A Reminder To Register Every Year
An attorney’s work as an attorney and as a paralegal while administratively suspended resulted in a public reprimand of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers
In January 2000, the respondent began employment as an associate at a law firm in Lowell, Massachusetts. The respondent left her employment at the law firm in or around June 2007 to attend to a personal matter. In the fall of 2007, the Board of Bar Overseers (the “Board”) sent the annual attorney registration statement to the respondent at the law firm address. The respondent did not respond to this notice.
On March 19, 2008, the Board petitioned the Supreme Judicial Court to administratively suspend the respondent for failure to register and pay the required annual registration fee. On May 5, 2008, the Court entered a judgment for the respondent’s immediate administrative suspension. The respondent did not seek reinstatement within thirty days of the entry of the suspension order and became subject to the notice and compliance provisions of S.J.C. Rule 4:01, §§ 17(1), (5), and (6). The respondent failed to comply.
The respondent subsequently worked for a non-profit organization in a non-legal role from April 2008 to May 2016. The respondent was unaware of her administrative suspension until 2016, when she checked her status on the Board’s website. After learning of her administrative suspension, the respondent took no immediate action to seek reinstatement.
On or about March 8, 2017, the respondent tendered an Alford plea to certain “class A” misdemeanor charges in the Belknap Superior Court in New Hampshire. Pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 4:01, § 12(8), the respondent was required to report her criminal convictions to Bar Counsel by no later than March 18, 2017. She failed to do so. In neither mitigation nor aggravation, on April 3, 2023, the respondent’s convictions were annulled pursuant to N.H. Rev. Stat. § 651:5.
In February 2020, following a period of unemployment from June 2016 to January 2020, the respondent returned to her previous law firm on a part-time contractual basis and performed administrative and paralegal work. Over the next few years, the respondent performed paralegal work without authorization under S.J.C. Rule 4:01, §17(7), which prohibits any lawyer suspended from the practice of law, whether administratively or otherwise, from engaging in paralegal work absent permission of the Court.
While working as a paralegal, the respondent occasionally engaged in the practice of law, including by conducting legal research; preparing legal memoranda, pleadings and other filings; and otherwise performing duties that required her to use her professional judgment in applying legal principles to address the individual needs of clients at the firm. Although aware of the order of administrative suspension, the respondent mistakenly believed at the time that paralegal work by definition did not run afoul of the order.
On June 27, 2023, the respondent filed an Affidavit for Reinstatement with the Board, along with her Annual Registration Statement and a check for an approved partial waiver of the outstanding arrears to the Board. In her Affidavit, the respondent admitted to performing paralegal work while she was administratively suspended. On July 18, 2023, the respondent was reinstated by the Court. A disciplinary investigation into the foregoing matters followed.
By working as a paralegal while administratively suspended from the practice of law, the respondent violated S.J.C. Rule 4:01, §17(7). By practicing law after her administrative suspension while working as a paralegal, the respondent violated Mass. R. Prof. C. 5.5(a). By failing to file a timely affidavit of compliance, the respondent violated S.J.C. Rule 4:01, §§ 17(5) and (6) and Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(d). By failing to report her criminal convictions to Bar Counsel, the respondent violated S.J.C. Rule 4:01, § 12(8) and Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(d).
(Mike Frisch)