Office of Disciplinary Counsel Failing Citizens

By Paul Gable

A legal system is only as good as the people charged with overseeing it. In South Carolina that is the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which operates under the auspices of the S.C. Supreme Court and its Chief Justice.

The S.C. Judicial Department apparently agrees. Consider this high sounding statement from the Judicial Department regarding the ODC:

“Regulating the conduct of both judges and lawyers is critical to preserving the integrity of the South Carolina judicial system and to instilling public confidence in the administration of justice. In South Carolina, the task of regulating both judges and lawyers falls to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel,…”

But, what happens when the ODC fails to do its job? What happens when a well-documented complaint is submitted to the ODC and it chooses to ignore the evidence and dismiss the complaint?

The system fails and public confidence is affected.

Such is the case, in our opinion, with a series of complaints filed against S.C. attorney and Lexington Chief Magistrate Judge John Rakowsky.

The latest complaint, addressed to S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal, is from Nicholas Williamson, PhD., a plaintiff in the infamous Southern Holdings case, who was represented by Rakowsky in the proceedings.

Williamson’s letter to Toal, in which he lays out the complaint, is accompanied by a series of exhibits which irrefutably support his allegations.

We have reported on the two earlier complaints that Williamson refers to in his letter. We have included some of the exhibits sent by Williamson with those reports.

For those of you who care about the legal system, its ability to mete out justice and the confidence it truly deserves, click on the below link to Williamson’s submission.

We will now wait to see how the ODC justifies ignoring Williamson’s complaint, allowing the good ol’ boy system to win again.

The Williamson complaint: Complaint to Chief Justice SC Supreme Court