Originally Posted by
rickair7777
What JB said. If you're not happy with your lawyer, get new one.
But statute of limitations (such as the stale complaint rule) generally do not require the agency in question to grant you a "clean bill of health". It's probably legal for them to keep the case in limbo for for an extended period, although the longer it drags out the lower the odds that they'll ever be able to make it stick unless they have a good reason for the delay.
They know that an open, unresolved issue like this can be very problematic for a professional pilot, so they might be stalling deliberately to punish you or coerce you to go along with their plea deal.
You might investigate whether or not the rules or FAA internal policy require any sort of formal closure of an unresolved case, and whether you could FOIA the info about the case.
That's not a bad idea, I wonder what information is available via FOIA request. The EIR would be interesting as well as the detailed report of the FAA counsel following the informal conference.
As for relying on my attorney I often find that the professional pilot community has much more insight than aviation attorneys do. And I would arguably submit that placing all your eggs in your attorney's basket is a fools game and will only lead to a transfer of funds from your bank account to theirs.
As for asking my attorney, he has proven to be a substantial waste of money. Myself and a non aviation attorney who is a pilot, have done all the case work and presentations in this case and it is because of that work that the FAA has not moved forward with this. In fact during the informal conference, I did all the talking and made the presentation citing FARs and applicable NTSB case law. It was actually embarrassing for the FSDO representative as he was 'schooled' on FARs and instrument procedures. My attorney and I were shocked at how little they actually knew. It really appeared that they are unprepared for pilots to actively fight enforcement actions and they just act like bullies even to the point of bluffing.
Unfortunately the FAA counsel knows if he proceeds he will lose on appeal and subsequently lose an Equal Access to Justice action. Sadly for me, there is nothing in the FAA 2150.3B guidelines that addresses this 'limbo' situation.
I would however assume that there is some kind of internal stale case review that would end this after a 6 or 12 month period.