THE GAVEL SLAMS TWICE: Punished Twice For The Same Occurrence. A Comprehensive Guide for Attorneys facing Reciprocal Discipline without Due Process and without a Right To Trial by Jury

THE GAVEL SLAMS TWICEPunished Twice for the Same OccurrenceBook SummaryBy Kenneth Michael Plaisance, Esq.OverviewThe Gavel Slams Twice: Punished Twice for the Same Occurrence is a comprehensive guide — part legal treatise, part field manual, part memoir — for attorneys facing reciprocal discipline, the process by which discipline imposed in one state triggers parallel punishment in every other state, and federal court, where the lawyer is licensed. Its central argument is that this system, justified in the name of administrative efficiency and interstate comity, routinely punishes a lawyer again and again for a single act — often without a meaningful hearing, without independent review, and, in states like Louisiana, without any right to a jury. The book’s mission is to place the constitutional and procedural tools to fight back into the hands of the accused lawyer.Across thirty-two chapters in six parts, the book moves from foundation to remedy. It explains how attorney discipline and reciprocal discipline actually operate; how to defend the original disciplinary action and preserve the record; how to dissect the reciprocal-discipline petition and rebut the presumption of identical discipline; how to mount the constitutional arguments that the system would rather remain buried; and how, when the system fails, to seek reinstatement, pursue civil remedies, and carry the fight to the United States Supreme Court.Part treatise, part field manual, and part the author’s own story, the book is grounded throughout in a real case — In the Matter of Kenneth M. Plaisance — and in the practical mechanics of a process that was not designed with the respondent attorney’s interests in mind.Distinctive ContributionsThe book advances several arguments not commonly assembled in one place. It develops a cumulative-discipline principle drawn from civil-service law — the rule that a closed and already-punished offense may calibrate, but not be re-punished — and applies it to the second gavel of reciprocal discipline. It builds a right-to-a-jury and federalism critique around the divide between Texas, which allows an accused attorney to elect a district-court jury trial, and Louisiana, which does not.AudienceThe book is written for practicing attorneys facing original or reciprocal discipline, for ethics counsel who represent them, and for scholars and reformers concerned with professional-responsibility law and the due-process limits of self-regulation. Read more