State regulators, Blago agree: He shouldn’t be practicing law
Rod Blagojevich shouldn’t be trusted in a court of law, according to the state’s disciplinary agency for lawyers — and the disgraced ex-governor agrees.
While the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission says it’s his outsized criminal record that should prohibit him from practicing law, Blagojevich says it’s simply a matter of being out of practice at a profession he left behind almost three decades ago.
The agency noted Blagojevich’s “egregious misconduct” in announcing its recommendation for disbarment to the Illinois Supreme Court Tuesday, saying the freshly sprung former governor was aware of his “obligation to uphold the law” when he committed a host of felonies while in office.
“Instead of doing so, he sought to further his own interests by engaging in a pattern of dishonest and deceptive conduct,” a commission panel wrote in its decision. Blagojevich has 21 days to appeal the recommendation before the panel submits it to the state Supreme Court, which has the final say on yanking his law license.
But the former amateur boxer won’t put up a fight.
“I haven’t practiced law since 1995,” he said in a statement through adviser Mark Vargas. “Imagine yourself sitting on a plane and then the pilot announces before takeoff that he hasn’t flown in 25 years. Wouldn’t you want to get off that plane? I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
Blagojevich previously signaled his indifference to losing his license when he didn’t show up to his disciplinary hearing last week. Attorney Sheldon Sorosky relayed then that the exgovernor maintained his innocence but “does not wish to engage in a contested hearing.”