Suspension With Fitness For Attorney Who Took Advantage Of Elderly Represented Person

A 90-day suspension with fitness was imposed by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals for an unauthorized communication with a represented party and dishonesty

the Board on Professional Responsibility (“Board”) recommended that respondent be suspended for a period of ninety days, and be required to prove his fitness to practice law as a condition of reinstatement. The Board found that respondent surreptitiously and repeatedly met with another person, known to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, without that other lawyer’s consent. The Board also found that “[r]espondent’s dishonesty was manifest, because he deliberately and systematically took advantage of a vulnerable, [eighty-nine]-year old blind woman, whose condition he himself assessed as ‘feeble-minded in the extreme.’”

Additional details of this sorry tale of elder abuse can be found in this court decision in In re Sally Jumper. (Mike Frisch)