Personal Responsibility

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed a single justice’s disbarment order

From July 2007 to July 2013, the respondent’s firm employed Ross Annenberg as an associate attorney. While working for the respondent’s firm, Annenberg misused client funds for his own benefit by inflating costs, among other methods. By the end of July 2013, the respondent had ended Annenberg’s employment with her firm. Annenberg was subsequently disbarred and pleaded guilty to criminal charges arising from his misconduct. See Matter of Annenberg, 31 Mass. Att’y Discipline Rep. 8, 8 (2015).

Although the respondent contends that Annenberg was responsible for the misappropriation of client funds in the three cases at issue in counts one, two, and four, the hearing committee found that it was the respondent who personally and intentionally committed the misconduct. In addition to the case-specific facts described infra, the hearing committee found that the respondent’s firm suffered serious ongoing financial problems and that the respondent borrowed money to pay the firm’s employees and to cover the firm’s other costs. And while Annenberg primarily handled the firm’s nonmedical malpractice personal injury cases, it was the respondent who primarily handled the firm’s medical malpractice cases. Consistent with this practice, the respondent, not Annenberg, calculated costs for the medical malpractice cases.

The court found that the evidence was sufficient to establish the misconduct and that disbarment was the appropriate sanction. (Mike Frisch)