100 Years

The Georgia Supreme Court has imposed a retroactive suspension of an attorney who voluntarily stopped practicing and reinstated him with conditions.

Notably, the court declined to resolve an issue of possible dishonesty in operation of a law firm.

The misconduct at issue involves dealings by Palazzola or his law firm’s staff with three clients who were seeking to contact or were represented by a former associate who had left the firm; his law firm’s false and misleading advertisements; and his dishonest failure to establish and contribute to two of his associates’ retirement accounts as promised. In recommending a shorter suspension, the Review Board disagreed with the Special Master only about whether Palazzola’s dishonesty regarding the retirement accounts constituted “professional conduct” within the meaning of Rule 8.4 (a) (4). What sorts of deceptive conduct by a lawyer involving the management of his law office can violate Rule 8.4 (a) (4) is an unsettled and difficult question, and because we would not impose a suspension exceeding the time that Palazzola has already voluntarily stopped practicing law whichever way we decided the retirement account question, we need not resolve that question in this case. Instead, for the reasons discussed below, we suspend Palazzola from the practice of law nunc pro tunc as of June 1, 2020, a suspension from which he is hereby reinstated with conditions regarding law practice management to be met within six months of this order.

The advertising issue

Palazzola paid for weekly Spanish language print advertisements for his law firm in Mundo Hispanico for various periods in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Each of these advertisements included the same photograph of the same five individuals, one of whom was Palazzola, in front of a bookcase containing what appeared to be law books, and stated (as translated into English), “More than 100 years of experience in the following legal areas,” followed by a listing of approximately 17 areas of practice. Palazzola knew that on the dates of publication of the advertisements, one or more of the individuals in the photograph was not a member of or employed by his law firm.

False

Palazzola knew at the time the advertisements were published that the statement claiming 100 years of experience in the listed practice areas was false as to every practice area and would have been false even if the statement had explicitly referenced the firm’s combined experience, as there was no evidence that the combined experience of the lawyers in his firm was more than 18 years as of 2012.

And

In addition, one of the advertisements stated under the law firm’s internet address, “Atlanta · Miami · Los Angeles” – but Palazzola had no office in Miami or Los Angeles.

With respect to whether the failure to fund the retirement accounts of the associates was a rule violation

In no prior disciplinary opinion that we have found, however, have we set forth a clear construction of the term “professional conduct” as used in Rule 8.4 (a) (4), in general or in the particular context of law firm management

The court surveyed cases from other jurisdictions and found no “clear cut answer.”

we leave this difficult question to be resolved in a future case.

Justice Peterson concurred specially and agreed that the court need not decide the retirement account issue but declined to join in the court’s discussion of the issue observing

I would also observe that not every bad thing a lawyer does should jeopardize the lawyer’s ability to work…

This Court has long exercised the solemn responsibility to protect the public by regulating the practice of law. The more core to the protection of the public a regulation is, the more clearly the exercise of our authority to regulate is “reasonable.” But the further from that core our regulation strays, the greater the risk that our reach exceeds our power. It’s not at all clear to me that the dishonest conduct involving associates’ retirement accounts that is at issue here has anything to do with the protection of the public. (And this, of course, considers only the right to work long guaranteed by the Georgia Constitution’s Due Process Clause; other constitutional rights may require us to tread even more lightly.)

Justices Boggs and Bethel joined the concurrence. (Mike Frisch)