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Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal
The New Mexico Supreme Cloister has assuredly disbarred an Albuquerque breadth advocate with a continued acceptability as a gadfly in and out of court.
The aerial court, acting on recommendations by its Antidotal Board, which investigates allegations adjoin attorneys accountant by the state, disbarred Paul Livingston and accustomed antidotal admonition to booty applicant files of his 25 to 30 accessible cases. The cloister additionally ordered Livingston to pay $5,524 in costs.
The accomplishments came at the cessation of an Aug. 20 audition in Santa Fe at which Livingston represented himself.
Livingston, 71, has represented burghal of Albuquerque employees, decidedly bus drivers, at antidotal hearings afore the Burghal Cadre Board, about in cases area he argued that workers were wrongfully concluded because of the city's "invalid and actionable biologic testing policies." He has represented drivers alive to anatomy the New Mexico Transportation Union.
He was accountant in New Mexico in 1982, afterwards aggressive the burghal over whether non-Indian vendors such as himself could advertise adornment beneath the aperture in Old Town and chief in the action to go to law school.
The abasement came about afterwards attorneys in the Burghal Attorney's Office filed a D-board complaint adjoin Livingston afterwards what they said was harsh behavior adjoin a audition officer. They said Livingston had alleged the audition administrator "a dictator" and sued her back she disqualified adjoin him admitting "the acutely accustomed article of complete administrative immunity."
The burghal attorneys claimed, and the antidotal lath agreed, that back rulings went adjoin his client, Livingston filed civilian rights claims in federal cloister rather than book an address in 2nd District Court, as the rules provide.
He was disruptive, afraid and belligerent, filed barmy claims and about didn't accord his audience competent representation, according to the accuse filed adjoin him.
In a accounting response, Livingston said the D-board advocate is not " 'empowered' to ancillary with the burghal of Albuquerque and its attorneys … and accusation (me) with delinquency because she and the city's attorneys do not accede with (my and my clients') appearance of the law."
"Disciplinary counsel's abridgement of account for (my) continued appellate history and abundant acknowledged accomplishments is remarkable," Livingston wrote.
The barter amid Livingston and the Supreme Cloister was appropriately contentious, and Livingston told justices he believed he could abide to convenance in federal court.
"As of this moment you are no best accustomed to convenance law in the accompaniment of New Mexico," Chief Justice Barbara Vigil told him afterwards the justices conferred the affair and she appear the accepted decision.
"Except in federal cloister until they stop me," Livingston replied.
"You charge to acquaint the cloister that you're not licensed," Vigil told him. "I would advance you NOT convenance in federal court."
"Well I accept to convenance in federal court," Livingston said. "There are all kinds of things that are in process."
That acknowledgment prompted Justice Charles Daniels to jump in.
"This is what happens back you're disbarred," he said. "Your authorization to convenance has been bare of you. The federal courts acquiesce you to convenance there based on your accompaniment law license. I accept no agnosticism they will not acquiesce you to convenance afore them.
"This is not an befalling to accord you apprenticeship on the law. It's all accounting bottomward in the books, and now, if not before, would be a acceptable time to attending at those books."
Livingston, accomplished Tuesday, alleged abasement "an about astonishing punishment." "None of my audience accept fabricated a complaint," he said.
He said he believes the sanctions were imposed because he alleged the burghal cadre lath action "rotten and corrupt." And he said questions from justices at the Supreme Cloister audition fabricated it bright to him that they had not apprehend the archetype of the two-day antidotal audition at which he was the sole witness.
In a accounting account to the Journal , he said amid added things that he had done no amiss and that the altercation that he had somehow afflicted the accessible "is antic and absolutely bottomless by any specific accusation of harm."
Livingston said he was advancing to book a motion gluttonous sanctions adjoin the burghal attorneys who filed the complaint adjoin him.