A Proposed Consent Sanction

The District of Columbia Disciplinary Counsel and a Respondent have submitted a Petition for Negotiated Discipline of a 30-day suspension for a false statement in an application for employment 

Disciplinary Counsel received a complaint dated May 6, 2022, alleging that Respondent had given false answers in an employment application about her disciplinary history. Respondent had applied for a position in the San Francisco office of the law firm, Beveridge & Diamond. She submitted a resume and completed a questionnaire. Although Respondent had been admitted to the D.C. Bar in 1985, she omitted this fact from her resume. She also omitted her employment as an Associate General Counsel for Litigation at Amtrak, but instead said that she had been employed by Gilbarco Veeder-Root at the relevant time. The questionnaire, which the law firm asked her to complete, asked two questions of relevance to this proceeding:

 Have you ever been a party to, or the subject of, a disciplinary complaint or proceeding?
 Have you ever been sanctioned, fined, censored, suspended, or put on probation by a state bar, judicial body, or regulatory agency?

Respondent answered, “no” to both questions.

During its background check, Beveridge & Diamond discovered that Respondent was a member of the D.C. Bar, that in 2005, she was employed as Associate General Counsel for Litigation at the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), and that in 2016 she had been reprimanded by the District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility for a violation of Rule 8.4(c) (engaging in conduct involving dishonesty and misrepresentation) arising out of her employment by Amtrak. The firm referred the matter to Disciplinary Counsel.

Respondent’s response

I do not dispute the facts of the charge. As you will recall, it was my position that the disciplinary action taken by the DC Bar was ridiculous, and prompted by political considerations by the IG. Both the CA Bar and the MA Bar agreed with my position, when informed of the matter.

Mitigation

Respondent is at the end of her legal career. She has changed her status with to the California Bar to “inactive” on June 3, 2022, and California is where she resides and has practiced for the past seven years. She readily accepted responsibility for her conduct and did so less than a week after receiving Disciplinary Counsel’s letter of inquiry.

Respondent has been suffering from “long covid” since her initial recovery from the Covid-19 virus in September of 2021. She has experienced extreme fatigue and some “fuzziness” of her mental processes. At the time she submitted her application to Beveridge & Diamond, she believed that the excitement of a new position would help her to recover from her symptoms, but she subsequently has been diagnosed with worsening pulmonary and cardiac symptoms which resulted in her decision to retire from the practice of law entirely.

The prior reprimand also involved dishonesty.

While employed by Amtrak, she had included in files produced to the Office of Inspector General three engagement letters that had been backdated by outside counsel at her request. Respondent did not disclose to the Inspector General that the letters, and the date of her signature countersigning each letter, were backdated.

A completely reasonable resolution that should be adopted.

Notably, Petitions for Negotiated Discipline were recently filed in two other matters (linked here and Haar) that hopefully signals an increasing use of this important tool to promote efficiency and speed in bar discipline matters. (Mike Frisch)