Something To Ponder

A Grievance Committee of the North Carolina State Bar censured an attorney for a CLE-related ethical violation

You were assessed a late fee for failing to timely submit your CLE Annual Report form. When you requested a waiver of the late fee, you were instructed by the State Bar to submit your original signed CLE Annual Report form along with your waiver request. You subsequently presented to the State Bar a document, representing that it was a copy of your original signed form when it was not. Your submission of a false Annual Report form constituted conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation in violation of Rule 8.4(c) of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

The censure letter implores

You are hereby censured by the North Carolina State Bar for your violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Grievance Committee trusts that you will ponder this censure, recognize the error that you have made, and that you will never again allow yourself to depart from adherence to the high ethical standards of the legal profession. This censure should serve as a strong reminder and inducement for you to weigh carefully in the future your responsibility to the public, your clients, your fellow attorneys and the courts, to the end that you demean yourself as a respected member of the legal profession whose conduct may be relied upon without question.

(Mike Frisch)