Dickie Scruggs Indictment

There is a lot of talk on the Dickie Scruggs indictment and other places have covered the background well. There are a couple of points I haven't seen mentioned though that might be of interest. - a copy of the indictment

1. It seems, taking the indictment as true, that many of the players in this ordeal, Scruggs, Balducci, even the judge should be disbarred for ex parte communications. This isn't the sending you to jail kind of things like the indictment for bribery is but no one is mentioning that these lawyers violated one of the most major requirements of practicing law. There are special "ex parte days" on every docket and that's not what we are talking about here. Something to keep in consideration.

2. Balducci had/has a firm with former Auditor Steven Patterson who is not an attorney (at least he is not on the bar membership roll or known to be an attorney). Very specific steps have to be taken to form a business relationship between an attorney and a non-attorney and fee sharing is highly prohibited. This could also bring in Balducci and Patterson for unauthorized practice of law related state offenses. - ht to Thomas for this one.

One other tidbit to throw out there, some, such as this Slate article propose that perhaps Trent Lott's resignation is related to his brother-in-law's (Dickie Scruggs) indictment. I've seen nothing to suggest it but new information is coming out all the time on this event.