Latest Scandal! Comic Book Dealer Disbarred As Lawyer!!!!

[Rob]

I mean, this is why we collect comics anyway, because we like to read about characters who have a moral obligation to fight for justice. I feel like I have a Batman in me, and always do my best to stop injustice when I can (or at least not support it).

[langur88]

Red,

 

How do you feel about him helping one of his clients avoid paying child support?

 

Was he representing the client ot not?

[OldGuy]

I like reading comic books.

[jbcomicbox]

Wow, so how does everyone feel about Doug Schmell now? I hope some of the lawyers on here will weigh in on this, I'd love to hear how they view these charges and his disbarment.

 

Another sad day for comics. Where does it end?

 

Wrong! Another sad day for attorneys. I see this pattern repeat itself where monies come in and for "cash flow" reasons monies are retained with the mental intention of "returning" them....but the slippery slope begins.....As an attorney, it is my belief that your integrity and honesty are the benchmarks of your profession. Jon

[Tomega]

I think its a good time for Doug to intitute a one time only "Mea Culpa - - All Is Forgiven" Sale of 50% off all Vault books!! I know I would forgive him??? How about all of you?

 

Finally, something we all can agree on 100%

[Foolkiller]

I agree with everything you said Jon, but it's another comic dealer with a shady past coming to light, that's all, and in that sense, another black eye for the dealer community.

 

Wow, so how does everyone feel about Doug Schmell now? I hope some of the lawyers on here will weigh in on this, I'd love to hear how they view these charges and his disbarment.

 

Another sad day for comics. Where does it end?

 

Wrong! Another sad day for attorneys. I see this pattern repeat itself where monies come in and for "cash flow" reasons monies are retained with the mental intention of "returning" them....but the slippery slope begins.....As an attorney, it is my belief that your integrity and honesty are the benchmarks of your profession. Jon

[Fan4Fan]

On what little I could glean from the article, he was not recalcitrant to charges and he does appear sincerely conciliatory to the Disciplinary Committee. It is my hope that some of us reserve judgement and contain predjudice especially since we have not heard from Doug or the rest of the story.

 

OK, call me quick to judge, but only a fool would not be conciliatory to a Disciplinary Committee.

[burntboy]

thought i'd weigh in here since there's no connection to anyone elses thoughts or opinions expressed so far, just a simple comment from OldGuy on what are hobby once was..................

 

to say i'm torn between two extremes here is putting it mildly...........

 

like Brad, i consider Doug a friend and have broken bread with him. a nicer more personable collector you couldn't find. i've held the FF#1 9.6 in my hands and drooled, along with many other "best-in-the-world" copies..........i've been to his home in Fort Lee and he and Lisa and Jackie have been out to Independence. when i told my wife last night what i'd read during the day, she was shocked..........

 

i consigned my HG SA DC's to him and everything has gone off without a hitch. all buyers seemed quite happy with the books and service and i've always been paid what i was due. he had my books in his possession for 6 months and i never had any qualms about that. he's always returned my calls and e-mails promptly and we chat about the Yanks and other stuff, as well.

 

on the other hand, like Brian, i've always been a harda$$ about justice. the issues involved here seem quite serious (as we all can see by the disbarment). while i truly believe that his post lawyering dealings within the comic community have all been on the up-and-up, this public disclosure of lawyering misconduct is most disheartening and i feel for him and his family.

 

this whole thing comes at a time when the Hobby seems to be reeling from one problem to another and is most unwelcome. but it is what it is. like a few others, i will take a few days to sort things out to see where i really stand on the issue.

 

in the meantime, let me say that i'm most respectful of the way this thread has been conducted by board members so far. reason seems to be prevailing and most posts have been pretty well thought out, irrespective of which side of the discussion folks are on...............

[jimjum12]

Doug was always very above board in his few dealings with me.Both buying and selling.I'm truly saddened by this,as I have good feelings about Doug.At this point,I will continue to hope that it was always his intention that his accounts would be square when the time came.I know that I've made a lot of mistakes in my life,and I believe in second chances.If I knew him better I would call and offer my condolences,but that would probably be out of line at this point.I hope that "3rd best" collection is not HIS.That would be quite a blow.My prayers would be that everything work out satisfactrally(sp?)for all involved.GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Red Hook]

Great post, Harry. See you guys later. Off to teach my graphic design class. I expect a lot to catch up with when I get back tonight.

 

Brad

[Harvey Dude]

I can’t help thinking of the pain and suffering and extreme emotional distress placed on his clients who entrusted him. How many sleepless nights did they go through fighting to get what was lawfully theirs? By my optic, character counts in all aspects of a person’s life and each of us makes decisions that define who we are. We have to live with the consequences of our actions. For fellow lawyers to take the seldom applied and drastic measure of disbarring a member speaks volumes to me. Like many of these complex issues, there are no winners involved.

[qualitycomix]

I can’t help thinking of the pain and suffering and extreme emotional distress placed on his clients who entrusted him. How many sleepless nights did they go through fighting to get what was lawfully theirs? By my optic, character counts in all aspects of a person’s life and each of us makes decisions that define who we are. We have to live with the consequences of our actions. For fellow lawyers to take the seldom applied and drastic measure of disbarring a member speaks volumes to me. Like many of these complex issues, there are no winners involved.

 

[arexcrooke]

I think its a good time for Doug to intitute a one time only "Mea Culpa - - All Is Forgiven" Sale of 50% off all Vault books!! I know I would forgive him??? How about all of you?

 

Finally, something we all can agree on 100%

So its okay if someone commits morally reprehensible acts, as long as we can profit or benefit from it?

Or am I taking a tounge-in-cheek comment out of context

[DKB]

I think its a good time for Doug to intitute a one time only "Mea Culpa - - All Is Forgiven" Sale of 50% off all Vault books!! I know I would forgive him??? How about all of you?

 

Finally, something we all can agree on 100%

So its okay if someone commits morally reprehensible acts, as long as we can profit or benefit from it?

Or am I taking a tounge-in-cheek comment out of context

 

If you took his Vault books at half off, YOU'd be stealing from HIM. I'm sure some would consider that an apt punishment. =)

[october]

I can’t help thinking of the pain and suffering and extreme emotional distress placed on his clients who entrusted him. How many sleepless nights did they go through fighting to get what was lawfully theirs? By my optic, character counts in all aspects of a person’s life and each of us makes decisions that define who we are. We have to live with the consequences of our actions. For fellow lawyers to take the seldom applied and drastic measure of disbarring a member speaks volumes to me. Like many of these complex issues, there are no winners involved.

 

A sensible post.

[Ze-man]

To all lawyers here...a hypothetical...

 

If you work with,and are good friends with a lawyer who is disbarred. What do you do?

How do you handle something like that? No comic related issues involved..just a co worker/friend who has been disbarred. I assume it is a given they cannot frequent the same watering holes anymore, or go out to eat at the local power lunch spots. But are you frowned upon by your peers if you remain friends outside of work?

 

Is it of such a grevious nature , that all bets are then off, and they already know you cannot remain friends..or is it deeper then that?

 

I am on the outside looking in at this and would love to know the unspoken stonecutter ethics involved here. Because it is obvious this is not an everyday occourence. and perhaps those of us that are not lawyers might be weighing his sins on a somewhat rose colored scale.

 

 

Ze-

[FFB]

I've been thinking about this a little more. On one level I agree with RedHook, as I've already stated, trust can be regained over time. But it has to be earned.

 

How can Doug start to earn the trust of the comic community back (at least those of us expressing our opinion)?

 

He admits to pressing when asked, but won't disclose it openly.

 

He admits to resubbing books when asked, but won't disclose it openly.

 

To me, as both a lawyer since 1992, and a comic collector/dealer, I see very little difference between knowingly not disclosing modifications to a book and selling to an unspected buyer than "borrowing" client money temporarily only to pay it back when asked.

 

If Doug wants to start regaining my trust, advocate openness.

 

Openly disclose on your website, Doug, which books are pressed or have been upgraded. Be the best of the best of disclosure advocates. Help us persuade CGC to do the same and clean up our hobby.

 

Many lawyers who have been disbarred or even criminals who have served time have gone on to rehabilitate themselves and lead extremely productive and high-profile lives (like John Dean for example, who was both), but they earned it by taking on the tactics that led them down the wrong path.

 

Earn it Doug. I look forward to seeing what path you choose, and I will stand by you in support if you choose the right path.

 

Brad, you are clearly Doug's friend, and a good one. I know where you stand on the above. Use your influence where it will acheive the greatest good.

 

I had this exact same thought today while thinking about this.

 

My views on the subject could best be represented by smooshing together Mark Zaid's, Brian Ketterer's and Brad Hamann's posts into one point of view. Which is to say that my views are conflicted as hell, because I like Doug a lot on a personal level but find his ethical violations to be shocking and completely outrageous. I like being a lawyer and consider it a real honor when a client who has a problem places their trust in me to help them. It makes me angry and sad that I have to hear on a constant basis someone calling this or that lawyer an untrustworthy, money-grubbing shark and saying that by extension, all lawyers are scum. A few bad apples give the whole bunch a bad image, and after reading Doug's disciplinary opinion, I have a hard time viewing him as anything but a really bad apple.

 

I wouldn't call Doug a friend because I barely know anything about him, but I was definitely friendly with him and think he is a nice guy who has a lot of passion for the hobby. There is no question that he always treated me fairly in our dealings (esp. the TOS#52 that he sold me for $250 less than someone else offered him for it, because he knew I really wanted it). It is a shame to see someone like that have such a bad "bad side." I am very upset with Doug for what he did, and not just because I am willing to bet (though it's purely speculation) that Doug used some or all of the money that he stole from his clients to buy comics. If he were my brother or my friend, I might be able to forgive him and still want to do business with him because that's how it is with friends and family. You stick by them when they are at their worst because someone has to and they'd do the same for you. But he's neither my brother nor my friend and I don't have it in me to be that forgiving of someone who steals money from clients to satisfy a comic book habit.

 

Part of me would like to see Doug stick with it and try to regain the trust of people in the industry, and perhaps more, to earn and deserve the high opinion that a lot of people here had and still have of him. I am a firm believer in giving people second chances when they earn it, but like Brian K. says in closing argument, "penance before forgiveness." Though I'd be rooting for Doug to pull out of this, it is going to take a lot of doing before I can look past 48 separate attorney ethical violations (which, by the way, I find to be a lot more serious than violations of comic industry ethics such as disclosure of pressing), including stealing money from an elderly woman. When I read something like that, I really don't give a rat's @ss if it has anything to do with his comic book practices or not. I just don't want to deal with someone who would be willing to do that because he "needs" money to support a fix. For all we know, his clients needed that money a lot more to pay for medical care, credit card bills incurred as a result of medical care or incurred because they lost wages because their injuries kept them out of work, or to compensate them for whatever damages they suffered that caused the defendant to agree to pay them that money in the first place.

 

One somewhat related issue that this brings up for me is the growing need for a dealer approval organization, much like the "Good Housekeeping" stamp of approval in other industries. I hope that this is something that the new standards organization accomplishes, and although I think Pete Rose still deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, I would disqualify any comic dealer from receiving an approval rating if he were ever found to have engaged in crimes of moral turpitude.

[FFB]

To all lawyers here...a hypothetical...

 

If you work with,and are good friends with a lawyer who is disbarred. What do you do?

How do you handle something like that? No comic related issues involved..just a co worker/friend who has been disbarred. I assume it is a given they cannot frequent the same watering holes anymore, or go out to eat at the local power lunch spots. But are you frowned upon by your peers if you remain friends outside of work?

 

Is it of such a grevious nature , that all bets are then off, and they already know you cannot remain friends..or is it deeper then that?

 

I am on the outside looking in at this and would love to know the unspoken stonecutter ethics involved here. Because it is obvious this is not an everyday occourence. and perhaps those of us that are not lawyers might be weighing his sins on a somewhat rose colored scale.

 

 

Ze-

 

It would depend on who the friend was. One of my best friends is also a lawyer. He was my best friend in law school. He was the best man in my wedding. If he and/or his family ever had a serious emergency, I'd probably be willing to sell anything I owned to help him out to the greatest extent I could. If his entire family were to die in an airplane accident, I'd raise his son for him. I'm pretty sure there's nothing he could do short of harming me or my family that would make me not remain friends with him. Disbarment wouldn't do it. Not even close.

 

That said, if he engaged in the kind of behavior that Doug did, he and I would have a serious come-to-Jesus talk about it and I would make very clear my feelings about how terrible it was to do those things. Then I'd try to get him some professional help to deal with the weakness that was at the heart of it all.

[Foolkiller]

Disbarrment is serious. There are other ethical charges where I would not be so quick to judge or consider as serious. I have many very good friends who are attorneys. If they got disbarred, I would not say, oh we can never talk again, but I would be very hesitant to be quite as good friends with them as I was before. Bottom line is this -- if you want to relate this Doug, I shared meals with Doug, liked Doug, did business with Doug, thought he was an enthusiastic addition to our hobby. But we weren't "friends" per se. We were acquaintances.

 

But here's the rub. You cannot call out someone like Jason Ewert and pick and choose whose misconduct you make a big deal out of. Just because we like Doug and know him does not mean that we should be concerned or question the ethics of his business or how he conducts it. I wish that this were someone other than someone that I like, but if you are not willing to speak out against someone you like when you do something wrong, then your position becomes arbitrary and reliant upon your own personal whims. In other words, there's no objectivity.

 

This was a serious offense, and disbarment the most serious penalty for a lawyer. Lawyers are put in a unique position of trust and abuse of that trust is considered a serious offense. People already don't trust lawyers enough as it is.

 

To all lawyers here...a hypothetical...

 

If you work with,and are good friends with a lawyer who is disbarred. What do you do?

How do you handle something like that? No comic related issues involved..just a co worker/friend who has been disbarred. I assume it is a given they cannot frequent the same watering holes anymore, or go out to eat at the local power lunch spots. But are you frowned upon by your peers if you remain friends outside of work?

 

Is it of such a grevious nature , that all bets are then off, and they already know you cannot remain friends..or is it deeper then that?

 

I am on the outside looking in at this and would love to know the unspoken stonecutter ethics involved here. Because it is obvious this is not an everyday occourence. and perhaps those of us that are not lawyers might be weighing his sins on a somewhat rose colored scale.

 

 

Ze-

[qualitycomix]

I've been thinking about this a little more. On one level I agree with RedHook, as I've already stated, trust can be regained over time. But it has to be earned.

 

How can Doug start to earn the trust of the comic community back (at least those of us expressing our opinion)?

 

He admits to pressing when asked, but won't disclose it openly.

 

He admits to resubbing books when asked, but won't disclose it openly.

 

To me, as both a lawyer since 1992, and a comic collector/dealer, I see very little difference between knowingly not disclosing modifications to a book and selling to an unspected buyer than "borrowing" client money temporarily only to pay it back when asked.

 

If Doug wants to start regaining my trust, advocate openness.

 

Openly disclose on your website, Doug, which books are pressed or have been upgraded. Be the best of the best of disclosure advocates. Help us persuade CGC to do the same and clean up our hobby.

 

Many lawyers who have been disbarred or even criminals who have served time have gone on to rehabilitate themselves and lead extremely productive and high-profile lives (like John Dean for example, who was both), but they earned it by taking on the tactics that led them down the wrong path.

 

Earn it Doug. I look forward to seeing what path you choose, and I will stand by you in support if you choose the right path.

 

Brad, you are clearly Doug's friend, and a good one. I know where you stand on the above. Use your influence where it will acheive the greatest good.

 

I had this exact same thought today while thinking about this.

 

My views on the subject could best be represented by smooshing together Mark Zaid's, Brian Ketterer's and Brad Hamann's posts into one point of view. Which is to say that my views are conflicted as hell, because I like Doug a lot on a personal level but find his ethical violations to be shocking and completely outrageous. I like being a lawyer and consider it a real honor when a client who has a problem places their trust in me to help them. It makes me angry and sad that I have to hear on a constant basis someone calling this or that lawyer an untrustworthy, money-grubbing shark and saying that by extension, all lawyers are scum. A few bad apples give the whole bunch a bad image, and after reading Doug's disciplinary opinion, I have a hard time viewing him as anything but a really bad apple.

 

I wouldn't call Doug a friend because I barely know anything about him, but I was definitely friendly with him and think he is a nice guy who has a lot of passion for the hobby. There is no question that he always treated me fairly in our dealings (esp. the TOS#52 that he sold me for $250 less than someone else offered him for it, because he knew I really wanted it). It is a shame to see someone like that have such a bad "bad side." I am very upset with Doug for what he did, and not just because I am willing to bet (though it's purely speculation) that Doug used some or all of the money that he stole from his clients to buy comics. If he were my brother or my friend, I might be able to forgive him and still want to do business with him because that's how it is with friends and family. You stick by them when they are at their worst because someone has to and they'd do the same for you. But he's neither my brother nor my friend and I don't have it in me to be that forgiving of someone who steals money from clients to satisfy a comic book habit.

 

Part of me would like to see Doug stick with it and try to regain the trust of people in the industry, and perhaps more, to earn and deserve the high opinion that a lot of people here had and still have of him. I am a firm believer in giving people second chances when they earn it, but like Brian K. says in closing argument, "penance before forgiveness." Though I'd be rooting for Doug to pull out of this, it is going to take a lot of doing before I can look past 48 separate attorney ethical violations (which, by the way, I find to be a lot more serious than violations of comic industry ethics such as disclosure of pressing), including stealing money from an elderly woman. When I read something like that, I really don't give a rat's @ss if it has anything to do with his comic book practices or not. I just don't want to deal with someone who would be willing to do that because he "needs" money to support a fix. For all we know, his clients needed that money a lot more to pay for medical care, credit card bills incurred as a result of medical care or incurred because they lost wages because their injuries kept them out of work, or to compensate them for whatever damages they suffered that caused the defendant to agree to pay them that money in the first place.

 

One somewhat related issue that this brings up for me is the growing need for a dealer approval organization, much like the "Good Housekeeping" stamp of approval in other industries. I hope that this is something that the new standards organization accomplishes, and although I think Pete Rose still deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, I would disqualify any comic dealer from receiving an approval rating if he were ever found to have engaged in crimes of moral turpitude.

 

Hear, hear. I don't believe someone is rehabilitated overnight and this was a continual, deliberate deception over a long period of time. However, if he goes out of his way to be the most honest dealer out there, then he will have my blessings as well eventually. This would include as Mark said, DISCLOSURE and above board actions on everything. Not that I'm the final arbiter on anything - just a wish list. I wish you the best Doug and I hope you pull through this personally and professionally.

 

And I like the idea of a good housekeeping stamp on dealers. We need that in this hobby in the worst way.