The Exam Not Taken

An attorney who previously had been suspended for two years has been disbarred by the Minnesota Supreme Court:

The misconduct for which the Director requests that we now disbar Albrecht relates to four distinct episodes: Albrecht’s sexual relationship with a client, K.A.; Albrecht’s work on matters related to client J.M.’s bankruptcy; Albrecht’s receipt of payment for the J.M. matters; and Albrecht’s attempts to take a final exam while auditing a course at Hamline Law School.

The court rejected the suggestion that lying in the bar investigation did not evidence a failure to cooperate.

He sought to take a law school exam in order to support a petition for reinstatement. It did not help in the end:

In the spring of 2013, while Albrecht was suspended but seeking reinstatement, he audited a course on bankruptcy law at Hamline Law School. During the semester, he inquired at the registrar’s office about taking the final exam. The Hamline staff told him that auditors were not allowed to take exams.

That March, the Director filed the initial petition in this case. In late April, the referee sought to schedule a conference call with Albrecht and the Director. Albrecht wrote that he “ha[d] registered to take the final for [his] [bankruptcy] class on [May] 3, 2013.” The referee scheduled the call for the morning of May 7.

On May 1, Albrecht submitted information to the Director to supplement his petition for reinstatement. In his submission, Albrecht wrote that he had taken a bankruptcy course at Hamline and had “t[aken] the final.” He had not.

On the morning of May 7, Albrecht failed to participate in the scheduled conference call with the referee and the Director. That afternoon, Albrecht returned to the registrar’s office, sought to take the bankruptcy exam, and was again told that he could not. The next day, Albrecht explained to the referee, “I did not feel like I had . . . prepared enough to proceed with the final [on May 3] so I rescheduled it to Tuesday morning [May 7].”

But Albrecht had not rescheduled the exam, because he had not registered to take it in the first place. Moreover, though Albrecht did try to take the exam on May 7, he did not do so until the afternoon, after he had already missed the conference call scheduled for that morning.

(Mike Frisch)