CPPC’s Executive Director, Professor Robert Fellmeth, Quoted in LAW360 Article on State Bar Discipline Practice

SAN DIEGO (April 10, 2023) – University of San Diego (USD) School of Law Consumer Protection Policy Center's (CPPC) Executive Director and Price Professor of Public Interest Law, Robert C. Fellmeth, was quoted in a LAW 360 article on the State Bar’s past practice in discipline investigations, specifically in regards to the recently disgraced attorney Thomas Girardi.

Professor Fellmeth, who has reviewed the span of Girardi files at the bar's request, said only a small number indicates that the bar's reviews were informed by Girardi's prior complaint record. The files "do not know about each other, and very rarely do they refer back," he said, calling the bar's oversight of Girardi "fragmented." "Basically, these were investigations transpiring in absentia of any other facts," he said.

Fellmeth, who has made reform recommendations as the bar continues to grapple with the Girardi scandal, said he's calling for a system in which a single disciplinary counsel attorney would "honcho" a lawyer's file once four or five complaints were made, regardless of whether they resulted in formal charges.

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About Consumer Protection Policy Center

Founded in 1980, the University of San Diego School of Law’s Consumer Protection Policy Center (CPPC) at the Centers for Public Interest Law (CPIL) serves as an academic center of research and advocacy in regulatory and public interest law. CPPC focuses its efforts on the study of an extremely powerful, yet often overlooked, level of government: state regulatory agencies. Under the supervision of experienced public interest attorneys and advocates, CPPC law student interns study California agencies that regulate business, professions, and trades.

CPPC publishes the California Regulatory Law Reporter, a unique legal journal that covers the activities and decisions of over 13 major California regulatory agencies.

In addition to its academic program, CPPC has an advocacy component. Center faculty, professional staff, and interns represent the interests of the unorganized and underrepresented in California’s legislature, courts, and regulatory agencies. CPPC attempts to make the regulatory functions of California government more efficient and visible by serving as a public monitor of state regulatory activity. The Center has been particularly active in reforming the state’s professional discipline systems for attorneys and physicians, and in advocating public interest reforms to the state’s open meetings and public records statutes.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world.  The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates.  The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 30th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 28th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.