Lost Without Translation

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has suspended an attorney for one year with reinstatement conditioned on proof of fitness

In this case, the Board on Professional Responsibility adopts the findings of its Ad Hoc Hearing Committee that respondent Edward Gonzalez violated multiple Rules of Professional Conduct in the course of representing a married couple in bankruptcy and related proceedings, and concurs with the Committee’s recommendation that respondent be suspended for a period of one year, with reinstatement conditioned on a showing of fitness to resume the practice of law.

In brief, the Committee found that respondent violated Rules 1.4 (b), 1.16 (d) and 8.4 (d) by failing to provide his Spanish-speaking clients with a fee agreement and  related fee documents in Spanish and with translated information regarding the bankruptcy proceedings; by threatening to withdraw from the representation if his clients did not execute new fee agreements and documents to secure his requested fees; by failing to protect his clients’ interests during the bankruptcy proceedings; and by his repeated failures to comply with bankruptcy reporting requirements, which seriously interfered with the administration of justice.

The Committee and the Board concluded that a fitness requirement is necessary to protect the public because it found that respondent took advantage of his clients’ exceptional vulnerability (due to the language barrier they confronted), and that in his hearing testimony, respondent was dishonest, argumentative and nonresponsive, and unremorseful. The Committee also took into account that respondent had been disciplined previously for disregarding a client’s interests.

The prior case – a noisily unethical withdrawal for which an informal admonition was imposed – is linked here. (Mike Frisch)