Professional Courtesy
Zoe Tillman at The National Law Journal has a report on recently-approved ethics charges against a Cozen O’Connor partner charged by the District of Columbia Bar Counsel with a false statement on a pro hac vice application.
This is the same attorney who has been permitted to practice despite a decade-old felony conviction where he was essentially absolved for the crime because (the hearing committee found and the Board on Professional Responsibility agreed) he was in an “alcoholic blackout” when the crime occurred.
Our reporting on the conviction case is linked here.
Attorney Wayne R. Rohde was convicted of felony hit and run in Virginia way back in 2005.
After a night of heavy drinking at a D.C. bar called Rumors, he drove home to Virginia. En route, he caused a head on collision that seriously injured a woman, backed his car away from the collision and drove home.
His effort to avoid detection failed in part because he had left his car bumper (with license plate affixed) at the scene.
He managed to convince the Court of Appeals to not suspend him pending the disciplinary proceedings, a departure from the court’s usual (indeed, nearly invariable) practice for felony convictions.
The hearing was completed on January 15, 2008.
The report was filed last Friday – seven years and a day after.
The significance of the indefensible delay and preposterously lenient sanction – not a day of suspension for a felony that should have long ago led to a significant suspension or disbarment – should be clear to any thinking person.
This attorney has practiced at a major law firm for many years. He apparently can function there at the highest level of the profession. He drinks and drives every night after work. He almost kills an innocent person. His drinking is deemed to render him morally blameless and his peers (i.e. the bar discipline powers that be) seek to grant him a mulligan.
The bar prosecution based on the criminal conviction has led to a proposed sanction that is the ultimate perversion of the so-called Kersey doctrine.
The attorney in Kersey had presented substantial evidence of the impact of alcohol on every aspect of his professional and personal life. Here, there was absolutely no evidence from anyone at the firm that he was anything but a capable and functioning attorney at the time of the crime.
The evidence thus falls woefully short of the standard for mitigation set forth in Kersey.
I feel reasonably well qualified to hold that view as the bar prosecutor in the Kersey case.
If you don’t believe me, here’s Judge Theodore R. Newman, Jr. from the opinion
Even during this period in the early 1970’s, Kersey drank often, and whenever he drank, he drank to excess. By the late 1970’s, Kersey’s condition had degenerated to the point where he frequently drank more than a fifth of rum in a single day. By 1984, Kersey’s law practice was in complete disarray. He frequently missed court appearances or arrived late. He was unshaven, ill-dressed, and disheveled. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath smelled of alcohol or peppermint. When he was late for a court date, others would call Kersey at home to wake him or cover for his absence. When he did appear in court, often he was confused, unprepared, and could not identify his clients. Kersey had no financial record-keeping system, failed to file Criminal Justice Act vouchers, and began to commingle client funds and to use them for his own purposes. Kersey was reprimanded and censured by the D.C. Bar for Code violations. In 1982, he was twice arrested for drunk driving and was involved in another alcohol-related accident. By 1984, alcohol completely dominated Franklin Kersey’s life. He had experienced over 100 blackouts. Family, friends and colleagues tried to confront Kersey with his alcoholism, but their efforts were futile.
Here, I am unaware of any such evidence.
I often hear the concern that big law firm partners get a lenient form of “justice” denied to the less-connected practitioner. Sometimes it would seem that such concerns have a basis in fact.
It is long past time to seriously re-evaluate the legal profession’s power of self-regulation. (Mike Frisch)