All That Jazz

The New Jersey Supreme Court rejected a proposed two-year suspension and disbarred an attorney who abandoned his practice and defaulted on multiple bar complaints.

The Disciplinary Review Board report described his manner of client communication

Respondent never filed Joseph’s bankruptcy petition. Joseph learned from respondent’s “Facebook” page that he had closed his law office and moved to Washington State to “play jazz.”

DRB on sanction

Here, when respondent’s gross neglect in DRB 18-020 (Joseph), DRB 18- 127 (Flores), and DRB 17-286 (Spath), the matter recently transmitted to the Court, are viewed together, a pattern of abandonment becomes apparent. In all three client matters, respondent took an advance fee to file a bankruptcy petition for the client, failed to file the petition, ceased all communications with the client in mid-2016, and then vanished with the unearned fees, apparently to play jazz in Washington State.

Respondent’s abandonment of his three bankruptcy clients is similar to Mintz, above, where the attorney was suspended for two years after abandoning four clients. Respondent’s misconduct, however, is somewhat less egregious than the disbarred attorney in Kantor, who defaulted and subsequently failed to appear on the Court’s Order to show cause for his disbarment.

Respondent also failed to file the R. 1:20-20 affidavit required of suspended attorneys, which would warrant a censure on its own. He has thumbed his nose at the attorney discipline system in these, his second, third, and fourth consecutive default matters in just a few months. Based on the totality of respondent’s misconduct, therefore, we determine to impose a two-year suspension.

(Mike Frisch)