In what challenger Pete Holmes is calling an escalating “whisper campaign,” supporters of City Attorney Tom Carr—particularly Carr’s campaign manager, Cindi Laws—are continuing to insist that Holmes is not qualified to serve as city attorney. The city charter requires candidates for city attorney to have been “in the practice of his or her profession” in Seattle for the four years preceding the election.
Carr’s supporters point to Holmes’s lawyer profile at the Washington State Bar Association, which says that Holmes’s bar status is “active” but also says, under “areas of practice,” that Holmes is “not actively practicing law.” In response, Holmes notes that he served as the “attorney” member of the Office of Professional Accountability Review Board, which oversees police-misconduct investigations, for seven years. And he points out that he provided the information about his “area of practice” himself to clarify that he was no longer taking private clients.
So much for a whisper campaign: Twice in the last several days, Carr went on the record today saying that he doesn’t believe Holmes is qualified to serve as city attorney. First, the two candidates got into it over this issue in person last Friday, when Carr directly challenged Holmes to prove that he had been actively practicing law. “You were a member of a committee! You were not actively engaged in practice,” Carr said. Holmes replied: “Tom, everything in that sentence was wrong.” Carr fired back: “I believe you’re not qualified. You gave up practicing law in 2001. You ask me, that’s my view.”
Today, Carr reiterated that view. “The charter provision says that you have to be both active [with the bar] and engaged in the practice of law in Seattle,” Carr said this morning. “He has not been practicing law—taking on clients, giving advice, doing the things that lawyers do.”
Holmes counters that, as a member of the OPA Review Board, he has been practicing law—even if he stopped taking on private clients when he joined the board. “At some point after I joined the review board I was getting calls from private clients wanting counsel while I was on the review board, and so I decided to put that in there,” he says. “Had I known that I was going to be running for city attorney and that there would be snarky whisper campaign against me, I would have changed it.”
In our interview last week, Carr said he did not plan to file a suit challenging Holmes’ status as an active attorney if Holmes wins. To Holmes, that’s confirmation that Carr’s claims are baseless. “If they wanted to just straight-up litigate, that would be one thing, but of course a legal debate is not as sexy as saying I’m unqualified to practice law. They know it’s far more effective as a whisper campaign.”
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Carr is scared shitless of Holmes, to the point he is now blatantly lying. He’s lying about Holmes. He’s lying about the success of Operation Sobering Thought.
If anyone is unqualified to be City Attorney, it appears Carr is.
And Cindi – getting your minions to post these lies around online forums isn’t going to help you. Nice try though.
To be clear, when Carr says “he served on a committee!”, he is omitting or ignoring the fact that the OPA Review Board requires one of its members to be a lawyer in good standing with the local bar association (SMC 03.28.095). Holmes was that designated lawyer member, charged with providing his legal expertise and counsel to help the board achieve its goals. He was then, and continues to be in good standing with both the King County and Washington State Bar Associations and his official status (the one that matters) has always been active.
Seattle deserves a debate about real issues in this race, Holmes is on the right side of these issues, and Carr knows this, that’s why he’s trying to distract voters with these false accusations.
As long as Holmes has passed the Bar Exam and mains an active membership in the Bar ASsociation, he’s a “practicing attorney” under the terms of the City Charter.
Any other interpretation would require some “judicial activism” on the part of a judge, the type we’re not likely to see
How many examples do we need of this kind of behavior before people get fed up with Carr?
1) Using his position of authority to make his personal attacks seem like legal truth, when in fact the law may allow for more than one opinion. (How hard would it be to simply argue that Carr is MORE qualified? But no. That’s not the kind of respect Carr shows others)
2) Attacking the character instead of the ideas of the person who disagrees with him.
The more he goes negative, the more unprofessional Carr appears.
IRONY ALERT: When Carr was City Attorney at the same time Holmes was the Lawyer member for the OPA, they both were practicing law at the same time, for a public entity, with no private clients and being paid by the same entity: The City of Seattle.
And, of course, the OPA requires specifically that their lawyers members be qualified and an good standing.
If Carr NOW says that Holmes wasn’t qualified to serve on OPA, he did the city a disservice in allowing him to serve.
Holmes is back in private practice after having cut his private work to DO A GOOD DEED for the City of Seattle and serve on the oversight board.
Even Carr’s wife was all bulldog and up in my face on this one, (insert indignant rage) “How does that prove he’s a practicing attorney?” One would think she’d be clear what an attorney does – I think she is one.
Duh. Holmes an attorney. He works for public and private clients. He gets paid for doing lawyerly things. Same as Carr, except Carr doesn’t have ANY private clients and hasn’t for many years. But of course, to require that an atty have private clients to be qualified under the city charter would be unconstitutional.
Surrogates left and right to charge “not qualified”.
On the other part of the whispering campaign – that Pete isn’t licensed and was “inactive” – that’s been roundly knocked down. Poor guy had to get a a certificate from the Bar Association to rebut these lies.
Aren’t attorneys supposed to use facts?
Cindy and Tom need to cut out the personal attacks, stick to facts and argue the issues.
And, if Tom is correct and somehow everyone else is wrong and there’s a vast conspiracy on behalf of his challenger – it’s Tom’s legal, moral and ethical obligation to file a legal challenge – he’d be remiss in his duties and obligation to the city to fail to challenge.
Period.
Besides, a little graciousness and professionalism couldn’t hurt.
The restate a point: If private practice is the criterion, then Carr is not qualified.
Would being an attorney for a private corporation count?
Would being an attorney for a public corporation count?
How many clients are required? One? Two? Twenty?
Tom should take this to court tomorrow so that someone else can take the place of the loser of the action.
If Tom loses it will be another example of bad judgment and if Pete loses, well that’s pretty obvious.
Thanks for the clarifications in comments above. It does seem that there are various ways of practicing law besides having private clients. One could even argue that lawmakers such as Adam Kline are practicing law.
I would ask the city attorney to get back to the issues. I have yet to see any justification for his sting operation on Belltown bartenders and bouncers, and how it helped solve the problem of after-hours violence outside the bars. I would also like to hear his ideas on alternatives to locking up DUIs, since we can’t afford the jail time.
I have a horse in this race: Carr has no credibility, is wasting public money; Holmes is terrifically ethical, and I have long supported his work on the OPA.
If Holmes isn’t qualified to be city attorney, then neither has Carr been. It’s that simple, as other commenters note.
I hope this doesn’t devolve into a birthers debate, the folks who contend that Barack Obama’s birth certificate (and apparently birth announcement and numerous other records) were forged. Unlike John McCain who was born in Panama (but is just as much a US citizen because his father was an active duty military officer).