The MN Attorney Ethics Board, known as the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility (OLPR), is responsible for overseeing all attorney misconduct within the State of Minnesota. According to the MN Supreme Court, "The principal purpose of lawyer discipline is to 'guard the administration of justice and to protect the courts, the legal profession and the public.' The other purpose served by lawyer discipline proceedings is deterrence of similar misconduct by the respondent lawyer and other members of the bar.'"

If Attorneys are allowed to engage in misconduct, no one is immune, and no child is safe from the injustices thrust upon them through the use of the legal system.

The OLPR appears to be engaging in extremely dangerous negligent and intentional acts which are placing complainants in harms way. The Director's Office is condoning discrimination which is in fact deemed unlawful under the Federal ADA and MHRA laws, and turning a blind eye to obviously retaliatory actions taken against complainants by the attorneys accused of violations. 

If you agree that an Attorney should NOT be allowed to engage in the follow actions, please sign this petition: 

-Retaliate against a complainant for filing a complaint

-Try to charge a complainant for filing a complaint against her

-Try to take away the complainant's child with a frivolous custody proceeding which included the submission of the ethics complaint as evidence in support of taking away the complainant's parental rights

-Engage in witness retaliation

 
The OLPR has very little (if any legitimate) oversight, consisting mainly of an audit performed every 10 years by the MN Supreme Court, which can be likened to an employee satisfaction survey. Complaints are never audited, and any summarily dismissed complaints are completely destroyed after 3 years. The OLPR also audits itself annually, and then prepares a report to provide to the MN Supreme court to tell them how they think they are doing. The Board is drenched in conflict of interest and is in dire need of being audited by the Legislative Auditor. 
 
The OLPR consists of attorneys, the assistant director who is also an attorney, the Director who is an attorney, and most of the board members also are attorneys, all of which are in the sole position of power to discipline other attorneys, without ANY oversight from any unbiased, disinterested individual/agency. The MN Attorney General represents the OLPR, so any complaints filed with her is a conflict of interest and she is unable to handle them (although her office fails to inform individuals of that and continues to retain the complaint information sent to her office which appears to be a major conflict of interest, not to mention that filing a complaint against her when she represents the OLPR would also be of conflict).
 
It is believed that the OLPR is working as a "front" appearing to handle complaints of misconduct, but instead working to shield attorneys from disciplinary actions. Whether the OLPR chooses to investigate a complaint or not, a full copy of the complaint is forwarded to the attorney in question, who is then allowed to utilize that complaint in any court proceeding to retaliate against the individual, contrary to the Rules of the OLPR. In one case, the attorney utilized the complaint to attempt to strip a PAACLA member of her parental rights, and attempted to force her to pay the attorney for her attorney's fees all for having filed a complaint against her. *(The case was dismissed and she retained full legal and physical custody but the damage was done and the OLPR although made aware of the retaliation, refused to intervene, and once the case was dismissed refused to address the issue at all.
 
The OLPR is also condoning violation of the Federal ADA laws, suggesting in dispositions that attorneys may interfere with an individual's accommodation request, and take retaliatory actions against individuals for filing ADA accommodation request, as well as argue to the entity involved why the individual should not be granted an accommodation, violating ADA and MHRA laws. 

We ask that the MN Office of the Legislative Auditor who has authority over the OLPR audit the OLPR and expose any improprieties as well as make suggestions for the OLPR to correct these issues affected every MN Resident.