Binders Full Of Job Applications Not Produced; Attorney Suspended For Non-Support
An attorney who had failed to comply with court-ordered child support obligations was suspended for a year and a day by a Colorado hearing board subject to reinstatement on three years of probation if he gets current in those obligations.
He had sought modification
In 2008, the law firm Respondent was working for “imploded” when a founding partner left, taking a number of clients with him. Several people were fired, including Respondent. He recalled assuming initially that he would get a new job, and he continued to pay $2,000.00 a month toward child support, first dipping into savings, then taking cash advances from his credit card. By 2011, he testified, he was “wiped out” financially, having been unable to find any legal work…
At the sanctions hearing, Respondent challenged the magistrate’s findings as “false,” insisting that he had submitted to the magistrate “a bunch of three-ring binders” full of job applications that he had once completed. He did not, however, seek to introduce any such binders or applications into evidence before the hearing board. In response to the People’s intimation that for several years he has been voluntarily underemployed, he contended that before early 2013—when the People began their disciplinary investigation—he was applying for upwards of ten jobs a week, yet there were never any “bites.” He testified that to earn money he has worked as a janitor, a house painter, and a tax preparer. Until his license was administratively suspended, he also spent up to twenty hours per month doing pro bono legal work for recovering alcoholics. He estimated that he has been making approximately $2,000.00 per month in cash painting houses, although he acknowledged that he has not provided the People with any proof of income.
His ex-wife is a medical doctor
Dr. Quigley, who works for Kaiser Permanente as a physician, conceded that because she can support her three children, Respondent’s failure to pay child support has not harmed them financially. But she testified to the psychological harm that Respondent’s conduct has caused their children, as well as the frustration that his failure to obey court orders has occasioned. Their children have all sought therapy, she recounted, in order to address what they perceive is Respondent’s choice not to contribute to their financial wellbeing, which they view as a manifestation of his lack of interest in their lives.
He is over &11,000 in arrears. (Mike Frisch)