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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Practicing Law Without A License

Practicing Law Without A License

by Tim F|  December 10, 200612:21 pm| 15 Comments

This post is in: Military, General Stupidity

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Meet today’s government figure to resign in disgrace – Air Force Col. Michael Murphy:

A top Air Force lawyer who served at the White House and in a senior position in Iraq turns out to have been practicing law for 23 years without a license.

Col. Michael D. Murphy was most recently commander of the Air Force Legal Operations Agency at Bolling Air Force Base in the District.

He was the general counsel for the White House Military Office from December 2001 to January 2003, and from August 2003 to January 2005. In between those tours, he was the legal adviser to the reconstruction effort in Iraq, an Air Force spokesman said.

[…] He was relieved of his command at Bolling on Nov. 30 after the Air Force learned that he had been disbarred for professional misconduct in Texas in 1984 but hadn’t informed his superiors, according to Air Force Times, an independent newspaper that first reported the action. It said that his status was discovered in the course of an unrelated review.

Heckuva job.

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Reader Interactions

15Comments

  1. 1.

    ThymeZone

    December 10, 2006 at 12:24 pm

    Medal of Freedom next for this guy?

  2. 2.

    Punchy

    December 10, 2006 at 12:37 pm

    This must be a criminal act, no? How can one practice after disbarment without at least a charge of fraud?

    If this guy goes scott-free, what a travesty of justice.

  3. 3.

    The Other Steve

    December 10, 2006 at 12:55 pm

    Clearly a bipartisan scandal.

  4. 4.

    demimondian

    December 10, 2006 at 12:57 pm

    Of course it’s a bipartisan scandal — there’s a “D” involved.

    See the middle initial?

  5. 5.

    scarshapedstar

    December 10, 2006 at 2:19 pm

    Has anyone checked Abu Gonzales’ credentials recently?

  6. 6.

    jake

    December 10, 2006 at 2:42 pm

    Medal of Freedom next for this guy?

    Or a Supreme Court nomination.

    23 years? I guess background checks are soooo pre-9/11.

  7. 7.

    MNPundit

    December 10, 2006 at 4:16 pm

    Ha! When I first read the title I thought it was revealed that his diploma from law school was fake. What was he disbarred for? I think that would be some interesting information.

    Still I think it’s interesting to note that back some centuries before everything got so specialized, this is how it would have been done. You hold out yourself as an attorney after an apprenticeship and then if you’re good enough, you just kind of… become one.

  8. 8.

    jake

    December 10, 2006 at 4:36 pm

    Here’s the story from the Airforce Times on Murphy.

    He wasn’t disbarred for anything hot n’ juicy, it looks like his problems started with a minor screw up that he allowed to snowball into a giant fuck up. Sound familiar?

  9. 9.

    TenguPhule

    December 10, 2006 at 5:03 pm

    He was the general counsel for the White House Military Office from December 2001 to January 2003, and from August 2003 to January 2005.

    Funny, that would be around the time the Whitehouse started putting out ‘torture is legal’ memos. Wouldn’t be surprise if his fingerprints are on them.

  10. 10.

    Darrell

    December 10, 2006 at 9:54 pm

    I’ll go out on a limb and predict that Murphy’s prior disbarrment and no-law-license status will open a floodgate of appeals. What a sorry piece of sh*t lying ahole. The Air Force has a helluva lot of ‘splanin to do on this one.

  11. 11.

    Darrell

    December 10, 2006 at 10:26 pm

    Murhphy got up and went to work for 23 years, knowing that if his disbarrment and loss of law license ever came to light, that every singe case he litigated and/or helped supervise would almost certainly be appealed. I’m trying to imagine what kind of lowlife piece of sh*t would do such a thing. He needs to pay a very serious price for his decision to run this deception for so long. I think years of incarceration for Murphy would not be unreasonable given what he’s done.. and multiple heads need to roll in the Air Force over his employment for so many years.. especially his promotion to the highest ranks in the AF legal dept.

  12. 12.

    Krista

    December 11, 2006 at 8:58 am

    Murhphy got up and went to work for 23 years, knowing that if his disbarrment and loss of law license ever came to light, that every singe case he litigated and/or helped supervise would almost certainly be appealed.

    Holy crap, I didn’t think of that. What a complete clusterf**k this will wind up being.

  13. 13.

    pie

    December 11, 2006 at 9:25 am

    Clearly a bipartisan scandal.

    How come we don’t hear about all the government officials who AREN’T practicing law without a license?

  14. 14.

    Jake

    December 11, 2006 at 11:16 am

    and multiple heads need to roll in the Air Force over his employment for so many years.. especially his promotion to the highest ranks in the AF legal dept.

    I second the call for rolling heads.

    This also raises questions about JAG’s review process. I can’t imagine they don’t have some sort of regular review (and even if it is once a decade that was twice someone santorumed this puppy). Either they asked and he lied and they didn’t ask for any confirmation, or they didn’t ask and he didn’t tell (PPtP) and he should have. But even if JAG is so sloppy that they never check (which I don’t believe) that leaves the question of security clearances. I admit I’m just assuming he had one, but I don’t think its an unreasonable assumption. That alone should have caught his little problem.

    What a mess and an easily avoidable one. He should have fixed it when it came up or quit. Since he didn’t, JAG or the AF should have caught it and given him the boot because he lied. Is JAG so short of lawyers they need to cling to every warm body they can get? Doubt it. And of course if he were gay and came out (or was outed) we wouldn’t be having this discussion because he’d be G-O-N-E.

  15. 15.

    no name, ex-airforce jag

    December 12, 2006 at 3:26 pm

    what if Col Murphy at some point in his career was in charge of bringing in attorneys to become uniformed JAGs…a process that required making sure each entrant was a duly sworn member of a state bar?

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