The Illinois Review Board

Respondent was admitted to practice in Illinois in May 2012. In August 2012, he began working for the law firm of Lora, Chanthadouangsy, and Castellano (LCC). LCC represents businesses working in cellular telecommunications. Its practice was to hire new law school graduates with no experience and train them on the job, which typically consisted of working with another more experienced attorney for 90 days. Respondent’s training was much shorter, as the experienced attorney to whom he was assigned left the firm shortly after Respondent began. Thus, in September 2012, Respondent was made a project manager.

As project manager, Respondent was responsible for representing LCC clients in obtaining building permits, leases, entry and testing (“E&T”) agreements, and zoning approval for cellular telecommunications equipment. Respondent also was responsible for communicating with clients, obtaining their instructions, and assigning work to his team.

In the summer of 2014, Respondent’s workload increased dramatically. Among other things, work that had been divided between Respondent and another project manager was assigned entirely to Respondent when the other project manager left the firm. In addition, in September 2014, both of Respondent’s team members left, which left Respondent as the only person on his team for a short time and resulted in Respondent having difficulty meeting deadlines and completing work. Sometime before October 2014, Eric Laugesen, who was not an attorney, was assigned to Respondent’s team. Prior to being assigned to Respondent’s team, Laugesen had worked at LCC for two months as part of the zoning team, which assisted the entire firm in zoning matters. Thereafter, Respondent and Laugesen were the only two members of Respondent’s team.

The board agreed with the hearing board which had sustained some charges of dishonesty but rejected others

In sum, we believe this matter, for the Hearing Boar, came down to a burden of proof issue. The Administrator carried his burden on the charges related to the E&T agreements, but did not carry his burden on the charges related to the building permits, which were tainted by doubts about the chain of custody of Respondent’s laptop. The Hearing Board’s findings as to whether or not the Administrator met his burden of proof were based upon evidence in the record and were neither arbitrary nor unreasonable. We therefore have no basis to overturn them.