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A nationally recognized coach, law firm management consultant and author has endorsed and legitimized the editorial position of June Maxam, publisher of The North Country Gazette and co-publisher of The Empire Journal, in regard to the misconduct which existed in the case of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, the disabled Florida woman who was killed earlier this year by judicial order.
"Schiavo---A Tale of Incompetence and Conflicts" is the title of commentary posted on the website of Ed Poll, principal of LawBiz Management. Poll's website indicates that he practiced law "on all sides of the table for 25 years as a corporate general counsel, government prosecutor, sole practitioner, partner and law firm chief operating officer.
http://www.lawbizblog.com/personal-thoughts-282-schiavo-a-tale-of-incompetence-and-conflicts.html
In commenting on NCG's article "Bar to Honor Schiavo Attorney as 'Hero'", Poll notes that "the attorney for the parents of Florida's famous Schiavo case is getting an award for distinction. Yet, The North Country Gazette details the incompetence and fraudulent conduct of both this attorney and judges involved in the case". http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/122605HeroAttorney.html
"This is fascinating reading". Polls says of the NCG article…"and highlights areas of common sense that lawyers must address. Conflicts of interest and incompetence are not to be taken lightly! It is when one or both of these transgressions occur that clients justifiably sue lawyers, not because they've been charged too much!"
Pamela A.M. Campbell will be honored by the St. Petersburg Bar Foundation at their "Heroes Among Us" dinner on Jan. 21. She is the attorney who allegedly committed the fatal error in the Schiavo case, the basis for the denial of all future appeals of Pinellas County court judge George W. Greer's death order which resulted in the barbaric execution of Terri Schiavo.
Campbell represented Terri's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler Sr. during the January 2000 trial. Campbell had recently purchased the law practice of Mark Shames who had become a judge in the Sixth Judicial Circuit and who had handled a portion of the guardianship case, allowing money allowed for Terri's rehabilitation to be used by Michael Schiavo to hire George Felos for the purpose of securing her court-ordered death. Shames failed to recuse himself and did not disclose his prohibited conflict of interest---the fact that the Schindlers had discussed the case at length with him when he was in private law practice because they sought to retain him to represent them in challenging Michael Schiavo.
Schindlers did not retain Shames because they could not afford the $15,000 retainer fee he had demanded and thereafter Campbell, who assumed Shames' law practice, represented Schindlers. Initially, the Schindlers paid Campbell but when the legal bills became beyond their means, Campbell then represented them pro bono.
Many critics have charged that Campbell's inexperience and errors at the January, 2000 trial as well as her failure to do the proper pre-trial preparation and to present expert medical witnesses cost Terri Schiavo her life.
The Schindlers did not sue her for legal malpractice, instead focusing their efforts on trying to save Terri's life.
Campbell stated during her open statement at trial that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state instead of presenting legal arguments and witnesses which would have shown that she was not PVS but rather in a minimally conscious state, alert of her surroundings and responsive. Greer not only ordered the removal of Terri's feeding tube, but also ordered that the brain damaged woman not be feed orally and refused to allow swallowing tests. Florida statutes specifically prohibit the withholding of food and water from an indivdiual.
Campbell not only lost the case at trial on the PVS issue and by failing to impeach Michael Schiavo's testimony about the Terri's alleged declaration that she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means, but the trial errors committed were the basis for the Schindlers to lose in every other court all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. 1-8-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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