Lawyer's Rare-Postcard Hobby Gets Him Disciplined

Lawyer's Rare-Postcard Hobby Gets Him Disciplined, N.J.L.J. (law.com), April 11, 2007. The lawyer omitted mention of his hobby of collecting and selling postcards when he sought long-term disability insurance because he was mentally impaired after having Lyme disease. What's the big deal? He was more than a dabbler, serving as treasurer of his local post card club, travelling to trade shows, and doing a lot of business on eBay. The bar gave him a reprimand for lying to obtain insurance benefits. It treated him leniently for a number of reasons, including his clean record as a legal services lawyer and the fact that he's been retired since 2001.

Meanwhile, the judge in his divorce case ordered him not to sell any of his postcards until the marital distribution was final, but he sold almost 1,400 and lied about the accounting. Yipes. For that he was charged criminally; he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree tampering with records and got three years' probation.

"Rainier National Park: Feeding Bears at Roadside," from exhibit, "Lying Lightly on the Land: Building America's National Park Roads and Parkways."