Adam Daley Wilson - Appellate Law - Public Interest Advocacy

Current Public Interest Legal Advocacy Project:

“What We Need Is More Lawyers”

Project conceived 1998; first draft completed 1999 at Stanford Law School; thank you to Stanford Law School Classmate T.H. for rescuing the original paper copy from a physical trash can. The first draft is incorporated into this project and will be added later in 2025.

Attorneys Who Fail as Officers of the Court: Some Recent Cases

Introduction

The legal profession—attorneys and their law firms that they own and directly run—is entrusted by the public with obligations that extend beyond the idea of ‘zealous representation’—the representation of individual clients, be they humans or corporations.

Attorneys, even though they are advocates, are supposed to be, first and foremost, officers of the court, which really means officers of an institution that exists for the public good, not for misuse for self-gain.  Attorneys bear a duty—and swear under oath—to uphold the integrity of the courts and the judicial process; to adhere to all ethical and professional rules; and to ensure that their conduct at all times aligns with all of the above.

These obligations derive from state and federal statutory law, constitutional law and constitutional principles, the rules of professional responsibility, and broader human theories of justice, equal protection, and even basic conceptions of fairness.

When attorneys and the law firms that they own and control fail to comply with these fundamental responsibilities, the legal system itself is placed at risk. And when attorneys and law firms intentionally violate these fundamental responsibilities, usually for financial self-gain, or to conceal other misconduct, the legal system—and the general public—is more than just placed at risk. There is something especially dirty about the dirty attorney.  So many of our modern stories and Hollywood movies are about this. 

The two case studies in this brief article involve two publicly filed formal lawsuits, or Complaints, one in state court, the other in federal court.

In turn, those two Complaints turn on—and cite—admissible evidence in the form of emails, documents, court filings, and billing statements of attorneys and their law firms themselves—these are not complaints that sued members of the public, or corporations—these are complaints that sued the attorneys involved in cases—using, as the basis for the complaints, the attorneys’ own written words.  Details about the particular attorneys and the particular law firms are relevant and appear towards the end of this paper.

Overview of the Two Case Studies In This Article

Both of the case studies in this article involve an examination of available evidence, including emails, court filings, proposed orders, and other documents.  The review of the public complaints against the attorneys and law firms shows allegations, in the form of written evidence, of numerous instances in which attorneys have engaged in conduct that is flatly inconsistent with their professional obligations to courts—and to the public.

In both of the complaints reviewed in this article, attorneys are shown to have intentionally and repeatedly used their legal training not to ensure justice, fairness, or compliance with ethical and constitutional principles, but rather to inflict harm, advance illegitimate objectives, and subvert the legal system and what it is supposed to be providing for the public.

This article analyzes a wide range of pattern-and-practice misconduct, and systemic abuses, drawing upon the allegations in the two complaints, as case studies, which, as noted, in turn allege hundreds of specific allegations using the actual writings of attorneys and their law firms—their emails, documents, billing statements, court filings, and other written evidence of what attorney and law firm misconduct actually looks like—including in one case, what attorney exploitation of mental illness stigma and mental illness disability looks like. 

The documentary evidence in the allegations in both of the complaints considered in this article bluntly demonstrate the extent to which certain attorneys and law firms intentionally engage in conduct that is fundamentally at odds with the duties imposed upon them by law and by rules of ethics—here, for both self-gain and to conceal other prior misconduct. 

Fraudulent Misrepresentations—Or As The Rest Of Us Call Them—Lies.

“Fraudulent misrepresentations” by attorneys—the legal world’s polite word for lies—constitute a fundamental ethical violation in legal practice. Attorneys are required to communicate honestly with courts, opposing counsel, and third parties, in all their affairs, and any deliberate misstatement of material fact undermines the integrity of the judicial process in dozens of compounding and increasingly harmful ways.

In the federal case that is one of the two case studies in this article, 2:25-cv-00060-JCN, filed in federal court in Maine, the documentary evidence set forth in the complaint supports allegations that include almost 400 specifically-identified instances of false statements by two attorneys acting in concert between 2017 and 2014—allegations evidenced by the quoted writings of the defendant attorneys themselves.  The almost 400 false statements, shown by facts demonstrating who, what, when, where, why, and how, were alleged to have been made by  two attorneys, Dana E. Prescott, Esq. and Lani Anne Remick, Esq., including through their court filings and their emails to court officials.  The allegations include both financial false statements and almost 177 false statements about a person’s mental illness, including false statements about the person’s mental illness disability in relation to the attorneys’ intentional exploitation of mental illness stigma for almost eight years in one case alone. 

Attorney ethical violations sounding in lies are an abuse that extends beyond mere fraudulent misrepresentations themselves.  For example, the complaints referenced in this article also demonstrated and alleged evidence of pleadings, motions, and proposed court orders that were entirely false, including to trick and defraud courts and judges themselves. Such conduct by attorneys would seem to implicate not only the rules of professional conduct but also broader concerns about the attorneys intentionally abusing the judicial processes and the courts for the attorneys’ own improper ends, here alleged to be both profit and concealment of other wrongs. 

Attorney Abuse of the Courts Themselves

In official legal terms, abuse of process occurs when attorneys use judicial procedures for purposes other than those for which they were intended. Abuse of courts, or abuse of process, usually means that the courts and the judges are not involved, and do not even know, either because the attorneys are abusing the process in ways that judges can’t see, or because attorneys are defrauding the courts—lying to the courts too—in order to conceal their abuse of the judicial process.

The nature of the misconduct by attorneys that can fall within abuse of process includes the initiation of legal actions to harass or intimidate, the filing of motions to delay or obstruct legitimate proceedings, and the misuse of discovery to increase costs or to try to obtain (or hide) information for improper purposes. These are just some examples.  In one of the cases considered for this article, abuses of process were alleged to be instances in which attorneys Dana Prescott and Lani Remick utilized legal motions and court procedure as a means of defrauding the court to avoid court orders; as a means of pressuring opposing parties and opposing counsel into acquiescing to extortionate demands; and even as a means to create an false evidentiary record that could then be used to falsely justify subsequent legal abuses.

Attorneys can also abuse the judicial process by using it to retaliate. Attorney retaliation against a party through the misuse of legal processes is a recurring evidentiary fact and allegation in the federal case considered for this article. The documentary evidence set forth in the federal complaint, for example, supports allegations of multiple instances in which attorney Dana E. Precott, Esq., used not just his law license but also his Maine social worker license to engage in filings, procedural maneuvers, and emails and phone calls with court officers that appear, given his own writings, to have been intended by him not to advance any legitimate legal claims, but rather only to punish an individual with a mental illness disability for asserting their legal rights.

The documentary evidence in the federal complaint supports allegations of Attorney Prescott’s pattern-and-practice efforts, from 2017 to 2024, to interfere with his victim’s finances, ability to have legal representation, and access to court process and constitutional rights, with the complaint alleging that Attorney Prescott and Attorney Remick in concert had the documented objective extorting the victim and concealing that extortion, none of which had any business being done through judicial process, including because it constituted violations of federal civil rights law, federal constitutional law, and the federal statute forbidding racketeering and corrupt practices, the federal RICO act. 

Law Firms Engage In Misconduct When Their Attorneys Engage In Misconduct

The attorney issues demonstrated by the facts in the two complaints considered for this article are not just attorney issues.  They are also law firm issues.  In other words, the above examples extend beyond individual attorney misconduct to law firm misconduct.

Attorneys own their law firms and attorneys closely run and control law firms. Law firms, not just attorneys, are responsible for ensuring that their attorneys adhere to ethical and professional standards. When law firms look the other way, minimalize, fail to supervise their attorneys, or even condone unethical behavior—or even help their attorneys conceal unethical behavior—the law firms themselves contribute to, cause, and are responsible for to the erosion of legal integrity.  All of which harms the general public, not just the opposing party.

For example, in the federal case considered for this article as a case study, the detailed complaint documents written evidence to support allegations that not only Dana E. Prescott and Lani Anne Remick acted wrongly as attorneys, but also that Mr. Prescott’s law firm, Prescott Jamieson Murphy Law Group LLC, acted wrongly, including not only because the law firm failed to address attorney misconduct, but also because the law firm both permitted itself to be used to effectuate and conceal its attorneys’ acts, including to file misleading documents with the courts through the law firm’s servers, letterhead, and employees, and including through other law firm acts and omissions.

The Broader Picture and Public Harm of Attorney And Law Firm Misconduct

The documentary evidence in the two cases considered for this brief article provides, in its totality, a documentary and evidentiary basis for examining the broader implications of legal ethics, professional responsibility, and the role of attorneys as officers of the court.

The legal system is premised on the assumption that attorneys will act in accordance with ethical rules and constitutional principles.

When attorneys and law firms engage in conduct that subverts these principles, they do not merely violate professional obligations, and they do not merely harm the finances and lives of their victims—they also fundamentally undermine the very structure of the legal system, which is a public good.  The legal system exists for multiple public reasons.  It does not exist so that attorneys and law firms can misuse them to harm, profit, conceal, and them wrap themselves in the ultimate fraud, that such attorneys are officers of the court.

The evidence set forth in the fact allegations in the two complaints reviewed for this article demonstrates evidence of actual attorneys caught engaging in patterns of misconduct that is fundamentally inconsistent with their duties to the courts and to the public.  The evidence shows attorneys using the law as a tool for harm rather than as an institution for justice, protection of rights, and the fair adjudication of disputes. The broader implications of such cases would seem to suggest the need for various responses all sounding in accountability.  There is no reason why attorneys should not be accountable for misconduct like everybody else.  In fact, as officers of the court, there seems to be a heightened reason why lawyers should be held even more accountable, since attorneys are granted certain privileges and immunities unlike everyone else.

The Two Public Complaints Considered For This Article

The federal complaint referenced in this article, 2:25-cv-00060-JCN, filed in the United States District Court for the District Maine in 2025, alleges specific facts under a Rule 9(b) heightened standard for fraud that attorney Dana E. Prescott, Esq., attorney Lani Anne Remick, Esq., and Mr. Prescott’s law firm of Prescott Jamieson Murphy Law Group LLC, located in Saco Maine, engaged from 2017 through 2024 in a pattern of misconduct constituting racketeering activity, civil rights violations, and related state law claims, including abuse of judicial process.

The allegations include fraudulent misrepresentations to courts and third parties, the misuse of legal proceedings to obstruct justice, witness tampering, and the intentional exploitation of mental illness stigma to fraudulently influence legal outcomes. The complaint details facts alleging who, what, when, where, and why as to how attorneys Prescott and Remick allegedly conspired to deprive the plaintiff of constitutional rights through the use of false statements, fabricated psychological claims, and the obstruction of witnesses, court officers, and legal rights.

Specific written evidence supporting the allegations is cited and quoted by the complaint, including the defendants’ own words in their emails, court filings, and procedural motions, allegedly demonstrating a coordinated effort to manipulate judicial processes, interfere with constitutional rights, and leverage false allegations to fraudulently gain money and conceal their predicate acts and schemes.

The complaint further alleges and documents with evidence that Prescott misused his credentials in law, social work, and psychology, including his Maine MSW and LCSW social worker license, to fraudulently lend false credibility to his false medical diagnoses and false exploitations of a person’s mental illness disability, thereby falsely influencing court-appointed officials and proceedings to achieve fraudulent and unethical outcomes.

The law firm Prescott Jamieson Murphy Law Group LLC is, in relation to the above, documented by writings and thereby alleged to have facilitated the above actions by its founding partner, Mr. Prescott, including by the law firm failing to uphold its ethical obligations as a legal institution, thereby allowing attorneys within the firm, including Mr. Prescott, to use his own law firm to further effectuate, conceal, and engage in the intentional and systematic misconduct noticed in the complaint.

…

Separately, the state court complaint reviewed for this article, filed in Maine Superior Court in 2024, alleges that the prominent Maine law firm Eaton Peabody, through its attorneys, engaged in numerous acts of legal misconduct that subverted basic elements of the attorney-client relationship, resulting in seven separate cause of action.  In 2025, after months of delay, Eaton Peabody, through its lawyers, acknowledge the complaint and all seven causes were legally valid.  In other words, Eaton Peabody as a law firm, and its lawyers, did not even attempt to argue to the court that the complaint or any of its legal claims were deficient, or speculative, or implausible.  Instead, in March 2025, Eaton Peabody filed with the court a document stating only that Eaton Peabody disagreed with the facts in the complaint.  Eaton Peabody even wrote that it disagreed with its own facts in its own emails, its own documents, and its own billing statements.

Substantively, the fact evidence documented and alleged in the Eaton Peabody law firm complaint sounds in attorney misconduct relating to aiding and abetting underlying financial harms, direct financial harms to a client, failures to disclose material conflicts of interest, and participation in creation of false legal documents, including documents provided to courts by attorneys Lani Anne Remick, Esq., and Dana E. Prescott, discussed above. 

From documentary and witness evidence, and from admissions from Attorney Ed Feibel, Esq. himself, the complaint alleges and documents who, what, when, where, how, and why Attorney Ed Feibel engaged in misconduct that effectuated and concealed in a central role.

The complaint documents with writings, witnesses, and self-admissions by Attorney Feibel that he substantially and directly facilitated fraudulent filings and financially harmful transactions, and thereafter engaged and acts and omissions with Eaton Peabody’s other attorneys constituting an alleged failure to comply with basic professional responsibilities that require candor to clients, candor to counsel, and candor to the courts.

The complaint demonstrates these facts and allegations through documentary evidence includes from court filings, transactional documents, billing statements, and multiple admissions by Mr. Feibel to witnesses, including Mr. Feibel confirming prior admissions to corroborate his own statements to witnesses.

Eaton Peabody, as a law firm, which advertises itself and holds itself out to the public as one of Maine’s most prestigious and reputable law firms, is alleged by the facts in the complaint to have facilitated and profited from the misconduct; to have failed to prevent the misconduct; and to have subsequently attempted to conceal the misconduct.