On Jan. 10 the Maryland Court of Appeals rejected a disbarred attorney’s claim that the state’s attorney-discipline agency operates unconstitutionally (“Bar Brawl,” Mobtown Beat, Dec. 21). Mark J. Adams, whose law license was stripped from him in 1995 by the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission, argued in his nearly 50-page petition that the commission is a “rogue agency, which was unconstitutional at its inception and which has operated with a three-decades-long pattern of unconstitutional conduct and bias.”

In his complaint, Adams cited a litany of cases to conclude that “standards for attorney discipline in Maryland are variable, arbitrary, capricious, and irrational,” and that “the range of decisions gives absolutely no guidance to a practicing attorney, or to the public, as to conduct that is impermissible.” He also posited that the Attorney Grievance Commission’s funding mechanism is unconstitutional, that it operates in secret, and that it violates due process and equal protection.

Adams’ complaint was dismissed without comment from the court. In a Jan. 17 e-mail to City Paper, Adams wrote that he plans to file a similar case in federal court, “probably in one or two weeks.”

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