The Old Main building on the campus of Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. Photo: Kristopher Kettner/Shutterstock.com

The former general counsel of Pennsylvania State University, Cynthia Baldwin, was publicly reprimanded in a live YouTube stream Wednesday over how she represented three former university employees during the Jerry Sandusky child abuse investigation.

Cynthia Baldwin

"Your concurrent representation of these clients created a significant risk that your ability to consider, recommend or carry out an appropriate course of action for each client would be materially limited by your representation of Penn State," James Haggerty, chair of the disciplinary board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, said during the reprimand.

Following the hearing, Baldwin, who served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 2006 to 2008, told Corporate Counsel the investigation against her was biased and referred to the process as "aberrant."

"It's interesting to me that the process began without any complainants and there were no fact witnesses presented by disciplinary counsel," Baldwin said.

Baldwin was accused of disclosing privileged information while testifying before a statewide grand jury and failing to disclose a conflict of interest to former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz, former Penn State president Graham Spanier and athletic coach Tim Curley.

In 2018, a panel appointed by the disciplinary board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recommended that Baldwin be cleared of ethics violations. Baldwin said the high court should have followed their recommendation.

Baldwin forwarded Corporate Counsel an affidavit signed Aug. 26, 2019, by retired Judge Barry Feudale. Feudale presided over the grand jury investigating Sandusky.

According to the affidavit, at a July 2012 conference, Tom Darr, the former court administrator of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, said Justice Thomas G. Saylor wanted to meet privately with Feudale.

Darr, who retired last year, could not be reached for comment.

Saylor allegedly told Feudale that a lawyer's disciplinary complaint against Baldwin was forthcoming and that Feudale should "assist in every way with providing information in support of the disciplinary investigation."

Saylor also allegedly said that assistance and discipline was necessary because Baldwin "caused us a lot of trouble when she was on the Supreme Court with her minority agenda."

"Any suggestion of impropriety—and particularly the assertion about a 'minority agenda'—is patently false. Mr. Feudale was twice removed from service on the bench as supervising grand jury judge in 2013 and senior judge in 2015," a spokesperson for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said in an email to Corporate Counsel.

In 2015, Feudale was removed from his post as a senior judge after failing to respond to a letter from Saylor that questioned his judgment and objectivity. In 2013, then Attorney General Kathleen Kane asked the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to stop him from serving as the presiding grand jury judge after allegedly showing a knife to one of her secretaries.

Feudale did not return a message left on a phone number listed for him. He also did not respond to a message sent to his LinkedIn profile.

Baldwin said she retired from practicing law earlier this year. This is the first time she has publicly commented on the ethics violation case against her.

"The reason I am speaking out now is because I don't want this to ever happen to anybody else and I certainly don't want it to happen to any lawyers of color," Baldwin said.

Baldwin is represented by Charles DeMonaco, a partner at Fox Rothschild in Pittsburgh, and Robert Tintner, a partner at Fox Rothschild in Philadelphia.

"It has been a pleasure and honor to represent and get to know Justice Baldwin. She is a person of integrity, honor and exceptional character," DeMonaco said in an email to Corporate Counsel.