An Elderly Widow Suffering From Dementia

The Maryland Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended a non-member attorney

In 1996, Mr. Farmer was admitted to the bars of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey. He was admitted to the bar of the State of Colorado in 1999. He has never been a member of the Maryland bar.

The case

In 2018, Thuan Nguyen, a family friend of Mr. Farmer, began working for Maryland resident, Louise Williams Marsh, as her full-time caretaker. At that time, Ms. Marsh was a 92-year-old widow who suffered from dementia. Ms. Marsh was represented by J. Laurence Kent, a Maryland attorney who had provided estate and trust planning services to Ms. Marsh, her late husband, Richard Wade Marsh, Sr. (“Mr. Marsh”), and their son Richard Marsh, Jr. (“Rick”) for approximately three decades. In 2018, Ms. Marsh and Rick lived together in Ms. Marsh’s house in Silver Spring, Maryland.

In 1988, Mr. Kent set up a trust for the Marshes (the “Trust”), which initially named Mr. Marsh and Ms. Marsh as the grantors, trustees, and beneficiaries, with Rick as the successor beneficiary. The assets of the Trust included the Marshes’ Silver Spring house and various bank and brokerage accounts. The Trust’s bank accounts were maintained at Sandy Spring Bank.

Mr. Marsh passed away on January 22, 2009.

Nguyen was a beneficiary of Rick’s will but not of the trust. When Rick fell ill Respondent visited him in the hospital

While at the hospital, Mr. Farmer asked Rick how much money was in the Trust; Rick said it held about five million dollars. Mr. Farmer then returned to New Jersey. He had several conversations with Ms. Nguyen, and she ultimately retained him to represent her.

Respondent represented both Nguyen and Mrs. Marsh; Kent acted to get a guardian (McCarthy) appointed

Mr. McCarthy then spoke with Mr. Farmer and suggested that Mr. Farmer had a conflict of interest in representing both Ms. Marsh and Ms. Nguyen. Mr. Farmer disagreed. Mr. McCarthy also noted that Mr. Farmer was not authorized to practice law in Maryland. Mr. Farmer dismissed the concern as not a problem.

Motions ensued

Mr. Farmer then sent Mr. McCarthy a letter accusing both him and Mr. Kent of misconduct, including kidnapping Ms. Marsh by taking her to her court-ordered medical appointment. Mr. Farmer also filed a letter with the court on Ms. Marsh’s behalf, requesting that the court hear the motions on an expedited basis, citing Ms. Marsh’s poor health, Mr. Kent’s alleged misconduct, and alleged collusion between Mr. Kent and Dr. Guinta.

Then

A hearing on the pending motions was held on May 20. The court denied Mr. Farmer’s pro hac vice motion with prejudice and denied the Motion to Dismiss. The court found that Ms. Marsh was represented by [court appointed] Ms. McQueen, and, as a result, ruled that Mr. Farmer was prohibited from communicating with her.

Fee demand

After the hearing, Mr. Farmer presented Mr. McCarthy with an invoice in the amount of $158,589.18 for expenses and for “legal services” purportedly rendered on behalf of Ms. Marsh between March 2020 and May 2020. Mr. McCarthy refused to pay Mr. Farmer.

Last gasp

On June 12, Mr. Farmer filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland against Mr. Kent, Mr. Kent’s law partner, and their law firm, alleging tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with economic relationship, legal malpractice, and “willful and malicious acts,” all based on his relationship and agreement with Ms. Marsh. Mr. Kent and the other defendants moved to dismiss the complaint.

On February 23, 2021, the court dismissed the complaint with prejudice. The court held that because Mr. Farmer was not licensed to practice law in Maryland, his retainer agreement with Ms. Marsh was invalid and against public policy. Additionally, the court found that Mr. Farmer’s claim that Mr. Kent was engaged in willful and malicious acts was “not grounded in any cognizable common law tort under Maryland law.”

The court here

the hearing judge found by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Farmer violated MARPC 1.4 (Communication), 1.5 (Fees), 1.7 (Conflict of Interest—General Rule), 1.16(a)(1) (Declining or Terminating Representation), 3.1 (Meritorious Claims and Contentions), 5.5(a) (Unauthorized Practice of Law; Multi-Jurisdictional Practice of Law), and 8.4(a) (Misconduct). Mr. Farmer excepts to each conclusion.

As noted above, we review all conclusions of law without deference. We conclude that the hearing judge’s conclusions are supported by clear and convincing evidence and therefore overrule Mr. Farmer’s exceptions.

Aggravating factors

Here, Mr. Farmer engaged in a series of wrongful acts over a period of a few months. Those acts included representing Ms. Nguyen and Ms. Marsh despite a clear conflict of interest, making frivolous accusations against Mr. Kent and Sandy Spring Bank, retaining the $8,500 retainer to which he was not entitled, and billing Ms. Marsh over $150,000 for services allegedly rendered while engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. A pattern of misconduct was established by clear and convincing evidence. As such, we overrule Mr. Farmer’s exceptions to the hearing judge’s aggravating factors.

Deposition denied

Mr. Farmer alleges that he was deprived of due process when the hearing judge quashed his subpoena for a deposition of Bar Counsel. He sought the deposition of Bar Counsel to question her about, among other things, her relationship with Mr. Kent, her staff’s relationship with Mr. Kent, whether Mr. Farmer irritated Bar Counsel by filing an ethics complaint against Mr. Kent and challenging her decision to dismiss the complaint against Mr. Kent, and whether Bar Counsel has an “inherent bias against out of state attorneys.” The hearing judge quashed the subpoena to protect Bar Counsel from “‘annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or cost’ as any relevant testimony Bar Counsel could conceivably offer [was] privileged under the work-product doctrine.” The hearing judge was well within her discretion to do so.

Sanction

Mr. Farmer clearly does not grasp the nature and extent of his misconduct. Although he represented a vulnerable, elderly widow at the same time he was representing the widow’s caretaker who was attempting to seize control over the widow’s estate, he still maintains there was no conflict of interest. Mr. Farmer still insists that he properly moved for admission pro hac vice in the guardianship case, even though Rule 19-217 plainly requires a sponsoring Maryland licensed attorney to file the motion on his behalf. Mr. Farmer still insists he was not acting as a lawyer in representing Ms. Marsh, even though he filed papers on her behalf in a Maryland court, drafted estate planning documents, issued demands to her long-standing counsel and bank, had her sign a retainer agreement on his law firm letterhead, and issued invoices for “Legal Services Rendered.”

When others failed to bend to his will, Mr. Farmer lashed out, sparing nobody. He filed an ethics complaint and federal lawsuit against Mr. Kent. He filed a regulatory complaint against Sandy Spring Bank. He accused Bar Counsel of waging a personal vendetta against him. He accused the hearing judge of bias, pointing to no evidence other than the fact that she credited the evidence against him. And at oral argument before this Court, he continued to insist that Mr. Kent had misappropriated funds as trustee, but could not point to a single shred of evidence supporting his allegations. All of this reinforces the hearing judge’s finding, as an aggravating factor, that Mr. Farmer refused to accept the wrongful nature of his conduct.

Oral argument linked here.

We reported on an unrelated reprimand from the New Jersey Supreme Court

Respondent’s statements in the October 2013 letter were written in his professional capacity, during the course of the civil litigation between Ciccone and Dr. Huang. The statements are discriminatory and demeaning on their face, ascribing misrepresentations purportedly made by Dr. Huang directly to his Chinese heritage. Respondent’s asserted defenses — that he is not racist, and that he is absolved of any misconduct because he relied on “expert opinions” in the submitted internet articles — are wholly specious and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, as the DEC hearing panel noted, the articles on which respondent relied were merely “opinion pieces found on the internet, without any indication of the credentials of the respective authors.” The panel continued,  “[t]he mere existence of an opinion online does not establish its author as an expert. If it did, every post on Twitter or Facebook would constitute expert opinion.” Before us, respondent repeatedly characterized the author of those article as “experts,” despite the lack of support for that position.

(Mike Frisch)