad enough that defense counsel did not challenge the prosecutor’s mischaracterization of the evidence as being in terms of seconds, not minutes. It is bizarre, and clearly without any sound tactical purpose, that defense counsel actually endorsed the mischaracterization.”

In January 2009, after the conviction and the first Court of Appeals decision holding that defense counsel had acted innefectively during jury selection, Utah Business Magazine ran an article touting this same defense attorney as a legal leader and top lawyer.

Now, I don’t know this attorney, and I wasn’t there at trial.  I can’t say whether this attorney is a good lawyer or a bad lawyer.  Utah Business Magazine might be right. What I am saying is that it is puzzling to me that Utah Business Magazine would run an article touting this lawyer as a top lawyer after the Court of Appeals held that he had been ineffective as counsel in at least one case.

How could such a thing happen?  I don’t know.  But I can say this.  I have been approached by several publictions who offer to advertise me as a top lawyer or some other distinction, if I will purchase advertising in their publication. I haven’t done it because I think it is dishonest. 

This just goes to show you that you can’t always trust lawyer rankings.