“Habit Of Rushing”

The District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility found that a censure had not cured shortcomings with respect to entrusted funds

This case is unusual in a number of respects. A considerable portion of the Hearing Committee’s thorough and well-documented report was spent deliberating whether Respondent engaged in reckless or knowing dishonesty when she failed to report her 2009 public censure on a D.C. District Court attorney renewal form. Members of the Bar have a “duty . . . to be scrupulously honest at all times.”  Here however, we are even more concerned with Respondent’s recalcitrance in failing to safeguard entrusted funds.

For several years Respondent recklessly handled entrusted funds and failed to maintain the required records of those funds to such a degree that Disciplinary Counsel was wholly unable to determine whether a misappropriation had occurred. Moreover, Respondent began doing so shortly after being disciplined by the Court for precisely the same misconduct at issue here, and after having received extensive training on the handling of entrusted funds. The Hearing Committee unanimously recommended that Respondent receive a three-year suspension, with a requirement that she establish her fitness to practice law before she is reinstated. For the reasons discussed herein, we recommend that Respondent receive a two-year suspension with a fitness requirement as a condition of reinstatement.

The unlearned lesson

Respondent was disciplined by the Court in March 2009 for the very same type of conduct at issue in this case. In the prior matter, she admitted that she commingled her funds with entrusted funds and failed to keep complete records of those funds. In re Thomas-Edwards, 967 A.2d 178, 179 (D.C. 2009) (per curiam). The Court publicly censured Respondent and ordered that she take five hours of preapproved continuing legal education and meet with the manager of the Practice Management Advisory Service of the District of Columbia Bar (PMAS)…

In 2011, the year immediately following her probation period, Respondent was again mishandling entrusted funds. Despite understanding her obligations at that time, she again ceased to maintain accurate records of those funds. FF 29, 34. Indeed, by September 2013 she knew that Disciplinary Counsel was investigating her handling of entrusted funds, yet even in July 2015, when Disciplinary Counsel requested Respondent’s IOLTA financial records (check registers, subsidiary client ledgers and monthly reconciliations) for the period from February 2011 through June 2015, Respondent could not provide those records, acknowledging that her files were incomplete and disorganized. FF 26-29. The Hearing Committee found that Respondent’s lack of recordkeeping was so egregious that it “stymied Disciplinary Counsel’s efforts to reconcile or reconstruct the funds” in Respondent’s accounts, “prevent[ing] Disciplinary Counsel from determining whether Respondent misappropriated entrusted funds.” HC Rpt. at 36 37.

Respondent also continued to commingle entrusted and personal funds during this period. 

Sanction

Respondent has shown little appreciation of the seriousness of her misconduct. She has engaged in the very same misconduct for which she was previously disciplined and for which she received intensive training. While we find no clear and convincing evidence of intentional dishonesty in this matter, the degree of Respondent’s recklessness rendered her unable to accurately complete pro hac vice and renewal application forms involving questions that should have triggered heightened care given Respondent’s disciplinary history. Nor is there evidence that she has resolved the issues underlying the misconduct. Respondent has not, for example, shown that she has developed any mechanisms to avoid making the very serious mistakes that result from her habit of rushing. Thus, Disciplinary Counsel has proven by clear and convincing evidence that there is a serious doubt as to her fitness to practice law.

Elissa J. Preheim authored the report in In re Clarissa Thomas Edwards. (Mike Frisch)