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Vol. 72, No. 6, June 1999 |
Parting Thoughts:
An Interview with Jerry Sternberg
Concluding 16 years as BAPR administrator, Jerry Sternberg
reflects on his role and legacy. He left BAPR late last year
to prosecute nursing home abuse cases for the Wisconsin Department
of Health and Family Services.
By Dianne Molvig
 Sitting in the den of
his Madison home, Jerry Sternberg looks upon his job as administrator
of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Board of Attorneys Professional
Responsibility (BAPR) from a new vantage point - one of
hindsight. Sternberg left the agency last November, after almost
16 years. "I suppose it was a complex job," Sternberg
says. He smiles, and a fleeting expression on his face hints
that the meaning of those words may be sinking in deeper now
that he's outside of BAPR, rather than in the thick of its
activities.
As BAPR administrator, Sternberg supervised all investigations
of alleged misconduct or medical incapacity involving Wisconsin
lawyers, whether the investigation was conducted by staff in
BAPR's Madison and Milwaukee offices, or by any of 16 grievance
committees - consisting of both lawyers and nonlawyers,
located around the state. Sternberg himself prosecuted several
discipline cases brought before a referee appointed by the state
supreme court, and also supervised other prosecutors. He also
supervised the investigation of reinstatement cases. Added to
that were media relations, a mix of administrative duties -
and lots of listening.
"Sometimes lawyers who had grievances filed against them
called me just to vent," Sternberg says. "And the same
thing with complainants. Even if their complaint got dismissed,
they still wanted someone to hear them out, to give them their
day in court. So it was a balancing act. You had to listen to
everybody - complainants, respondents, the public, and the
legal profession."
Many who are unfamiliar with the inner workings of BAPR may
hold misconceptions about what his role was, Sternberg says.
"I think some believe I had more power than I really did,"
he says, "and that I made all the decisions. But I only
had authority to a certain point: to dismiss grievances and to
make recommendations on discipline cases to the BAPR board. Then
the 12 board members are very free to decide what they want to
do." Eight lawyers and four nonlawyers, appointed by the
supreme court, make up the board, which ultimately decides whether
or not to prosecute a case.
Nonetheless, as the overall administrator of the state agency
that disciplines lawyers, Sternberg can't shake the image
of being the "Big Bad Cop" who kept a watchful eye
on the legal profession. Did that bother him? "No,"
he says, "because I never saw myself or the job as being
the big, bad, mean anything. I always tried to treat people with
respect. I didn't go after lawyers I was prosecuting in
a personal way. I just tried to do a job, and to do it as well
as I could, with the help of the staff, the committees, the board
- the whole team."
Coming to Wisconsin
The path that led Sternberg to his BAPR career can be traced
to one day in 1982, when he was working as legal counsel for
the New York City Police Department. Sternberg and his wife,
Merle, had been considering a move to somewhere better suited
to raising a family, and where Jerry wouldn't spend two-plus
hours a day commuting to his office.
"One day I got home from work," Sternberg recalls,
"and there were three red checks next to this job announcement
in the Federal Bar Bulletin. So I applied." After a couple
rounds of interviews with the BAPR board, Sternberg was hired
as the new administrator.
| "I
didn't go after lawyers I was prosecuting in a personal way.
I just tried to do a job, and to do it as well as I could, with
the help of the staff, the committees, the board -- the whole
team." |
A key motivation in taking the job, Sternberg says, was that
Vic Miller, George Steil Sr. of Janesville, and other board members
"showed me an example of public service that I admired and
was willing to make a move for." Sternberg himself had followed
a public service direction in his career, having served two stints
as a VISTA volunteer, followed by working as assistant corporation
counsel in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., where he prosecuted discipline cases
involving public works employees, mostly police, before his job
in NYPD's legal department.
With his background, a job involving lawyer discipline was
a logical next step. But throughout his tenure at BAPR, Sternberg
viewed his job as being more than chief disciplinarian. He also
took on the role of educator. BAPR doesn't "just wait
for people to trip up," he says. "I can't tell
you how many speeches I made to county bars throughout the state
and before the State Bar telling lawyers how to avoid grievances.
And it's been not just me, but the BAPR board members, too,
and some of the supreme court justices. Everybody has tried to
supplement the enforcement function of the agency with the educational
part. I think you have to put those together and educate lawyers
so they don't trip."
Sternberg's education efforts didn't stop with giving
speeches or writing articles for legal publications. He made
himself available to answer lawyers' personal questions
after his seminar presentations, or to respond to attorneys,
and even judges, who called his office for rule clarification.
"I don't think there's anyone who felt we did
not have an open-door policy," he says.
Staying approachable was a high priority to Sternberg -
yet not an easy stance to maintain when you're the disciplinarian
of your peers. A pitfall for many in such a position is to become
separated, isolated. "I didn't have this view of myself
as having to be a loner," Sternberg says. "In fact,
instead I immersed myself in projects that were cooperative."
One example was his involvement in the Wisconsin Lawyers'
Assistance Program (WisLAP), which tries to help lawyers conquer
personal problems, such as addiction or emotional troubles, before
they lead to professional misconduct. Not only does WisLAP aid
troubled lawyers, Sternberg points out, but its efforts also
translate into better protection of the public, which is BAPR's
chief mission.
Delivering messages
Sternberg doesn't kid himself; he knows those four letters,
BAPR, are enough to stir fear in the hearts of many lawyers.
That fear is largely baseless, Sternberg likes to remind his
colleagues. The highest number of public discipline cases he's
seen in one year is 69, plus the board issues 20 to 40 private
reprimands a year (usually for less serious, one-time incidents
resulting in minor harm). "That's at most about 100
lawyers a year affected by discipline, out of 19,000," Sternberg
notes. "Most grievances get dismissed. To have this great
fear is not really justified. We're not out for skulls."
Just having a grievance filed against them is enough to cause
some lawyers to respond like "deer frozen in headlights,"
Sternberg acknowledges, which then puts them at risk for another
professional grievance, one that BAPR categorizes as "failure
to cooperate." What may have been a minor matter thus becomes
major. "That's why failure to cooperate makes no sense,"
Sternberg emphasizes. "If an attorney answers a grievance
thoroughly, the great probability, at least in terms of the statistics,
is that it's going to be dismissed."
Clearly, that's one message Sternberg hopes more attorneys
grasp as they become more familiar with what BAPR does and how
it works. The overriding message he hopes he's conveyed
to lawyers over the past 16 years comes down to this: Practice
with honesty. Communicate with clients fully. And should you
get a grievance filed against you, don't run scared.
"The other thing is, we're all going to make mistakes,"
Sternberg says, "because we're human beings. Fess up
to those mistakes. Don't try to give excuses or point the
blame at others. If you practice honestly and deal openly with
clients, opponents, and the courts - and not play games
or take on the Rambo style - you're going to do a better
job. It's as simple as that."
Another oft-repeated message Sternberg hopes has hit home
with lawyers over the years is that practicing according to professional
conduct rules serves dual purposes. "Not only does it keep
you out of trouble with BAPR," he notes, "it also helps
you develop more satisfied clients, which is good business. Clients
like it when you communicate well with them, when you're
honest and consistent."
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