Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection dropped a bombshell into the Senate race in Massachusetts between Sen. Scott Brown and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren today. Jacobson carefully details that Warren practiced law out of her Harvard office for well over a decade without a license to practice law in Massachusetts.
The clear record shows that since the late 1990s Warren has held herself out as representing litigants using her Harvard Law School address, and there is every reason to believe the work was performed in Massachusetts, in some cases utilizing student help.
The listings above are not exhaustive, and there may be cases not reported in electronic databases, in which Warren has acted as counsel using her Cambridge address. For example, if Warren rendered legal advice but did not appear on the Brief or enter a court appearance, there would be no record. State court case briefs and appearances also are not captured by databases to the extent of federal cases.
What also is unknown is whether any of Warren’s representations involved Massachusetts clients or law, as Warren’s campaign has refused to disclose the full nature of her law practice when asked by The Boston Globe.
Warren’s office at Harvard Law School appears to have been her only office. I can find no record of Warren using any other address for such filings and representations other than her Cambridge address. That office not only was used in various cases listed above, it also is the office listed for her now inactive Texas law license.
Read the whole thing. None of the major New England publications have yet to pursue this story, but you can expect that Senator Brown’s campaign will force that issue in the coming days. Brown brought up Warren’s legal work for Travelers Insurance in their debate the other night.
Expect them to hammer the this issue and Warren supporters to try to nuance their way out of the very obvious at face value conclusions that Jacobson reached. Given that Massachusetts repeatedly elected to this seat Teddy Kennedy, a guy who killed a lady Chappaquiddick, this kind of scandal may not move the needle as much as one might suspect…
