Same Old, Same Old Won’t Get You Reinstated

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied reinstatement to a former attorney disbarred in 2006 for a host of practice-related crimes.

Notably as described in the Disciplinary Board report

The Hearing Committee concluded that such misconduct should forever bar Petitioner’s reinstatement. Office of Disciplinary Counsel maintains the same position, insisting that Petitioner’s fraudulent activities over a time span of three decades are so egregious as to prevent Petitioner’s ability to practice law in the Commonwealth forever. We note that in only one case has the Supreme Court held that the magnitude of the breach of trust was so egregious that reinstatement was forever barred. See, In the Matter of Romaine Phillips, 801 A.2d 1208 (Pa. 2001 ). Phillips was involved in a conspiracy with a Common Pleas judge to commit bribery and to fix cases, and thus knowingly engaged in acts to subvert the truth-determining process.

There is no doubt that Petitioner’s misconduct was serious and that his disbarment was the appropriate sanction. Nevertheless, we find that his misconduct was not so egregious that it should prohibit Petitioner’s reinstatement. Petitioner’s misconduct is similar to that of other attorneys who have been disbarred and who have sought and been granted reinstatement.

The record recited in the board report does make eventual reinstatement an unlikely prospect.

The petitioner’s conviction involved 29 phony cases that had generated over a quarter of a million dollars in settlements.

He had engaged in a 30-year practice of using runners to drum up mostly faked accident cases, tax violations, transfers of property and made false statements in the reinstatement process.

At the time of the reinstatement hearing, Petitioner had been disbarred for a period of ten years and five months. The record is devoid of any compelling evidence to demonstrate that during his disbarment Petitioner has been rehabilitated. To the contrary, the record supports the conclusion that Petitioner is not fit to resume practicing law because he persisted in engaging in actions of a similar nature to that of the underlying misconduct. While some of Petitioner’s actions described herein pre-date disbarment, they are relevant to illustrate the on-going pattern of dishonesty and lack of remorse that existed prior to the imposition of the disciplinary sanction and continued unabated during the period of disbarment…

The sum and substance of these acts demonstrates that Petitioner has not used his ten-year period of disbarment as a time to reflect on his past wrongdoing and make amends. In short, Petitioner has not changed. After all of these years and proceedings, he is still not amenable to acknowledging that he engaged in egregious misconduct that warranted disbarment, and in no fashion did he demonstrate genuine remorse for his actions. He continues to make excuses in an attempt to wriggle out of his culpability. It is clear that Petitioner has not accepted that his actions were wrong, unprofessional and unbecoming of a member of the bar.

(Mike Frisch)