merelygifted:

…  Finally, on Monday — after Mr. Pierce had still failed to emerge — the government got involved. Federal prosecutors issued letters to several judges in 17 Capitol riot cases, informing them that no one in the Justice Department had heard from Mr. Pierce in a week and that “multiple” phone numbers for his law firm appeared to have been disconnected.

With Pierce possibly turning to ghosting as a legal tactic, his clients are now in a peculiar legal limbo. What makes it even more bizarre is the associate attempting to handle matters in Pierce’s absence has some… issues.

…prosecutors did express concern in their letters filed on Monday about the young associate, Ryan Joseph Marshall, who has been standing in for Mr. Pierce at the hearings he has missed.For one thing, Mr. Marshall is not a licensed lawyer, prosecutors said, and has taken actions on behalf of clients “that he is not permitted” to take. Moreover, they went on, it remains unclear if and when Mr. Marshall will be able to get his law license given that he is under indictment in two criminal cases accusing him of corruption, theft and fraud in Pennsylvania.

Pierce has made a specialty of defending right wing clients — although one wonders why they would go to him based on his performance to date. He was representing Kyle Rittenhouse for a time, but was fired over financial matters and questionable actions.

He was working with Lin Wood — who has been involved with Trump’s efforts to get the 2020 election overturned; Wood has problems of his own, according to Alison Durkee at Forbes.

…The state bar is investigating whether Wood violated multiple professional conduct rules after the election, as he brought multiple lawsuits challenging the presidential election results and spread baseless conspiracy theories online involving such figures as former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.

The bar asked Wood to undergo a mental health evaluation as part of that investigation, as the organization’s rules state “mental illness, cognitive impairment, alcohol abuse, or substance abuse, to the extent of impairing competency as a lawyer” are grounds for being disbarred.

Other clients have fired Pierce as well, for bad practices and poor service. He has conflict of interests between several of the many clients he is supposed to be representing.  …

…  Pierce’s legal work, which includes his firm representing everyone from Kyle Rittenhouse to Rudy Giuliani, has at times been overshadowed by personal drama. As our colleague Samantha Michaels has written in-depth, Pierce was previously sued by a former colleague for wrongful termination, while at the same time he fought a messy custody battle in which he was accused of threatening his ex-wife while claiming that God was working in his favor…