Do Not Hit Send

A complaint recently filed by the Illinois Administrator alleging the following rule violations

1. in representing a client in a domestic relations dispute, using means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person, including sending offensive emails regarding [opposing counsel] Ms. Renwick to her former professor and making disparaging comments and references to and about Ms. Renwick, her client, and her client’s child in pleadings filed publicly with the court, in violation of Rule 4.4(a) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct (2010); and

2. conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice by sending harassing emails to opposing counsel and making sexist and inappropriate references to her in pleadings filed publicly with the court, in violation of Rule 8.4(d) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct (2010).

The case

Respondent represented Fredrick Williamson in a dispute regarding the allocation of parental responsibilities of Mr. Williamson’s child. The case was docketed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Domestic Relations Division, as Williamson v. Hines, case number 2016 D 8018. Masah S. Renwick represented Kimberly Hines, the mother of the child, in the matter.

He filed a pleading that referred to Ms. Renwick as “Ms. Loudmouth,” and made other uncomplimentary comments ending with “like a dull knife, just ain’t cutting’; You just talkin’ loud and sayin’ nothing!”

Respondent attached a picture of the child who was the subject of the proceeding to the Memorandum. Respondent stated in the Memorandum that he “read” the child as “tacky,” a “HOT GHETTO MESS,” and “PEDOPHILE BAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.” (emphasis in original) Citing to a “[b]lack [j]oke,” Respondent wrote that the child “lookted [sic] like a weevehead, midget stripper, bout to jump on the pole and twirl.” In the Memorandum, Respondent stated that the child’s mother, Ms. Hines, perpetrated the obscenity because she was “creating a mini-me to accompany her as an accessory, like a big Louis Vuitton bag.” Respondent accused Ms. Hines of having low self-esteem, and stated that if anyone suffered from a learning deficiency, it was Ms. Hines and not her child.

Respondent also stated in the Memorandum that the child’s mother suffered from psychoses, and referred to Ms. Renwick’s argument in court as “bumbling incompetence.” He accused Ms. Renwick of “tootsie rolling” (which Respondent defines as “[l]ollygagging”), over Labor Day weekend, rather than working on the case.

Respondent included several acknowledgements at the end of the Memorandum including one to the “wratched, Antonin Scalia” for teaching Respondent to be “mean, vicious, and viperous, with sarcasm and wit.” Respondent also stated that while he could “try to do Richard A. Posner,” (referring to the Judge of the United Stated Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit), Justice Posner “can’t even begin to try to possibly do me.”

 There are also email charges

Respondent forwarded to Ms. Renwick an email invitation to a Halloween party that he had received from Val and Frank Motley. Mr. Motley was a college professor of Ms. Renwick and the dean of admissions at her alma mater, Indiana University. In the email that he sent to Ms. Renwick at 10:22 p.m. that evening, Respondent included the message “You’re NOT invited.”

On September 22, 2016, at 10:30 p.m., Ms. Renwick replied to Respondent’s email regarding the Halloween party and advised him that she had a standing invitation to the Motleys’ party.

On September 22, 2016, Respondent sent another reply to Ms. Renwick’s 9:14 a.m. email at 10:43 p.m. in which he stated the following: “Frank [Motley] told me to treat you like a real lawyer. So I decapitated you. … Just who the hell do you think you were patronizing. Certainment non moi! Big mistake.”

On September 22, 2016, Respondent replied to his own 10:43 p.m. email at 10:50 p.m. in which he told Ms. Renwick to “get to work, or be quiet.”

 On September 22, 2016, Respondent sent a reply to Ms. Renwick’s 10:30 p.m. email at 10:54 p.m. in which he stated that he could have Ms. Renwick disinvited from the Halloween party, and that Ms. Renwick may find herself disbarred. In that email, Respondent also inquired as to whether Ms. Renwick would be “wearing [her] weave” to the next court date.

On September 22, 2016, Respondent sent another reply to Ms. Renwick’s 10:30 p.m. email at 10:58 p.m. in which he told Ms. Renwick that she may have met him in law school, but that Respondent was in disguise. In that email, Respondent also told Ms. Renwick that “[y]ou don’t seem to know too much.”

On September 22, 2016, Respondent sent another reply to Ms. Renwick’s 10:30 p.m. email at 11:05 p.m. His reply copied Frank Motley, and Respondent stated the following about Ms. Renwick: “She could be disbarred and doesn’t even realize it.”

On September 22, 2016, Respondent sent another reply to Ms. Renwick’s 10:30 p.m. email at 11:10 p.m. His reply copied Mr. Motley, and Respondent stated that Ms. Renwick was “out there seriously perpetratin’.”

On September 22, 2016, Respondent sent another reply to Ms. Renwick’s 10:30 p.m. email at 11:16 p.m. His reply copied Mr. Motley, and Respondent stated that Ms. Renwick was a “trip” and that she should attend the Motleys’ Halloween party as “herself, a real witch.”

And  in a motion

Respondent stated that Ms. Renwick “dresses for court like she’s going to a cocktail party, tottering about in five inch, open toed stilettos at 9:30 a.m., not p.m., obviously dazed and confused, too much leg, too much décolletage, far too much mouth, and, in general just too much.” Respondent criticized Ms. Renwick’s attire and compared her to a bad imitation of Alexis Carrington Colby, a character from the 1980s television show “Dallas.” Respondent called Ms. Renwick a “walking joke performing as a lawyer,” a “total nightmare,” and an “affront to working women everywhere.”

Back to electronic messages

On October 5, 2016, Respondent sent Ms. Renwick an email at 10:19 p.m., and he copied Frank Motley on that email. In that email, Respondent told Ms. Renwick that she had “let loose” her “big mouth” one time too many, and that she needed to “keep [her] big trap shut.” Respondent told Ms. Renwick that she had “f[*]cked with the wrong person,” and that he would “drag [her] through the mud and slam [her] against a brick wall, before handing [her] over to the ARDC for intense questioning.” He advised Ms. Renwick that she would need a lawyer to defend her license to practice law.

In his October 5, 2016 email, Respondent referred to Ms. Hines as “a whore – an educated whore – but a whore none the less,” and stated that going to church at this late date would not help her. He referred to Ms. Hines as a “looser” [sic] and a “trollop” and assured Ms. Renwick that she would “go down” with Ms. Hines.

Also in his October 5, 2016 email to Ms. Renwick, Respondent told her that she was in “deep doo doo” and didn’t even know it. Respondent referred to Ms. Renwick as “Uma Brincadeira Grande – A Big Joke in Portuguese,” and promised her that he would continue to write “exceptionally nasty things about [her] conduct as a lawyer” that would become part of the public record. Respondent warned Ms. Renwick to come to her senses before it was too late, and he threatened that if she continued to “play with” him, it would not end well.

On October 4, 2016 at 6:02 p.m., Respondent sent Ms. Renwick an email, copying Frank Motley, in which he invited her to “Temptation Walk down to the ARDC.”

On October 5, 2016, Respondent sent Ms. Renwick another email at 11:36 p.m. in which he, among other things, told her not to come “tootsie rolling up in court when the hearing date is set” and called her a “paragon of verbosity.”

(Mike Frisch)