A Baby And A Hand Do Not Prevent Proposed Permanent Disbarment

A Louisiana Hearing Committee has recommended that an attorney be permanently disbarred and, in so doing, noted some rather unusual procedural aspects that took place after the matter had been remanded by the Disciplinary Board

Respondent appeared at the hearing on March 29, 2016, accompanied by her husband and infant child. She presented an oral motion for continuance on the basis that she was gathering funds to hire Dane Ciolino, Esq. as her attorney. She brought no exhibits, witness lists, or  anything else whatsoever to support her defense or request to delay the hearing. ODC objected, and it requested to be permitted to proceed, wishing to take Respondent as its first witness. The committee listened carefully to Respondent’s bases for a continuance, thoroughly considered them and found her arguments unpersuasive and lacking in merit. However, the committee allowed the hearing to commence with a number of protections for Respondent and any counsel who might subsequently enroll.

Footnote

The committee went to great lengths to assure that the best interests of Respondent’s child were considered, and addressed while Respondent was attending the hearing. See Transcript Vol. 1, pp. 29-32, 70-72, 116-117.

Later

Mr. Ciolino appeared at the scheduled hearing on May 6, 2016, and he reported about a bizarre series of text messages sent to him by Respondent’s phone earlier that morning. In those messages, Respondent complained of a medical problem and sent photographs of what appeared to be a human hand that was purportedly infected in some way. To be specific, other than the text messages reported by Mr. Ciolino, nothing whatsoever was or has been submitted by Respondent that would explain or excuse her absence from the May 6. 2016. Mr. Ciolino sought a continuance of the hearing, which ODC opposed. The request for continuance was denied. Because of the lack of cooperation and participation by Respondent, Mr. Ciolino sought to withdraw from representation of Respondent, which ODC did not oppose. The committee found  merit with his request, and Mr. Ciolino was permitted to withdraw as counsel for Respondent. The hearing was resumed and concluded on May 6. 2016.

The committee reaffirmed findings of a host of violations but reconsidered its earlier sanction proposal

We wish to amend our recommended sanction set forth in our original report. In our original report, a majority of our committee recommended that Respondent be disbarred. One committee member dissented only from that recommendation, believing instead that permanent disbarment was warranted. Having listened carefully to and considered the evidence presented, along with the Respondent’s post remand course of conduct in these proceedings, we now are unanimous in our recommendation that Respondent should be permanently disbarred.

(Mike Frisch)