Confidentiality Violation Draws Sanction Disagreement

A violation of the duty of confidentiality drew a stayed 18-month suspension by the Ohio Supreme Court

Daly began representing S.H. in April 2016, after she was indicted on a burglary charge in the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court. At that time, S.H. was a single mother in her early twenties who was having financial difficulties and battling drug addiction. Under a plea deal negotiated by Daly, S.H. pleaded guilty to a reduced burglary charge and was sentenced to community control in July 2016.

In August 2018, the trial court issued a notice for a community control-sanction-revocation hearing in S.H.’s criminal case based in part on her failure to abstain from using illegal drugs. Daly represented S.H. at the hearing. In September 2018, S.H. was reinstated to community control and assigned to the trial court’s Women’s Therapeutic Docket, a court program designed to closely monitor and aid women in need of intensive therapeutic services for drug addiction and mental-health issues.

In addition to the criminal case, Daly represented S.H. in a child custody matter in the Montgomery County Juvenile Court. In August 2018, he filed a motion on S.H.’s behalf seeking sole custody of her minor child, child support, a protective order against the child’s father, and supervised parenting time for the father. Daly also defended S.H. against the father’s claim for full custody, in which the father alleged that S.H. was abusing drugs and was unfit to care for the child.

During his representation of S.H., Daly came to believe that S.H. had stolen a necklace from his car. He tried, without success, to pressure her into returning the necklace. On October 31, 2018, S.H. sought and obtained an ex parte civil protection order against Daly. Since that time, Daly has disputed the validity of the facts alleged by S.H. in support of that order and also maintained that the facts alleged by S.H. did not warrant the issuance of a civil protection order against him.

On November 1, 2018, Daly filed a motion to withdraw from representing S.H. in her custody case. The next day, he met twice with Officer Steven Perfetti of the Riverside Police Department, seeking assistance in recovering the missing necklace.

During his first meeting with Officer Perfetti, Daly acknowledged that S.H. had obtained a civil protection order against him. Daly told the officer that S.H. was homeless, but he identified the house where S.H. was staying with a person who was actively and illegally dealing “pills and weed.” He claimed that S.H. had admitted to him that she was having sex daily with that drug dealer so that she would have a place to stay. Daly also told the officer that S.H. was engaging in prostitution out of that house and that she was using heroin, marijuana, and “roxys” and other pills. Daly gave the officer two phone numbers for S.H., explaining that one of them was the number the officer would call if he wanted “weed, pills, Vicodin, ‘roxys,’ or Percocets.” He asked Officer Perfetti to contact S.H. quickly because he was worried that she would get high later and would not respond.

During his second meeting with Officer Perfetti, Daly told the officer that S.H. was driving a vehicle that had tags registered to another person, and he explained that that was how S.H. got away with driving without a license. Daly admitted at his disciplinary hearing that he had learned the facts he related to Officer Perfetti solely from his confidential attorney-client communications with S.H.

Stipulation

The parties stipulated that the information Daly disclosed to Officer Perfetti was confidential client information that he knew from representing S.H. and that no exception set forth in Prof.Cond.R. 1.6 either permitted or required Daly to disclose it. In addition, the parties acknowledged that Daly’s disclosure of S.H.’s confidential client information could have resulted in serious consequences for S.H., including the potential for new criminal charges, revocation of the community-control sanction imposed under the plea deal in her criminal case, and adverse rulings in her custody case.

The court

In this case, Daly represented a young, troubled, single mother who was struggling with drug addiction and the possibility that she could lose custody of her child. S.H. needed to be able to freely discuss her problems with her attorney and be confident that he would use that information to advise her in her legal 8 January Term, 2025 matters, rather than use the information against her. On two separate occasions, however, Daly deliberately disclosed S.H.’s confidential client information to a police officer, and he did so with the knowledge that his disclosures could cause S.H. serious legal harm. In his disciplinary-hearing testimony, Daly explained that he made the disclosures to Officer Perfetti because he had been trying for ten days to recover a necklace from S.H. that he believed she had stolen from him and because he felt “stymied” when she obtained an ex parte civil protection order against him based on what he believed to be false evidence. He described his state of mind as “[f]rustrated; angry; upset; humiliated; [and] disappointed.” He acknowledged, however, that his feelings of frustration were not an excuse for his misconduct. 

Sanction

William Thomas Daly is suspended from the practice of law in Ohio for 18 months, with the entire suspension stayed on the conditions that he commit no further misconduct and that he pay the costs of these proceedings. If Daly fails to comply with either condition of the stay, the stay will be revoked and he will serve the entire 18-month suspension. Relator’s February 21, 2025 motion to strike is granted, and Daly’s January 30, 2025 motions are summarily denied.

KENNEDY, C.J., joined by FISCHER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.

This case is about respondent William Thomas Daly’s vindictive breach of the attorney-client privilege. I agree with the majority that Daly’s conduct violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.6(a) (prohibiting a lawyer from revealing confidential client information without the client’s informed consent). I also agree with the majority’s resolution of Daly’s motions. But I disagree with the majority’s decision to adopt the Board of Professional Conduct’s recommendation to suspend Daly from the practice of law for 18 months, with the entire suspension stayed on the condition that he commit no further misconduct. Instead, our precedent supports indefinitely suspending Daly from the practice of law.

Precedent

The attorneys in Fox and Osborne used confidential client information to financially hurt their clients and benefit themselves, and this court indefinitely suspended them. Fox at ¶ 2, 6; Osborne, 1 Ohio St.3d at 142-143. And in Watkins, the attorney had merely threatened to use confidential client information against the client, and this court indefinitely suspended him. Watkins, 68 Ohio St.2d at 12. If Watkins’s threat that he would use confidential client information to get his client and the client’s employer in legal trouble warranted imposing an indefinite suspension, certainly Daly’s going to the police and using S.H.’s confidential client information to try to get her in legal trouble does too.

Conclusion

The record does not justify departing from our precedent of indefinitely suspending attorneys for disclosing confidential information to the client’s detriment. I am unaware of any other case this court has decided in which an attorney, motivated by revenge, revealed his client’s secrets to the police.

(Mike Frisch)