A Change In Demeanor
A District of Columbia Ad Hoc Hearing Committee finds misconduct and recommends a six-month suspension with fitness
The Hearing Committee finds that the issue in this case is not complicated. It began from an overdrawn escrow account in June 2019, precipitating an inquiry from Disciplinary Counsel. The overdraft, however, has not been charged. At issue here is the failure of Respondent to provide to Disciplinary Counsel the required financial documents—approximately 200 pages in total—for an investigation of the overdraft. For more than thirty months, Respondent sought extensions of deadlines and offered excuses for the non-production of the required financial documents. In the end, after six contempt hearings in Superior Court, Respondent produced all but one of the required financial documents. Even after the Specification of Charges had been served in April 2022, Respondent’s course of conduct continued. She failed to file an Answer, to file her exhibits timely, or to appear for the hearing’s first day. On the second day, appearing pro se as both attorney and witness, she was often incoherent—and openly at a loss how to present her case. On cross examination, however, in a display of belligerence and refusal to respond, she showed herself to be acutely aware of the issues in her case. The Hearing Committee finds the Respondent was intentionally dishonest in some statements to the court and to the Hearing Committee.
The history of the contempt and disciplinary proceedings is set out in detail.
Self-represented, her direct testimony is described as “disjointed and emotional”
On cross, however, the distraught Respondent became surprisingly focused and resistant—at times, belligerent—to Disciplinary Counsel’s lines of questions. Members of the Committee agreed that her resistance appeared to reflect a keen awareness of her vulnerabilities and a deliberate strategy to thwart efforts on the part of Disciplinary Counsel to force admissions of specific culpability.
When the evidence of Respondent’s demeanor on cross-examination was coupled with the evidence of Respondent’s multiple reasons for failing to provide exhibits and her exhibits’ password, as well as her failure to even appear on the first day of the hearing, the Committee was unanimous in concluding that Respondent could not be judged credible and was intentionally dishonest.
A number of violations were proved including
The Hearing Committee finds the wasteful expenditure of judicial and Disciplinary Counsel resources in this case appalling. Respondent’s repeated and ongoing failure, over more than two years, to provide some 200 pages of financial documents needed to complete the original investigation alone demonstrates Respondent’s violation of Rule 8.4(d). The Committee further finds that Respondent’s conduct violated Rule 8.4(d) because she failed to comply with Disciplinary Counsel’s subpoena, repeatedly ignored court orders, engaged in years of delay, and was dishonest to the court and Disciplinary Counsel about the circumstances of her failure to comply. Her willingness to engage with Disciplinary Counsel, to provide him with repeated excuses for not supplying the documents or promises that they would soon be produced, does not obviate this violation. Indeed, it served only to needlessly extend the time that Disciplinary Counsel and the court gave to what was, in fact, a simple matter of providing the required financial documents. The Hearing Committee concludes that Disciplinary Counsel proved by clear and convincing evidence that Respondent violated Rule 8.4(d).
Sanction
Respondent’s representation of herself at the disciplinary hearing leaves the Hearing Committee in serious doubt as to Respondent’s competence in representing clients in adversarial proceedings—and in serious doubt, as well, as to her fitness to practice law.
(Mike Frisch)