Three Years Is Not Enough

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals disagreed with its Board on Professional Responsibility and disbarred an attorney found to have engaged in flagrant dishonesty.

Boiled down to essentials, the Board‟s findings are that Mr. Baber failed to competently represent his client; lied to the court; pressured his client to pay an excessive fee that she had not agreed to pay; improperly used confidential information from his client to make knowingly false accusations of fraud against his client in several pleadings; reiterated those false accusations during the disciplinary process; and failed to show remorse during the disciplinary process. Assessing that conduct in light of the pertinent factors, we are convinced that Mr. Baber should be disbarred…

Mr. Baber‟s repeated dishonesty is particularly disturbing because it came at the expense of his client‟s interests and was in large part driven by a desire for personal gain. When he lied to the court about why [his client] Ms. Gripper had not met certain deadlines, Mr. Baber “basically threw his client under the bus.” Mr. Baber also made false statements to Ms. Gripper in an effort to obtain an unreasonable fee that Ms. Gripper had never agreed to pay. Mr. Baber subsequently betrayed client confidences and made knowingly false accusations that Ms. Gripper had engaged in fraudulent conduct.

The board had proposed a three-year suspension with fitness, concluding that such a sanction was “not that different” from disbarment.

It was different enough, according to the court

We recognize that we ordinarily owe deference to the Board‟s recommendation as to the proper sanction to be imposed. The Board viewed it as a close question whether Mr. Baber should be disbarred. We take a significantly different view of the seriousness of Mr. Baber‟s conduct, however, and we are convinced that disbarment is the proper sanction. In such circumstances, this court has not hesitated to reach its own conclusion.

Notably, the hearing committee had viewed disbarment as the proper sanction.

I applaud the decision. (Mike Frisch)