Elderly, frail and losing the sight in her left eye, Betty Cassedy trusted her lawyer when he told her there was plenty of time to file a lawsuit over her car accident.

Cassedy didn't know then that her attorney, Robert Cheek Jr. of Pittsburgh, had a history of abusing alcohol and neglecting clients, but Pennsylvania's lawyer-discipline system knew. The system privately gave him three slaps on the wrist — called informal admonitions — for drunken driving and neglect of clients.

Cassedy, now 82, became another of his victims. Cheek never filed a lawsuit on Cassedy's behalf before the two-year time limit expired. Cassedy, of Upper St. Clair, couldn't even try to recover damages for loss of vision.

"They should have stopped him sooner," Cassedy said. "But nobody did."

Pennsylvania has one of the most secretive systems in the nation for disciplining lawyers, leaving those like Cassedy vulnerable, critics contend. Lawyer-discipline systems across the nation are becoming more open, but Pennsylvania's system remains Byzantine and secretive.

One consumer group has ranked Pennsylvania's system last among the 50 states because it is so closed to the public.

Here's how it works:

Cases are investigated and prosecuted by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which can resolve complaints by issuing informal and secret admonitions. If the office determines formal charges should be brought, a three-member committee of attorneys conducts a private hearing.

The committee makes a recommendation to the 16-member Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, comprised of 14 lawyers and two non-lawyers.

The board can resolve complaints with secret reprimands. Recommendations for more severe sanctions, such as suspension and disbarment, must go to the state Supreme Court. Only when the state's highest court issues a ruling does a sanction finally become public — though the court shields the lawyer's name.

Disbarred lawyers can appeal for reinstatement after five years. The public isn't allowed to attend reinstatement hearings, though.

Most states allow the public to attend hearings that determine whether attorneys are corrupt or incompetent. Pennsylvania keeps such hearings closed.

"If this were done for doctors or accountants, lawyers would scream," said Ronald Rotunda, a George Mason University Foundation professor of law in Arlington, Va., who has studied attorney-discipline systems across the nation. "I think we, as lawyers, ought to eat our own cooking."

Technically, a disciplined Pennsylvania attorney's name becomes public once the state's highest court issues a formal ruling that imposes punishment, which can range from a public censure to disbarment. The public might not even realize the ruling exists, however.

Pennsylvania is the only state whose Supreme Court officially publicizes disciplinary decisions without ever identifying errant attorneys by name. Under Supreme Court rules, disciplinary orders, without attorneys' names, are sent to the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for official publication. The orders also go to the Web site of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

The Disciplinary Board then sends written notices on suspensions and disbarments to the appropriate counties' president judges and to local newspapers. Those notices give only the attorneys' names, but no details of the transgressions.

In contrast, doctors and accountants in Pennsylvania can expect hearings into allegations of misconduct to play out publicly. The public can attend those hearings, as well as misconduct hearings for 25 other professions that come under the state's Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs. Misconduct hearings for judges also are public.

Guarded privacy

Pennsylvania's lawyer-discipline system receives more than 4,500 complaints annually against attorneys. Only a fraction of those ever become public. In 2000, only 31 cases were referred to the Supreme Court for discipline, latest available data show. Of those, 17 resulted in disbarments.

In September 2001, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel convinced the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court to ask the state high court to halt the practice of issuing anonymous rulings. Even insiders in the Office of Disciplinary Counsel say they don't know whether the board followed through with a formal request, and no information is available from the Supreme Court.

Why don't they know?

"Everything is confidential unless there is a public discipline," said Elaine Bixler, executive director and secretary of the Disciplinary Board, who said she could give no information on the issue.

Barbara Margolis prosecutes errant lawyers in Rhode Island and is president of the National Organization of Bar Counsel, a professional association of prosecutors who target attorney misconduct. Margolis said many states during the past decade moved to make their discipline systems more open.

"I'm aware of what they are doing in Pennsylvania," she said. "I know some recommendations have been made for changing the process," to make it more open.

Cassedy, who lost the chance to seek damages for the loss of sight in her left eye, said she thinks it's time for more openness in Pennsylvania.

Court documents show that Cassedy hired Cheek in February 1996 — within weeks of her accident. She says the accident caused her to lose vision in her left eye. Cheek would have had to file a lawsuit by February 1998.

She said she would have liked to have known that two months before she hired Cheek, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel issued three informal admonitions against him. She said she wouldn't have stayed with him had she known he had been convicted of drunken driving in 1991 and again in 1992 and had a history of neglecting clients.

In Pennsylvania, informal admonitions — the lightest form of discipline — come from the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates and prosecutes allegations of attorney misconduct. Information on such discipline is not available to the public.

Cheek was convicted in a third drunken-driving case on Nov. 13, 1998. By then, Cheek's informal admonitions had grown to five, and the state Supreme Court transferred him to inactive status.

When Cassedy finally asked another attorney to pursue her case, he told her it was too late to file a lawsuit.

"There wasn't anything I could do," said Cassedy, who says she can't see anything but ghost figures in her left eye, where she received a blow during the car accident. She is not considering suing her former lawyer for malpractice.

Cheek agreed in July to a voluntary disbarment. In private disciplinary hearings, he said he had problems with alcohol and gambling, and he suggested that he had a bipolar personality disorder.

In a recent interview, Cheek, 55, said he hopes to eventually seek reinstatement of his law license, which he can do in five years.

"I hope to make retribution and such," he said, referring to his clients. "I would like to reapply for reinstatement of my license."

A failing grade

One reason Cheek's transgressions remained shielded from clients like Cassedy stems from the multi-layered disciplinary process in the state.

Critics contend the state's system is archaic and provides too much protection to bad lawyers, leaving the unwary and trusting vulnerable to the unethical or incompetent.

"If somebody is found to have violated something, he or she deserves to be publicly condemned," said Geoffrey Hazard Jr., a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania. "The absence of that kind of consequence is one of the contributing reasons that the disciplinary apparatus isn't very effective."

Others argue that the secrecy provisions protect lawyers from having their careers ruined by unfounded complaints.

"If you make the hearing public when there is no basis for a charge in the first place, it can cause irreparable harm for a lawyer," said James Schwartzman, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents many lawyers accused of misconduct.

"Lawyers can be a tough group on each other, and they will use anything they can to get a foot up on their competitors," said Schwartzman, a former chairman of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania's lawyer-discipline system received the lowest ranking of any state, according to an analysis conducted by HALT, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to legal reform.

The Washington, D.C.-based group gave Pennsylvania's system an "F." The organization said it had found Pennsylvania's system so secretive and cumbersome that it was unable to get basic information about how it works and could not determine the adequacy of discipline imposed.

"I think it is accurate to say Pennsylvania's disciplinary system is one of the most secretive in the nation," said Robert Davis, former acting chief disciplinary counsel in Pennsylvania and former chief prosecutor of attorney discipline in West Virginia.

Davis, a Harrisburg lawyer who now represents attorneys accused of misconduct, added, "Even though I represent respondents, there is some truth to the proposition that the more open it is, the more credible it is in the eyes of the public."

An open process

Most other states lean toward giving the public more information.

New Jersey maintains a Web site with a searchable database that provides synopses of discipline cases, the discipline imposed and the cities where lawyers practice.

"It gives people the heads-up they need," said David Johnson, director of the Office of Attorney Ethics in New Jersey.

Also, the public can attend the hearings that decide whether attorneys committed misconduct.

Oregon goes further. It is the only state where all complaints filed against attorneys are public, even before a hearing is held.

Fourteen states keep attorney-discipline hearings private, but Pennsylvania is alone in having its state Supreme Court publish attorney-discipline cases without disclosing lawyers' names. Generally, the party bringing the complaint cannot find out anything until final discipline is imposed. The person has no right to attend the hearing. He may testify as a witness, but generally can't stay for the rest of the proceedings.

Pennsylvania has an "exceptionally restrictive" confidentiality rule, Johnson said. Even prosecutors in his office in New Jersey can't get information about attorney-discipline cases they refer to Pennsylvania, he said.

"We inquire six months later as to the status," he said. "They have to invoke confidentiality and say, 'We can't tell you that,' and we say, 'We referred it to you.' "

Change could be on the way, though.

John "Jack" Doherty, who retired this year after nearly a decade as chief disciplinary counsel, was a longtime proponent of the secrecy rules. When he retired, he told the disciplinary board he had changed his position.

Doherty said he relaxed his views because of the explosive growth of advertising by lawyers who were repeat offenders.

"Their offense is such that they would pose a danger more to the public because of their public stance," Doherty said. "Maybe the public has a right to see some of these before they are concluded, and that's what I want revisited."

Secretive investigation unveiled
Complaints alleging lawyer misconduct may be filed by consumers, judges, attorneys and the state Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Here's how the secretive process works: