2005-04-12 Board of Ethics Minutes regular mc

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be times, necessarily, where we'll get called during our regular work day, or that we need to make a single copy of something in the copy machine, or something gets faxed to us, all right. Now —and there is a recognition that there will be times when the de minimis use of County time or resources may be necessary in order to accomplish this. One of the important things that I think that—in our thinking, and what I present to you today, is this: To me, this is the key to what this is all about. All of this has nothing to do with personal profit for any of our attorneys. It's not about having a side business, or collecting any benefits to us personally. It is fulfilling a mandate which is part and parcel of our license to practice law, which is really what it all comes down to. Now, the benefits here go to the community. We're not benefiting the community at large, although individual members of that community may be benefactors from whatever legal services that we dispense to them. But again, I reiterate, the key is that this is not a matter of seeking personal profit, incurring personal profit upon our attorneys. About our attorneys, generally—we are all appointees. We are not civil servants. Whether they work their eight hours a day or eighteen hours a day, it doesn't matter. They get paid the same. They get paid to get the job done. CHAIR: Here's my question from me, you don't receive overtime? ASHIDA: Absolutely not. CHAIR: Okay. ASHIDA: Never have, yet. Never had, probably never will. And you know, J.D. and Bobby Jean are going to kill me for saying this, but you know, it might be a good thing. You know, there are times when they—by necessity of their work, their average day is far in excess of eight hours. They're going to get the job done, whether they happen to spend some time during their regular work day taking care of, talking to a pro Bono client, or doing something. The work is going to get done, no matter what, whether it's the end of that day or what have you. That's just the nature of the practice of law and being an attorney. So, what I wanted to assure the Board, what I think everybody understands, is that the work does not suffer. You know, the work's going to get done, that is a foregone conclusion. The only concern, the only concern—that's to ensure that we did it right, that because we recognize that we are held to a higher standard, and which we readily accept, that there will be no issues concerning any appearance of impropriety —the fact that I have this vehicle, the Ethics Board, to ask the question, even if we have already answered it, but to ask in this proper forum. That's why we're 9