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DETROIT — A standing-room crowd of law students were given a snapshot of their future profession at work Thursday as the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board heard arguments on whether a lawyer has a constitutional right to call a judge a “jackass” or even worse names.

The oral arguments, normally held in the board’s downtown office, were staged at the University of Detroit Mercy Law School, and the lawyer in question was Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger.

Fieger is appealing a no-contest plea and reprimand he agreed to in a 1999 disciplinary case brought against him for “undignified and discourteous conduct” toward a panel of judges.

In 1999, after three state Court of Appeals judges threw out a multimillion verdict Fieger had won in a medical malpractice suit, an angry Fieger on a talk show he hosted and blasted the panel.

“Hey Michael Talbot, and (Richard) Bandstra, and (Jane) Markey, I declare war on you. You declare it on me, I declare it on you. Kiss my ass, too,” he said. He said the judges had changed their names from Nazi figures Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goebbels and Eva Braun.

In representing Fieger, Oakland County lawyer Norman Lippitt said his client’s remarks were made on a political satire comedy show, not in the presence of any of the judges or in their courtroom.

Away from the courtroom, Fieger has the same First Amendment rights as anyone, Lippitt said.

The grievance commission lawyer, Robert Edick, said the court rules do not prohibit a lawyer from being harsh or critical of judges without being vulgar or profane. Edick also reminded the panel that this was not an isolated outburst as Fieger had been brought up on similar charges twice before. The board took the matter under advisement and will issue a decision at a later date.

Fieger’s appeal in this case comes on the heels of a lawsuit he filed last month in federal court against four Michigan Supreme Court Justices and the Supreme Court administrator. Fieger alleges the justices violated his civil rights in comments they or their political supporters made against him and in disciplinary action they took against him.