The Wages Of Disinterest

A District of Columbia Hearing Committee recommends that an attorney with 39 years of experience be suspended for 90 days and required to prove fitness for reinstatement based on misconduct in two client matters.

The discussion of the fitness requirement is noteworthy

Here, Respondent demonstrated a repeated pattern of not participating in the disciplinary proceedings. Respondent first did not respond to the Committee’s order about his purported Answer. Compounding this failure, Respondent next did not participate in the pre-hearing conference, nor the hearing itself. Finally, Respondent did not submit a post hearing brief. Respondent’s absence throughout his own disciplinary proceedings gives the Committee serious doubt of his ability to act competently and ethically in the future. See Lea, 969 A.2d at 890-94; see also ln re Hallmark, 831 A.2d 366, 377 (D.C. 2003).

Worse still, “other evidence” reflects that a fitness requirement is warranted. Respondent’s multiple violations of Rules 1.1(a) & (b) and 3.1 evidence a troubling pattern of lack of preparation and care, bordering on disinterest. In both Counts I and II, Respondent failed to perform basic fact-finding and legal research-steps that would have saved his clients time and money, as well as the court’s resources. Further, Respondent’s actions in the custody and eviction matters at issue occurred in close temporal proximity to his violations of Rules 1.4(a), 1.16(d), and 8.4(d) during his representation of a client in a real property dispute in 2019, for which he received an informal admonition. Taken together, the Committee has serious concerns that a Respondent has displayed a pattern of not representing clients at the standards required of him by the D.C. Rules and, without the affirmative step of a fitness showing, Respondent will continue to represent clients without appropriate skill and care and resulting in unnecessary expenditure of courts’ time and resources.

Respondent’s underlying misconduct and failure to participate in these proceedings is clear and convincing evidence of a serious doubt of Respondent’s ability to practice in accordance with the Rules following his period of suspension.

(Mike Frisch)