Washington, DC - A scathing indictment of attorney discipline agencies nationwide, HALT's 2006 Lawyer Discipline Report Card issued grades to disciplinary systems in all 50 states and the District of Columbia today. More than half the states received grades below C. Utah flunked outright. No state earned an A. While Connecticut took top honors, it received only a meager B-minus.

Grades are appalling, but come as no surprise to HALT, which previously released a Report Card in 2002 that painted a bleak picture of attorney discipline systems across the country. During the past four years, 22 states - Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin - have deteriorated even further.

"Consumers today are still not adequately protected by state systems that investigate only a fraction of cases, almost never impose sanctions, attempt to intimidate and silence victims, hide misconduct behind a veil of secrecy, and often take years to process cases," stated HALT Associate Counsel Suzanne Blonder. "After 35 years of ignored calls for reform by our organization, the American Bar Association and ethics scholars across the country, the situation is not getting any better."

The Report Card reveals that the average state investigates only 58 percent of the complaints it receives, and investigations rarely result in discipline. A whopping 24 states impose formal public sanctions - disbarments, suspensions and public reprimands - in just five percent of investigated cases.

Many states continue to prohibit the public from attending disciplinary hearings. Hamstrung by rules that require them to keep the process secret, officials refuse to release information about attorneys' discipline histories. A handful of states still prohibit consumers from disclosing information until the disciplinary body imposes public discipline in the case. New Jersey and Tennessee are the only two states that significantly improved in this area; supreme courts in both states struck down their gag rules as unconstitutional since HALT issued its 2002 Report Card.

One of the few states to show any improvement, Pennsylvania rose from worst in 2002 to fifth in the nation today. After officials reviewed HALT's findings in 2002, they implemented Pennsylvania's first discipline Web site and developed a more transparent process.

California, however, plummeted from the top quartile of disciplinary bodies in 2002 to an abysmal 45th in the nation today. While the Bar was investigating every complaint it received four years ago, California is now reviewing only one out of every three complaints. The state's confusing, automated phone system is a disaster and prevents consumers from obtaining prompt answers from an actual staff person. Like California, New York stands out as one of the nation's most confounding systems; it's the only state in the country that features a bifurcated system broken down into multiple districts and departments - a system that baffles consumers and ultimately deters complaint-filing.

"American legal consumers deserve a system that investigates promptly, deliberates openly, and weeds out unethical or incompetent attorneys," stated HALT Executive Director James C. Turner. "Until there is meaningful reform, the legal profession has only itself to blame for the widespread public mistrust that mars every attorney's reputation."

Founded in 1978, HALT is the oldest and largest consumer legal reform group in the U.S. with 50,000 members. A copy of each state's 2006 Lawyer Discipline Report Card, a national comparison chart and other information about lawyer accountability is available from HALT upon request and at www.halt.org.