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The Bar investigated Jacksonville attorney Chip Parker for telling CNN, “Foreclosure courts throughout the state of Florida have adopted a system of ramming foreclosure cases through the final judgments and sale — with very little regard to the rule of law.” He also said, “What I am seeing now is an attack upon the citizens of the state of Florida by retired judges.”
Parker learned he was under scrutiny in a letter from Bar counsel Shanell Schuyler last Dec. 3. The letter, obtained by the Review, includes a link to Parker’s CNN interview and advises him to explain his on-camera statements in writing by Dec. 20 in light of The Bar’s Rule of Professional Conduct 4-8.2 prohibiting lawyers from making false or reckless comments about court personnel.
“I was shocked,” Parker said. “I said, ‘This is a joke, right?’ I have a First Amendment right to free speech. I’ve said a lot worse and been more pointed in my speech in the past. CNN actually toned down my comments.”
Parker responded to The Bar by quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the late associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, saying his criticism was “consistent with the great traditions of American lawyers.”
The Bar also is investigating Tampa lawyer Matthew Weidner for “exercising free speech in the courtroom” in violation of a Pinellas County ordinance. Weidner, a prominent foreclosure defense lawyer, runs a blog critical of the state’s foreclosure process and is frequently quoted in national publications.