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When David Berman decided to portray John Briggs in an unfavorable light by disclosing one of his 30-year old legislative initiatives as a CA state senator, telling us that one’s history is relevant, David likely felt a tinge of guilt while pondering whether his own troubled history as a former attorney was relevant to his story telling efforts.

While David was not running for office, David after all is at the forefront of passing judgment and telling others what he thinks, what you should be thinking, and not infrequently calling those with whom he disagrees, like me, a liar or, when David referred to my more recent efforts as laughable. David, a keen wordsmith, is always on alert to impugn one’s integrity and to demean one’s standing in the Community when it suits his interest.

Considering David’s own history, one might have expected that he would have been more circumspect in his observations of others as he spews forth his latest opinion, innuendo or offense on those he seems to hold in contempt. But, no, it seems that David is characteristically contemptuous of those with whom he disagrees or finds fault. While I would not deny David his right to be so judgmental, I suggest that such behavior is not a new characteristic, but instead reflects a more longstanding, albeit flawed disposition of contempt towards those he happens to dislike.

   David’s penchant for contemptuousness took an unusual path at a time when David was practicing law as an attorney in Boston in the early 1990’s. At that time, David was handling someone’s estate in a probate matter. David’s duty was to represent the executor and sole heir to an estate. That duty included taking all steps necessary to enable the executor to sell the descendant’s real estate. At some point in the disposition of his representation, David’s acknowledged lack of progress in representing his client’s interests was called into question.

How would David respond? That response just might tell us more than we would like to know about David Berman and, yes, even David’s character. Could David avoid further scrutiny and the potential of disciplinary action, or worse? If so, how? It’s apparent that David believed so and he had a plan. The problem was that David’s plan entailed a quite involved scheme of deception requiring the fabrication of legal documents along with the forgery of a judge’s signature. Would David’s plan work? His career as an attorney would ultimately depend on the success of his plan working.

David’s planned solution to his client-related problem, possibly based on very bad advice, was quite involved, required considerable forethought, and entailed considerable risk if he were caught, a risk he apparently evaluated and determined was acceptable compared to his expectation of the consequences of doing nothing. While some may believe that David’s response required an incredible degree of chutzpah, I’m sure David has a different view of the matter. I, on the other hand, have a little different perspective. Rather than chutzpah, I believe David’s response entailed a marked degree of contemptuousness . In this instance, contempt for the practice of law and for the judicial system he ostensibly was pledged to uphold. Such a disposition then is no different today as David displays his often scornful attitude towards those with whom he disagrees.

In order to avert adverse consequences from his inaction, David chose to engage in illegal behavior among the options he had available. As the court record reporting the one year suspension of his license to practice law in Massachusetts states, David did three things in order to conceal his lack of action:

• Fabricated a decree purporting to authorize the sale of the descendant’s real estate;
• Forged the signature of an associate justice of the Probate Court on the decree; and
• Fabricated a certificate purporting to be from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue releasing the estate tax lien on the real estate in question.

One must be willing to acknowledge that taken together such actions would entail a considerable degree of planning and very careful execution to implement the acts that David had performed. However, according to what I understand David recently conveyed about this life changing event to those who attended a recent meeting of the Current Events Club, I gather that his efforts to avoid accountability  just might be explained away by a bout of clinical depression. To me at least, that sounds like a non sequitur and I trust that David was not suggesting to his listeners a causal connection between what he did to conceal his lack of action in performing his duty to his client and his depressed state.

In concluding, I would like to draw a distinction between a variety of issues that may have led to David’s failure to timely respond to his client’s needs, on the one hand, and the scope of David’s failed efforts to avert accountability when his actions were called into question. Would it be too much for me to assume that a character flaw rather than clinical depression was more likely responsible for David’s unacceptable response in attempting to extract himself from his client-related problem?

Ron Johnson, 20 March 2008