The state’s disciplinary agency for lawyers took just a week to recommend disbarment for Rod Blagojevich, all but assuring the disgraced ex-governor won’t get to put his law degree to practice now that he’s free from prison.
The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission typically takes a month or more to weigh potential punishment for problem lawyers.
The agency noted Blagojevich’s “egregious misconduct” in announcing its recommendation to the state Supreme Court Tuesday, saying the 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 Illinois Supreme Court, which has the final say on yanking his law license.
But he’s not expected to put up a fight. Blagojevich didn’t show up to his hearing last week, with attorney Sheldon Sorosky relaying that the ex-governor “does not wish to engage in a contested hearing,” while maintaining his innocence.
Sorosky could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
The agency took Blagojevich’s absence as showing “a lack of respect for the disciplinary process and the legal profession,” and the panel slammed the fact he “has not acknowledged that his conduct was wrongful or expressed any remorse.”
During the hearing, an ARDC lawyer ticked off the Northwest Side Democrat’s laundry list of crimes, including auctioning Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat, shaking down a children’s hospital CEO and racetrack owner for campaign contributions, and lying to FBI agents investigating the case.
Blagojevich’s law license has been suspended on an interim basis since his corruption trial, but the agency moved to permanently disbar him last summer as talk of a commutation from President Donald Trump gained steam.
Now back home with his family in Chicago, Blagojevich has to find a job within two months under the terms of his original sentence.
In the meantime, he made his entry into the “gig” economy last week, selling personalized videos online at $100 a pop.
