BCNN Staffer Threatened by Staff At Disciplinary Counsel

We've been getting a lot of emails about Lisa Gentile, Anne Endre and Dawn Palange at BCNN after our part one article was published. It turns out that these gals have hurt a number of people in Berks County. Many of these folks said that they filed complaints only to be turned away at the Disciplinary Board. We wanted to find out why this was.

We sent a staffer to talk with Allan J. Davis, staff member at the office who has consistently re-buffed Berks County residents who have asked the Disciplinary Counsel for assistance. It appears that a number of lawyers in Berks County have some "friends" at the disciplinary counsel. Either that or Mr. Davis has a very short temper.

Specifically, we wanted to know why after numerous complaints from numerous individuals and even after a lawsuit from another attorney where they had judgements levied, why were these specific attorneys  allowed to practice without any violations coming up on their names? We discussed emails we had received and asked for answers to the questions posed by the people who had sent the emails.

Mr. Davis became very agitated and said that he could not discuss cases or specifics or even generalizations. He could only discuss cases with people who had actually filed a complaint. Our staffer had a member call back who had filed a specific complaint to ask questions.

Mr. Davis became even more agitated and started yelling and raising his voice when questioned. He yelled that he was not allowed to give out legal advice. When our staffer pointed out that he was not asking for legal advice, just asking for questions, Mr. Davis began to interrupt the questions and then pulled out complaints that had been filed and began to pick them apart.

Finally, Mr. Davis admitted to our staffer that the only way that an attorney can be held culpable in Pennslyvania is if he or she is found in contempt of court by a judge. When our staffer asked why it didn't say this on the PA Disciplinary Website, Mr. Davis lost it and began to shout and scream.

Our staffer said, "Calm down. You are acting like a jerk. I'm just asking questions! Why are you so angry?"
At that point, Mr. Davis screamed..."Oh yeah....oh yeah? You wanna know what I'm gonna do? You dare to call me a jerk? Just because you said that, you'll see what happens, you wanna see what happens now? HUH?"

Our staff, who were listening on speaker phone, were trying hard to not laugh at the unprofessionalism of this individual who is supposed to investigate ethics violations amongst lawyers. Were we speaking with an adult or with a child pretending to be an adult?

We wondered--okay, what happens now? He began to scream louder and shout and then, he hung up on our staffer.

Shocked silence and a lot of laughter followed. Then, our staffer called back and asked to speak to the supervisor of Mr. Davis. Our staffer was put on hold for an extremely long period of time. A secretary came on the phone and told our staffer he needed to speak to an individual. Our staffer asked for the spelling of the name and was put on hold again.

Finally, another secretary answered and asked how she could help. Our staffer mentioned that he had been treated rudely by a staff member and wanted to complain. He was given a name that was different than the name the other individual gave.

Our staffer called the contact in Philadelphia to complain about Mr. Davis' behavior and was put on hold. Then, he was told that Mr. Davis' supervisor was was out of the office and he needed to leave a voice message. Our staffer did in fact do so.

This entire exercise raises some grave concerns about many things in Pennsylvania. First of all, a professional should not become so enraged and intimidated over questions if there was nothing to hide. Secondly, nowhere does it say that you need to get a contempt order against an attorney in order to file a complaint against an attorney. Thirdly, the chances of a judge in Berks County finding an attorney in contempt for behavior in the courtroom and outside of the courtroom is minimal at best.

Therefore, why does this organization even exist? We hope that the Deputy Chief will call us back and answer our questions nicely! When/if he does, we'll share what we've found out with our readers.