And the winner is...?

Many interesting things going on today, Tazer Faithful! There's the situation at Tent City, and we're going to leave a spot open for Mike Ali and any other Tazer friends who wish to make a report.

Meanwhile, there are items that might be considered unrelated to violence prevention, such as the letters to the editor from Juan Reardon and Tom Butt. We at the Tazer think that there are plenty of issues that SURROUND violence prevention, and things like that give insight into how city business is (or might be) managed.

This time, it's an interesting revelation about Councilman Jim Rogers from the East Bay Express. It's part of Will Harper's "Bottom Feeder" column published today, entitled "800-XLAWYER."

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Embattled People's Lawyer quits profession

So why did the People's Lawyer really give up his once-lucrative TV-fueled law practice earlier this month? That's what legal and political insiders are wondering, but so far no one has been able to figure out what the bar, the organization that polices attorney behavior, had on Jim Rogers.

Rogers resigned his license to practice law on September 6 with disciplinary charges pending against him. He sold his personal-injury practice to his partner, Judith Marsh. By resigning with charges pending, the details of what the bar dug up on him remain secret.

For his part, Rogers says that for the past year or two he has been looking to get out of law — his career for 26 years now — and into real-estate development anyway. (So you see, dear Feeders, the bar's plan to file charges against him couldn't have come at a better time.) He adds that his practice hadn't been profitable in recent years. "It was the right time to get out," he says.

Yeah, no doubt. Rogers also is in the midst of a re-election bid for his Richmond City Council seat, so who wants to give his opponents fistfuls of mud to throw?

Those familiar with Rogers' career beyond his cheesy late-night ads know that he's been hounded by accusations of professional misbehavior for a decade ("Settling for Less," feature, 1/8/2003). In 1997, the bar issued Rogers a "private reproval," the equivalent of a wrist slap for, among other things, overcharging clients. Since then, he has been sued for legal malpractice at least a half-dozen times.

In the most damning case, Todd Wilson, a construction worker, suffered an injury that resulted in amputation of his lower leg. According to court records, Rogers pressured Wilson to accept an $85,000 settlement for what a judge later figured was a million-dollar case — and to lie under oath. Wilson's malpractice lawyer, Ross Meltzer, exposed Rogers' practice of settling cases at lowball prices in order to avoid going to trial. Rogers conceded then that he hadn't actually tried a case in court in more than twenty years, even though his practice handled hundreds of cases annually. In July 2002, Judge Ken Kawaichi ordered Rogers to pay Wilson $300,200 for screwing up his case, although the People's Lawyer settled out of court before the final judgment came down.

Rogers has since settled a couple other malpractice lawsuits. One involved Anita Ashford, who blamed him for pressuring her to accept a $6,700 insurance settlement in July 2003 to compensate her for injuries she suffered after falling through a wooden deck. When she initially resisted, Rogers "became abusive toward her and told her to lose weight if she wanted to feel better," her malpractice complaint alleged. Afterward, Ashford's back pain persisted and she had to have two surgeries to correct a herniated disc.

Rogers left a message for Feeder saying that the recent bar case didn't involve any of the malpractice suits filed against him, but he declined to clarify the accusations. He explained that didn't want to violate People's Lawyer-client privilege and get into a "blow-by-blow thing discussing a lot of details."