AUBURN - A Rumford lawyer and former casino referendum official appeared at Androscoggin County Superior Courthouse on Tuesday to defend himself against efforts to suspend his license to practice law in Maine.

A district court judge testified that she had concerns about Seth Carey's professional competency.

Judge Valerie Stanfill said on several occasions Carey appeared before her in court and seemed to lack a fundamental understanding of what the rules required. She said she would not appoint Carey to defend anyone in her courtroom, fearing he may be constitutionally ineffective.

The Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar is prosecuting Stanfill's complaint against Carey, seeking suspension of his law license. Three other complaints against Carey also are being heard by Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Andrew Mead in the courthouse library. Those complaints were forwarded to Mead by a grievance panel of the Board of Overseers, which held hearings in the spring. That panel dismissed two other complaints filed against Carey.

Stanfill said Carey represented a defendant at a bail hearing at district court in Farmington. After a local prosecutor argued his case for bail, it was Carey's turn. He simply said the amount of money suggested by the prosecutor seemed like a lot, Stanfill said. Rather than argue why the defendant's bail should be a lower amount, Carey said nothing.

"He seemed completely at a loss as to how he was supposed to respond or what to do," she said. She coached Carey from the bench, she said, asking him whether his client could afford the proposed bail. Carey, in turn, asked the defendant, she said.

"I was uncomfortable with his level of representation," she said. "My eyebrows were raised."

Later, at a traffic violation trial, she said Carey made tactical errors in his defense strategy and appeared to lack an understanding of what was required of him.

While questioning his client on direct examination, Carey asked leading questions repeatedly, she said. Eventually, the prosecutor objected to his approach. Stanfill said she instructed Carey not to ask leading questions, but he apparently wasn't able to ask any other kind.

An assistant district attorney from Oxford County who prosecuted that case testified Tuesday that Carey "essentially froze up" after Stanfill's admonitions.

Stephen Chute, Carey's lawyer, asked Stanfill whether she thought the constitutional rights of Carey's clients had been violated and whether they got fair hearings. She said their rights hadn't been violated, but she was afraid the rights of future clients could be put in jeopardy.

She said she called the office of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar and asked what triggered her responsibility to challenge a lawyer's fitness to practice law. She said her impression of Carey's abilities "could be incorrect."

Stanfill said she was reluctant to file a complaint. "I don't like it; I didn't want to do it."

The hearing is expected to end Wednesday. Justice Mead could take any of a half-dozen actions, from dismissal of all complaints to disbarment. He could issue a reprimand or suspend Carey's license.

Among the complaints forwarded to Mead by the Grievance Commission is an allegation that Carey met a former high school acquaintance at the district court in Rumford and talked to him about a number of topics, including the man's job and income history. Carey was at the courthouse seeking a continuance in a child custody case involving the man and Carey was representing the man's former wife.

Another complaint alleges that Carey went behind the back of another lawyer when Carey helped his own client draft a property settlement agreement to present to the man's estranged wife without notifying the woman's attorney.