Where are the snitches?

How do you prove a negative?

You can’t. Hence, conspiracy culture. I can’t prove that reptilian aliens are not controlling the mainstream media.

So it could be true. I don’t think it’s true but I have no evidence that it’s not.

I bring this up in light of my immediate skeptical reaction to the news the other day that the California Supreme Court adopted a rule requiring lawyers to report other lawyers who have done bad things.

This, some people might have thought, was a big deal. It was even the lead front page story of the Los Angeles Times. Finally, California was adopting a version of a rule that every other state in the nation already had.

The “snitch rule” is based on the American Bar Association’s Model Rule 8.3. Surely, this national standard adopted everywhere else has done tremendous good.

Hasn’t it?

OK, you got me. I’m a negative person. I had my doubts.

But, negative as I am, I thought I’d find some evidence to prove myself wrong. Surely, a simple Internet search would yield a host of news reports about snitching lawyers.

It didn’t.

There must be some out there, and I admit I didn’t spend an enormous amount of time looking, but I couldn’t find one.

I did find a 2003 law journal article that begins with this sentence: “Rule 8.3 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct embodies one of the most underenforced, and possibly unenforceable, mandates in legal ethics.”

Yeah, but you can’t prove a negative. (Yeesh, now I’m being negative about negativity.)

Still, it’s hard to picture a lot of lawyers ratting on other lawyers — especially lawyers who could make your life a lot more complicated in return.

The “comment” section of the new rule put out by the California Supreme Court isn’t exactly encouraging either. It says you need a “measure of judgment” in complying with the rule because it only applies to serious offenses.

It isn’t clear whether you’re supposed to use a measuring spoon or a measuring cup to decide whether what you’re reporting is an “offense that a self-regulating profession must vigorously endeavor to prevent.”

And you can be criminally prosecuted for “false and malicious reports.”

That measuring instrument better be precise.

There’s also a weird rule section: “For purposes of this rule, ‘criminal act’ as used in paragraph (a) excludes conduct that would be a criminal act in another state, United States territory, or foreign jurisdiction, but would not be a criminal act in California.”

So if you know of a California lawyer who flies to Texas to perform an abortion, you don’t have to report them.

I’m not sure what other crimes might apply. Maybe out-of-state income tax evasion.

Finally, I have to note my favorite sentence from the rule’s comment section: “This rule does not apply to a lawyer who is consulted about or retained to represent a lawyer whose conduct is in question, or to a lawyer consulted in a professional capacity by another lawyer on whether the inquiring lawyer has a duty to report a third-party lawyer under this rule.”

I guess the idea is to create a brand new lucrative legal specialty: snitch law. Expect to see CLE courses.