The way malpractice in the criminal setting is currently being defined by courts is asinine and demonstrably harmful to society. Not to mention the ineffectiveness of the ABA, that goes out of its way to turn a blind eye and even protect attorneys who don't deserve it. Discipline from the American Bar is a joke. When the rules for taking action are written by attorneys for attorneys, what is the expected result? That's what you get, nothing.
Judges often act like they are gods because, well, they are in their courtroom. Some of the decisions made and opinions rendered push the limits of belief. If you are going to address the topic of qualified immunity, don't just stop at the police. Raise the "bar" throughout the entire legal system. Why should attorneys enjoy greater protection than doctors and accountants? Why should judges not be held accountable for decisions that endanger/cause harm to others?
None of this stuff is easy.
I think we agree in principle, or at least I agree with your intentions, I’m just not sure I agree with the specifics of how to do it. Not because I disagree with the proposal(s) I just don’t see how they’d be effective or workable.
Like the ABA is just a professional organization. They don’t do licensing or discipline. It’s like a think tank for better legal policy like the Brookings Institute. Licensing and discipline is handled by individual states. It’s why most of the lawyers here chortle when a certain poster goes on some supercilious rant about the “BAR association” giving lawyers marching orders. They put out a magazine, some legal education classes, and every so often they recommended best practices that attorneys can follow or not. That’s it. I’m not even a member. TN is okay at sanctioning dishonest or irresponsible lawyers but it’s licensing, not quality control. The market handles the latter.
Also, according to that article, the only difference between attorney malpractice and other professions is third party liability. I don’t have a strong opinion on it one way or the other because I don’t see how it helps in this context. It’s an idea, but I don’t see how it’s a solution.
Also, almost every decision a judge makes harms somebody. If I sue you and you sue me one of us wins and the other gets harmed. Pushing all tort liability onto judges doesn’t make any sense, and most of the beef I see here is directed at appellate law, emotionally reactionary, and not always informed as to what actually happened and why.
The legal/lawyer reforms that would create meaningful changes in the field of criminal justice are changes to post-conviction relief standards ie raising the bar of attorney performance at trial and raising the constitutional burden for prosecutors. That would open up more access to remedies for the people who were actually harmed, rather than trying to graft in a solution through third party liability. If, at that point, the current malpractice standards and the threat of embarrassment from being told they didn’t do their job well isn’t enough to incentivize performance then maybe revisions to malpractice standards would be warranted but it’s hard to tell because we almost never reach the issue of malpractice of the attorney because of these outside factors.