Expedient Approach Draws 60-Day Suspension
A sixty day suspension retroactive to January 18, 2016 has been imposed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court for misconduct in a bankruptcy matter.
The relevant facts are as follows. At all times material to this matter the respondent
practiced law with Thomas J. Howard, Jr. (Howard), doing business under the name Aurora Law. On December 12, 2013, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island issued an order sanctioning Howard and directing him to refund $1,000 of fees he had received from a client he was representing in the Bankruptcy Court, payable in two equal installments of $500. The order also required that Howard file certificates of compliance with the Bankruptcy Court that he had fulfilled this order.
The respondent met with the client and provided him a check drawn on the Aurora Law
account in the amount of $1,000. It is unclear whether the client offered not to cash the check at that time or whether the respondent requested that he refrain from doing so. What is undisputed is that the respondent was aware that the check would not be presented for payment, and that there were insufficient funds available in the account to honor the check.
On December 15, 2013, the respondent filed a certificate of compliance on behalf of
Howard with the Bankruptcy Court wherein she stated, “On December 15, 2013, Check No. 1300, issued by Aurora Law on behalf of Attorney Howard in the amount of $1,000.00 was hand-delivered to the Debtor.” The certificate of compliance filed by the respondent did not notify the court that the debtor/client would not be cashing the check or that there were insufficient funds in the account to honor the check.
Aurora Law continued to represent the client, who subsequently became dissatisfied with the quality of the representation he was receiving. In April of 2015, sixteen months after the respondent had filed the certificate of compliance, the client filed a complaint inter alia, that the respondent had not provided him with the $1,000 refund as required by the Bankruptcy Court order. On April 28, 2015, in answering that complaint, the respondent belatedly forwarded a bank check to the client for the full amount of the refund.
The court found violations of Rule 3.3(a) and 8.4(c)
The respondent admitted that she did not know the proper way to notify the court that the check would not be cashed, so she took the expedient approach of providing a statement that was technically accurate but misleading. Accordingly, the board concluded she had violated the charged rules, and we agree.
(Mike Frisch)