The principle that lawyers discipline themselves sometimes leads to questions about whether it's a fair system, but in fact we're far harder on ourselves than the State is on any other profession it regulates.

A case in point is this week's disbarment of former Phoenix prosecutor Andrew Thomas and his chief henchwoman. Thomas was Sheriff Joe Arpaio's biggest ally, and basically went power mad trying to treat any policy disagreements with what the two of them wanted as criminal corruption. It culminated with charging a sitting judge with serious crimes for ruling against them. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/andrew-thomas-disbarred-phoenix-prosecutor_n_1415815.html.

The US Department of Justice has been working for several years to get Arpaio under control, and despite his open criminality they're still in the preliminary stages. The Arizona Bar, on the other hand, has now wrapped up what was probably their biggest case ever and booted the culprits out of the profession (subject to appeal of course, which won't get anywhere IMHO). Like us or not, we do deal with our bad apples efficiently.