When there is something wrong in the community around you—or far away—do not stand idly by. You must intervene. You must interfere.

Elie Wiesel, 2011 commencement address at Washington University

As mentioned in the post itself, I sent a PDF copy of The Obscurantism to the Client Assistance Office to serve as my appeal of the decision on the ethics complaint against Michael Fuller, an appeal process offered by Oregon State Bar Assistant General Counsel Linda L. Kruschke in her email dismissing the complaint.

On April Fools’ Day, in a move that surely comes as a surprise to no one, the Oregon State Bar upheld the dismissal, stating:

Under Bar Rule 2.5(c), General Counsel may affirm the dismissal by adopting the reasoning of the Client Assistance Office without additional discussion.

nik chourey, oregon state bar deputy general counsel, april 1st, 2025

Let us recap. The OSB Assistant General Counsel Linda L. Kruschke lied to me in writing, falsely attributing arguments to Michael Fuller’s lawyer, David Elkanich, that he never made. I appealed to the OSB General Counsel, specifically pointing out the Assistant General Counsel’s lies. The response of the General Counsel’s office was not to address anything I said in my appeal and simply to state that they are allowed to uphold the decision without saying anything more.

I am fine with this. As I already pointed out in The Obscurantism, the Oregon State Bar is not the right institution to hold lawyers accountable for using protective orders in unethical ways that advantage themselves and disadvantage both their clients and the justice system. The right place is the State of Oregon itself. Either the Judicial Department needs to fix its rules, or if it cannot do so, the Oregon State Legislature needs to make new laws, because the Oregon State Bar is okay with a defense lawyer intimidating a plaintiff’s lawyer into abandoning his case based on lies that the plaintiff was not allowed to see and respond to, because both lawyers put a protective order into place without the plaintiff’s knowledge.

I will continue to investigate whether there is anything I can do to move the State of Oregon on this issue, but regardless of that I believe that I have already made a difference.

My hope is that as this story becomes more public, more people who have had court cases involving Michael Fuller will look into whether Mr. Fuller and the lawyers on the other side agreed to protective orders without their knowledge. All they need to do is go to the courthouse kiosks and review the publicly filed documents. Even though the documents that are hidden by the protective order are not filed publicly, and legal clients have no easy way to see those hidden documents, the protective order itself is a publicly filed document.

While you are at the kiosk, you might as well check whether any other documents were filed in your case that your lawyer never informed you about. Marc Mohan failed to disclose to me more than half of the documents filed in my case. (page 17 here) Hopefully you are luckier than I was.

If you do discover that Mr. Fuller (or any other lawyer) has put a protective order into place without your knowledge, I recommend that you file ethics complaints against the lawyers on both sides here. You do not need to put nearly as much work into your ethics complaints as I did. Just give a one paragraph summary detailing that you had no knowledge of this protective order before you investigated yourself at the kiosk, and include a copy of the protective order from your case.

It is likely that these ethics complaints will be dismissed by the Oregon State Bar, but the decision of the Bar is not the point. The purpose is to keep building a paper trail against Michael Fuller, and against any other lawyer who exploits legal loopholes like this. The purpose is to embarrass the Oregon State Bar if they keep unethically defending these lawyers and to eventually put enough pressure on the State of Oregon to do something about it.

In the meantime, I advise clients who need to hire a lawyer for litigation of any kind take a few steps to protect themselves. State all of these things in writing to your lawyer at the outset of your case:

  1. Insist that your lawyer send you a copy of all email correspondence or other written communication with the opposing lawyers.
  2. Insist that you sit in on all phone calls, teleconference calls, or in-person meetings between your lawyer and the opposing lawyers.
  3. Insist that you do not approve your lawyer agreeing to any protective orders which enable the lawyers to exchange documents that their clients are not allowed to see.

In short, do not tolerate the lawyers on opposite sides of the case having any communication behind your back. Some of them might still do so against your wishes, but you will be in a stronger position for malpractice claims and ethics complaints against the lawyers if you do.

That is my best guess anyway. Keep in mind, I am not a lawyer. I am way too honest for that line of work.