Suspended New Haven attorney Rick Silverstein is deciding whether it’s worth the effort to appeal a one-year suspension of his law license after a harshly worded decision by state Superior Court Judge Brian Fischer.

Silverstein, 66, has a long record as a defense lawyer. The suspension, effective Dec. 8, was based on a history of reprimands and a 2007 six-month suspension stemming from a $250 bounced check in 2019.

During a 2021 Statewide Grievance Committee review hearing, he admitted not responding to overdraft notices and other requests and said he was “sorry and embarrassed,” according to Fischer’s decision.

Fischer wrote that Silverstein’s record concerning the bounced check was “an abhorrent disciplinary history for a practicing attorney.” He also listed Silverstein’s history of reprimands dating back to 2000.

​“Most attorneys with the disciplinary track record of the Respondent would have crawled on their hands and knees to deliver the requested documents to the Grievance Committees fearing their right to practice law could be suspended at any time,” Fischer wrote. “The Respondent’s cavalier attitude towards the grievance process is staggering.”

Fischer added that Silverstein showed an “utter disdain” for the rules of professional conduct and “for cooperating with the grievance authorities.”

Attorney Norm Pattis, who is representing Silverstein on his possible appeal, said Tuesday, “Rick and I and plenty of people in the defense bar regarded this as a grotesque overreaction,” Pattis said.

“Certainly, Rick brought this on himself, and I think he’d be the first one to admit it, but to suggest that (anyone) in Connecticut or anywhere should ever appear in court, even metaphorically, on hands and knees as Judge Fischer did, or to reach back decades into a person’s history, and this is a history in Mr. Silverstein’s case where he had overcome substance abuse issues, is shocking and, in our view, unconscionable,” Pattis said.

He said he had appealed to the state Appellate Court and was denied.

“We took our case to the chief justice of the (state) Supreme Court for a public interest appeal, and he refused to hear us, so at this point Rick is out of the laws,” Pattis said.

“His clients are left to find new lawyers,” he said. “There’s hundreds of phones ringing all throughout Connecticut right now. And for what? The pique of a judge who was frustrated with Rick. OK, I get it, but justice has to be tempered, and it was an intemperate decision with profound consequences for the bar.”

Pattis said by the time the case works its way through the appellate process, Silverstein’s suspension would have ended, so they are not sure whether to proceed.

“The only real reason to go forward would be out of consideration for other cases and to try to impose some limits on what the judiciary can do to lawyers,” he said.

“There is a sense among members of the bar that we’ve got a rogue court right now that views lawyers as ‘their lawyers.’ We don’t belong to the court. And we may be officers of the court, but we’re not indentured servants to the judiciary.”

Pattis called Silverstein, who has been practicing since 1986, “a great lawyer. He’s won as many cases or more than any criminal defense lawyer in the state.

“He’s a go-to lawyer for hundreds of people,” Pattis said. “He’s now representing third generations of families, people who’ve run afoul of the law, and I think the bar is weaker without him.”