In His Corner : Law: More than 100 attorneys come to the defense of outspoken lawyer Stephen Yagman, who was suspended from practicing in federal court after harshly criticizing a judge.

He may not be the most popular lawyer in Los Angeles, but Stephen Yagman, the Bad Boy of the Federal Courthouse, has a friend in court.

In fact, he has 111 of them.

That’s how many attorneys signed a friend of the court brief urging the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals to reverse a decision of three federal district court judges suspending Yagman from practicing in Los Angeles federal court for two years.

The judges ruled in July that Yagman, a 50-year-old Venice civil rights lawyer who specializes in police brutality lawsuits, had “impugned the integrity” of the court by his stinging criticism of their colleague, U.S. District Judge William D. Keller.

The brief was lodged on behalf of the American Jewish Congress’ Pacific Southwest Region, a liberal advocacy group; Article 19, a London-based nonprofit organization that promotes freedom of expression, and the individual attorneys.

Prepared by four prominent 1st Amendment lawyers, the brief was filed in conjunction with Yagman’s appeal. An oral argument in the case is scheduled for 9 a.m. today at the 9th Circuit courthouse in Pasadena.

Some of the attorneys who signed the brief say they are not personally enamored of Yagman and others say they disagree with what he said about Keller, a 60-year-old appointee of Ronald Reagan.

(Among other things, Yagman accused the judge of anti-Semitism and labeled him “ignorant, dishonest . . . a bully . . . and one of the worst judges in the United States.”)

But they are united in their belief that the decision to suspend him represents a fundamental threat to the free speech of lawyers and if upheld will have a chilling effect on the willingness of attorneys to speak candidly about judges.

“I don’t have any particular soft spot in my heart for Steve, but this is clearly the right thing to do,” said Douglas E. Mirell of Loeb & Loeb, one of the few lawyers from a large Downtown firm supporting Yagman. “It would be a moral outrage to allow this to go unchallenged by the legal community.”

Another lawyer who signed the brief, criminal defense lawyer Gerald L. Chaleff, said: “I would venture to say that most people who signed that brief are not friendly with or admirers of Yagman.

“It’s not him, it’s the principle--lawyers should have the right to criticize judges in public or in private,” said Chaleff, former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

Carlton Gunn, a deputy federal public defender who signed the brief, said the sanctioning of Yagman “has the potential to make lots of lawyers think they can’t say anything negative about a judge.” He said it would be particularly unwise to inhibit “the most reliable source of information on judges--the lawyers who practice before them.”

For his part, Yagman said: “I was pleasantly surprised by the number of lawyers who signed on to something potentially controversial and harmful to them. . . . I’ve always thought people looked at me as something of a pariah.”

Santa Monica criminal defense lawyer Richard Hirsch was among those who said they disagree with what Yagman said but believe it is critical to defend his right to make the statements. “I would never have made those remarks. I’m not suggesting those remarks are true,” Hirsch said.

“If Mr. Yagman is expressing his opinion, it’s just his opinion,” Hirsch said. “It’s not ground for removing him as a lawyer from the district,” which spans seven Southern California counties from Riverside to San Luis Obispo.

Those who signed the brief range from Harland W. Braun, an outspoken criminal defense lawyer who once described another federal judge as “sort of an evil man who is . . . trying to disguise himself as the Pillsbury Doughboy,” to Dianna J. Gould-Saltmann, who quietly practices family law in Hancock Park. She said she has never met Yagman but believes he is being treated unfairly.

The brief was written by Mirell, USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky and Los Angeles attorneys Gary L. Bostwick and Paul L. Hoffman.

“The 1st Amendment stands as an insurmountable obstacle to the imposition of sanctions against an attorney for ‘impugning the integrity’ of the court by public criticism, even intemperate criticism, of judges,” they wrote.

“Federal court judges are public officials whose performance and public integrity must be open to challenge, like every other public official in our democratic system. If attorneys believe that sitting judges are anti-Semitic or dishonest, they are free to say so publicly. This is so even if it turns out that they are wrong and even if is painful to the judge involved.”

Graham E. Berry, the lead attorney for the special disciplinary committee, said he was not surprised about the filing of the brief “because this matter has quite properly generated considerable debate among the legal community.”

In his own brief, Berry strongly defends the discipline taken against Yagman.

Berry contends that the district court judges were correct in ruling that attorneys surrender some of a citizen’s normal freedom to criticize judges because they are officers of the court.

“The reason for the application of different standards to attorney criticism of the courts as opposed to press (criticism) and individual defamation of individuals is that different interests are involved,” Berry wrote. He cited several cases in support of this argument, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest word on the issue, a 1991 decision called Gentile vs. State Bar of Nevada:

“Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the majority on the 1st Amendment issue, concluded that speech by an attorney is subject to greater regulation than speech by others because courts historically regulate admission to the practice of law before them and control the professional conduct of lawyers.”

The friend of the court brief also cites the Gentile ruling, noting that the Supreme Court said the only time a lawyer’s speech can be restricted is when it would create a risk of substantially prejudicing a pending case--which is not the situation in the Yagman matter.

The brief does not contend that no restrictions can be imposed on lawyers’ speech. It cites the Gentile case and the landmark libel decision of New York Times vs. Sullivan as authority for its position that in order to sanction a lawyer for comments about a judge, it must be proved that a lawyer not only spoke falsely, but with actual malice or reckless disregard of the truth.

The friend of the court brief states that the judges who sanctioned Yagman turned that standard on its head and imposed an impermissible, unconstitutional burden on Yagman to prove his statements about Keller, or at least show that he had diligently researched the topics. Rather, the attorneys said it was Keller’s obligation to prove that the statements were false. They also noted that he was free to pursue a libel action.

Consequently, the brief contends that the three-judge panel “erred seriously and fundamentally in holding that (Yagman), or any attorney, may be subject to discipline for impugning the integrity of the judiciary.

“Criticism of the courts--even blistering criticism--is safeguarded by the 1st Amendment, though it may have the effect of discrediting the judiciary. There is no reason to believe that the public image of the judiciary is so fragile or that speech critical of judges will weaken the effectiveness of the judicial process. Indeed, the relative insulation of the federal judiciary from political accountability makes speech about such judges . . . all the more important.” Federal judges have life tenure, are subject to removal from office only by impeachment and are rarely disciplined.

The three-judge panel that punished Yagman justified its action in part by concluding that the outspoken lawyer had criticized Keller with the goal of forcing the conservative jurist to recuse himself from presiding over Yagman’s cases in the future.

Yagman’s supporters say that is ludicrous because it is generally difficult to remove a federal judge from a case, and is particularly unlikely if the sole justification for the recusal is a provocative act by an attorney in the matter.

The friend of the court brief signed by the 111 attorneys is not the only one advancing Yagman’s cause. In his own brief--filed by his partner, Marion Yagman, and his lead lawyer, former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark--Yagman maintains that his 1st Amendment rights were violated, and contends that he is the victim of a vendetta engineered by some of his longtime adversaries.

Also weighing in on his behalf is the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a left-leaning lawyers organization that contends that the nature of the proceedings against Yagman violated his rights to due process of law.

USC professor Erwin Chemerinsky helped to write court brief.

Douglas E. Mirell, from large Downtown firm, has offered his support.