Honorable Major B. Harding
Chief Justice
Supreme Court of Florida
500 South Duval Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1925

Dear Justice Harding,

I have written to you several times before (see correspondence dated January 14, 2000, January 24, 2000, February 18, 2000, March 7, 2000 and March 14, 2000) asking you to intervene with regard to The Florida Bar and its dereliction of duties in the handling of a grievance against attorneys Ronald C. Kopplow and Marc Cooper. " The Court has exclusive authority to regulate the admission and discipline of lawyers in Florida. To assist in the performance of those regulatory powers, the Court has adopted a code of professional conduct, established the Florida Board of Bar examiners to administer the admissions process, and created The Florida Bar to superintend bar governance." I believe that The Florida Bar failed in their "assistance" to the Court with regard to this grievance.

Your Honor, I beg you to turn a terrible wrong into a just right. These two attorneys financially and emotionally destroyed the lives of my husband, my child, myself and the approximately two hundred people that we had working for us for many, many years. These employees, as we have, not only lost their basic financial security from a company that had been in business for fifty two years but also the health, dental and life insurance, the profit sharing and the other benefits that we, a privately held company, provided. These attorneys disregarded their legal and ethical obligations in the representation of their clients for their own personal financial greed. Their predatory-type of representation on behalf of us, their clients, turned our misfortune into their self-dealing fortune. These attorneys used their license to practice law to perpetrate a scam against their own clients in order to secure financial rewards for themselves.

At the zealous urgence of decent and ethical attorneys in the community, I filed a grievance against these two attorneys for multiple and severe ethical violations. I stand firm in my belief that The Florida Bar did not properly handle this investigation for if they did they would have disclosed to me at the inception of my filing the "inherent conflict" which they had by their association with Ronald C. Kopplow. The Florida Bar should have discharged their procedural obligations in the handling of this disciplinary matter from the beginning and should have requested an impartial and acceptable panel or should have brought this immediately to the attention of The Supreme Court of Florida for review and determination. Justice Harding, I remain ready, willing and able to provide you once again, at a moments notice, with all the evidence and facts to substantiate these allegations. Please allow me that opportunity.

Your Honor, I am and always have been a law abiding upstanding citizen of these United States and specifically the state of Florida for the past twenty years. As a professional of unquestionable integrity, I know that you will find it in your heart and in your mind to know that what I am requesting is not only on behalf of myself and my family but on behalf of all the citizens of this great state. Never, ever should an individual or corporation have to endure the pernicious abuse of power that we did through the guise of Ronald C. Kopplow. The Florida Bar is the power that the public turns to for protection against unethical attorneys. The Florida Bar needs to gain the public’s faith and approval back into a system that has disappointed them for some time now. We must start here and now and I again implore you to intercede and do what you must know is absolutely right for the protection of the people you serve.

Respectfully submitted,

Meryl M. Lanson