Hiding Things Brings Trouble: Assets, Evidence and a Court Order.

Hiding Assets

The case started for Washington State lawyer, Thomas McGrath when his wife, a chiropractor, started a fight with her ex-employee.  Forbes reports on his bad actions: first to represent his wife in a case where she lost a judgment of $500,000; and then to do improper asset protection in violation of the RPC.

Shifting assets when the case is going badly is a time honored tactic, but shifting a spouse’s asset through the office trust account in violation of Rule 1.15 is still a forbidden mixture of personal assets with clients’ assets.

Filing bankruptcy is not generally improper, but falsifying the Bankruptcy Petition is a federal felony and an ethical violation.

As Jay Atkisson, the Forbes columnist explains: “This case has nothing to do with legitimate asset protection planning, and everything to do with plain old fraud on creditors.”

What do you think the Washington State Supreme Court did to the husband lawyer, just trying to help his wife?

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Hiding Evidence on Facebook:

Matthew Murray was slow to advise his client about the eternal nature of electronic evidence. Murray’s client lost his wife and filed a wrongful death case.  Among the damages claimed was loss of love, affection and companionship.  After being asked to produce “screenshots” from his client’s Facebook account, Murray told his paralegal to make sure the account had been “cleaned up. ” The plaintiff-client’s photos disappeared from his Facebook wall, but the defense counsel already had 16 of them, including the one that showed him wearing a T-shirt that said “I ♥ hot moms” while holding a beer, soon after the wife’s death.  Since the suit was for the losses he suffered due to the wrongful death of the plaintiff’s wife as caused by the defendant, the photo was thought to be material to damages.

First, the trial court ordered the payment of defendant’s attorney fees against Murray and his client in the amount of $722,000 and slashed the jury’s $8.5M verdict. The VA Supreme Court reinstated the verdict, but allowed the attorney fees order to stand.

It also found Murray violated the RPC and entered a sanction: What would you have ordered?

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Hiding the Court Order?

A busy time for the Washington State Disciplinary Board.
And Tom Kamb was a busy lawyer. He had a criminal law practice, mostly DUI defense work. On the day of the problem, he had 20 case hearings set in the morning.  He got a plea on one case, which was submitted, and approved by the court.  He forgot to get the breath test suppressed, which appears to be a normal event, since suppression of the breath test protects the client’s driver’s license.

Kamb later had a hearing with the Dept. of Licensing’s ALJ about his client’s driver’s license, Kamb reported that he had gotten the breath test suppressed in the criminal charge.  Now he had to find a way to prove that.  Bad idea.  He asked for the closed file from the clerk, and penciled a note about the test being suppressed on the signed order. The now suspicious clerk refused to provide him with a certified copy of the newly forged order, and sent him to the prosecutor.  The prosecutor agreed to a retroactive suppression, not knowing that Kamb had lied to the DOL’s ALJ, and forged the court’s order.  When Kamb returned with the note from the prosecutor, the clerk sent him to the presiding judge who was not pleased.

The judge files disciplinary charges, and after the investigation by bar counsel, there was a finding of Kamb’s guilt on three counts:

Count 1 charge[d] Kamb with misrepresenting the existence of an order suppressing his client’s breath test to the hearing officer in violation of RPC

3.3(a)(1). Count 2 charge[d] Kamb with changing Judge Svaren’s order in violation of RPC 8.4(b ), 8.4( c), and 8.4( d). Count 3 charge[d] Kamb with violating RPC 1.3 which  requires a lawyer to act diligently and promptly, by failing to discuss suppression of the breath test with [prosecutor] Johnson before the DOL hearing.

Kamb challenged the Hearing Officer’s findings. The court found his version of facts lacked credibility.  The transcript of the ALJ’s hearing proved the timeline and his misstatement of facts about the existence of a court order that helped his client.

What did the WA Supreme Court do in this case?

Poll Results:

1. Washington Supreme Court disbarred the lawyer after 40+ years of practice – citing the filing of false filings and claims, and lack of remorse.

2. Murray got a five-year suspension from the practice of law.

3. The opinion cites as authority: “The American Bar Association’s Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions (1991 & Supp. 1992)” as the guide for lawyer discipline in Washington State.   Kamb got disbarred.

2nd try: Law & Sex, trouble.

Indy BIGLAW guy gets it

Arthur J. Usher IV was a Bose partner when his troubles started, a Kreig DeVault partner when everything blew up, now he is out of BIGLAW, and out of the profession for a while.

In what sounds like the plot line of a cheap romance novel, Usher got focused on a woman at Bose, and went overboard in a really weird way. If you have the time you have to read the story here. Long story short, he got infatuated, rebuffed and went ballistic, trying to destroy “Jane Doe” and her career. He recruited his paralegal to help him further the campaign. He used fictitious emails to spread his bizarre tale, trying to cost Doe her career at Bose, and elsewhere.

His actions started in 2008, the opinion was issued May 17, 2013. I can only imagine the nearly 5 years of trouble that Jane Doe has put up with waiting on a resolution. There was a civil lawsuit, and it appears to have settled on the courthouse steps with “a payment of an undisclosed amount to [Doe]”. The Supreme Court did not allow that to take the place of the disciplinary process.

The Court found violations of Rules 3.3(a)(1) Candor to tribunal, false statements, 8.1(a) False statement Bar application or Disciplinary Process, 8.1(b) failure to disclose facts to correct, 8.4(a, b, c, & d) Misconduct of various stripes. The Court found for him, agreeing with the Hearing Officer, that his problem was with Jane Doe, and not with all women, which would have been a violation of 8.4(g)

The disciplinary ruling: For Respondent’s professional misconduct, the Court suspends Respondent from the practice of law in this state for a period of not less than three years, without automatic reinstatement, beginning June 28, 2013.

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A Chicago law firm, Prenda Law Inc., found a spot as innovative lawyers or scoundrels. A California federal judge decided that scoundrels fit, better than lawyers. A fight is going on. On one side is a self-professed millionaire copyright lawyer and his team, who have sued over 20,000 for illegally downloading pornography, the other a judge who says it is a scam and shakedown effort.

Now the judge has reported the team to disciplinary groups, and to the federal prosecutors for RICO violations. He says the team identifies alleged copyright infringers by IP addresses, it then alleges that the download of porn occurred, in a demand letter that requests an amount “just below the cost of a bare-bones defense” to the suit, if the alleged infringer does not settle. Public embarrassment to a person’s reputation forces settlement, whether there was a violation or not. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed when payment did not come. These lawsuits are unraveling. At a recent hearing before the trial judge, the plaintiffs’ lawyers from Prenda took the Fifth Amendment, to avoid subjecting themselves to criminal prosecution. Not a good step in any case.

The lawyers who started representing Prenda have bailed out of the case, the appellate court is not telling the district judge to back off, One lawyer is alleged to have committed identity theft in getting a named party for the suits filed. Just a mess, as reported in AM LAW’s daily digest and Forbes.

h/t Patrick Olmstead.

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Two things: 1) PWP FB page: If you haven’t seen the recent FB page for the law firm Peterson Waggoner & Perkins, LLP you have missed the Run in a Dress for MS photo. Having fun, raising funds, and supporting family. https://www.facebook.com/PetersonWaggonerPerkinsLLP

2) Glitch: In starting this blog entry, the little finger on my right hand missed the Shift Key, hitting the Return Key. Somehow that published part of the title to the blog entry for this week. My apologies for filling in your mailbox/reader.

Thanks for reading.

Neglect gets 3 years; Lawyer arrested for fraud?; Report your Sex Offender Client? NY says no!

There must have been neglect, statement of proof in the opinion would be nice.

Louis Denney eventually had four DI cases filed, one for each year of 2008, 2009, 2010, and finally one in 2011 that did him in. Unfortunately the Order reads more like a CCS entry, so it is hard to tell what all Denney did. We are told that the Hearing Officer, Judge Jeff Todd issued a 56 page report, Denney appealed and was heard by the Supreme Court, and the court adopted that Report, but we just get a snippet of info on Counts 2,5,7 and 9. The court found violations of Rules 1.2(a), 1.3, 1.4(a) & (b), 1.5(a), 1.15(d), 1.16(a)(3) & (d), 3.1, 3.2, 3.4(c), 4.4(a), 5.4(a), 8.1(b) and 8.4(b).  Denney was a busy guy, and apparently  neglected many of his cases. He did fight the allegations and the Hearing Officer report, but the final order does not offer many details.

There is no link to the 56 page report, so what we know is that Denney: charged unreasonable fees, neglected client cases, failed to do the work for which he was hired, failed to communicate, refused to return unearned fees, disobeyed court orders for accountings, and made scandalous and irrelevant accusations against a judge when the judge refused a continuance, in an attempt to remove the judge from the case.

As a result he is suspended from the practice for three years without automatic reinstatement, and we know  that Justice Rucker would have approved a one year suspension, and Justice David would have disbarred Denney.

What we don’t know that would be educational for lawyers who review disciplinary matters is: How many total counts were found against the respondent; were any counts found for the respondent; what time frame was Denney committing violations, and did he continue to violate the duty to clients after the 2008 complaint (which resulted from his failure to respond to grievance), and was the 2008 issue (or the ’09 or ’10 issues) wrapped into the 2011 matters? Were any clients made whole during this matter or will the ISBA’s Client’s Financial Assistance Fund be involved, if the clients are aware of this benefit?

I imagine writing disciplinary opinions is difficult, but we could learn more if more information and judicial reasoning was put on display in the opinions that are issued. Especially after a well fought hearing.

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Lawyer Arrested for Benefits Fraud…

Shawn Donahue pleaded not guilty to fraud in Harrison County recently.  The Louisville Courier Journal’s story called it welfare fraud, but it appears to be unemployment compensation benefits at issue.

The allegations are that Donahue received UE benefits while still working for a couple local entities that were paying him for legal work. It is alleged that he failed to disclose the earnings. Donahue’s lawyer, Bart Betteau predicted that his client would be cleared of the charges.

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NY Opinion, Lawyer not required to Report Inaccurate reports by Sex Offender

Legal services lawyer is contacted by potential client PC, who is a registered sex offender.  Lawyer is asked to review an administrative filing, made under penalty of perjury, to a state agency. She does, and in confirming the information submitted determines that the allegation of being a felon is inadequate, because pc did not disclose the sex offender status of Level Three Rapist, and pc did not register as required by law, under his properly spelled name.  PC  did not appear for appointment, so Agency decided not to represent him further, but did not report the evidence it found to the agency.

Should lawyer have reported the findings to the state agency? NY Ethics Committee says No! (see Opinion 963) Rules of Professional Conduct # 1.6 deals with confidentiality of client communications, and if PC had not become a client, Rule 1.18 carries duties to prospective clients. The rub is that Rule 3.3 “Conduct before a Tribunal” puts duties to disclose confidential information on lawyers, if the situation meets the standards. Here it is a close call, but since the lawyer did not appear before the tribunal, but only reviewed information submitted to it, and the submission was not by the lawyer, the committee finds that “It would not make sense to require a lawyer to take reasonable remedial measures regarding proceedings before a tribunal in which the lawyer has never appeared on behalf of the client.”

But does the lawyer have to report the failure to register properly with the police?  Rule 1.6(b)(2) in NY and in Indiana, is a permissive rule.  “A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary: (2) to prevent the client from committing a crime… and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer’s services” (Ind. Rule).  NY’s Rule 1.6 does not have the “and in furtherance” language.  Indiana’s does which makes it even less likely that a disclosure would be appropriate even with the permissive disclosure language.

In NY the committee previously opined that past crimes cannot be revealed under this provision, only future crimes. Either way there is no mandatory disclosure, but a permissive disclosure in NY looks to be less risky than in Indiana, where there was no use of the lawyer’s services in furtherance of the misreporting.

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Jeffersonville INNS of Court meeting

Thursday March 21, Ted Waggoner will attend the Jeffersonville IN Inns of Court meeting at the invitation of Judge Terry Cody to speak on the Indiana Attorney Surrogate Rule, and its application to lawyers and law firms.  Ted chairs the Attorney Surrogate Rule Special Committee of the ISBA. 

Contact me for more information about this important rule.