Title: Columbus Bar Assn. v. Fishman

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as Columbus Bar Assn. v. Fishman, 98 Ohio St.3d 172, 2002-Ohio-7086.] 
 
 
COLUMBUS BAR ASSOCIATION v. FISHMAN. 
[Cite as Columbus Bar Assn. v. Fishman, 98 Ohio St.3d 172, 2002-Ohio-7086.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — One-year suspension — Improperly 
promoting professional services — Aiding nonlawyers in the 
unauthorized practice of law — Sharing legal fees with nonlawyers — 
Failing to reasonably protect client confidences — Commingling client 
funds with own funds in an out-of-state bank account — Failing to keep 
appropriate accounts. 
(No. 2002-1101 — Submitted November 13, 2002 — Decided December 26, 
2002.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 01-54. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
Respondent, Andrew M. Fishman of Columbus, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0031290, was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1965.  Under a 
February 1998 contract with American Heritage Corporation (“AHC”), a Nevada 
corporation that sells fixed annuities, AHC and respondent marketed living trusts 
to elderly consumers.1  They also arranged for AHC-affiliated insurance agents to 
try to sell insurance to those who had purchased the living trust agreements. 
{¶2} 
Initially, AHC sent direct-mail solicitations to consumers based on 
a retirement-age-or-older demographic.  Respondent did not participate or 
exercise any authority in this process, although solicitations appeared to be 
correspondence from his office.  The solicitations suggested as an inducement that 
                                                 
1. 
The events at issue in this case are only those occurring before January 1, 2001, after 
which AHC changed its operations and its relationship with respondent. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
consumers would receive a free guide on how to avoid probate and save taxes by 
replying via an attached card.  Returned cards were delivered to AHC offices, and 
AHC and respondent considered these replying consumers to be prospective 
clients. 
{¶3} 
Upon receipt of reply cards, AHC representatives contacted these 
prospective clients and attempted to arrange personal interviews.  Respondent 
played no role in the process of collecting reply cards and scheduling interviews.  
AHC representatives then interviewed clients, using a presentation based on 
materials prepared by AHC about hypothetical difficulties and costs associated 
with the probate process and the advantages of creating a living trust.  In 
answering prospective clients’ questions, interviewers were not supposed to 
express legal opinions and were to refer such questions to respondent.  
Respondent was available to clients by telephone after they had decided to engage 
his services; however, he did not attend interviews to oversee interviewers’ 
remarks or representations. 
{¶4} 
During some periods of the agreement between AHC and 
respondent, interviewers were compensated by AHC only if prospective clients 
agreed to retain respondent’s services in preparing a living trust.  During other 
periods, interviewers were compensated by AHC for six hours of work if a 
potential client engaged respondent’s services and for one and one-half hours if 
the client did not, regardless of the actual time spent. 
{¶5} 
If after their interview prospective clients decided to pay for 
preparation of a living trust, interviewers completed an information sheet and had 
the clients execute a fee and engagement agreement.  Interviewers then collected, 
either at the interview or afterward, a fee of $1,695.  In accordance with the 
interviewers’ instruction, the clients made their checks payable to respondent, 
who later endorsed the checks as necessary, copied the paperwork to check it for 
completion, and forwarded the copied preparatory documents to AHC. 
January Term, 2002 
3 
{¶6} 
AHC deposited, accounted for, and disbursed fees paid for the 
living trusts by using a California bank and without placing the funds in client 
trust accounts despite the fact that the trusts had not yet been prepared.  And 
pursuant to the agreement between respondent and AHC, AHC personnel had 
signature authority to make deposits and withdrawals from accounts so that 
respondent’s specific consent was not required.  On more than one occasion, these 
accounts were overdrawn, and checks written by AHC personnel were initially 
dishonored, although the checks were later covered. 
{¶7} 
After clients had paid their fee, AHC personnel or an affiliate 
prepared the clients’ living trusts and forwarded the documents to respondent for 
his review.  When approved, AHC assigned “delivery agents,” usually licensed to 
sell insurance, to meet with clients and finalize the living trust paperwork.  
Delivery agents arranged for clients to execute their trusts, obtained 
documentation to transfer assets and fund the trusts, and took any other action to 
effectuate the trust.  Prior to the delivery agent visits, respondent typically called 
clients to advise that the agent was a licensed insurance salesperson and to see 
whether the client had any objection to the visit.  Working on commission, the 
agents delivering the final trust documentation attempted to sell annuities to these 
clients. 
{¶8} 
For each living trust sold, AHC paid respondent $150 for his 
participation. 
{¶9} 
On November 2, 2001, relator, Columbus Bar Association, filed an 
amended complaint charging respondent with various violations of the Code of 
Professional Responsibility.  A panel of the Board of Commissioners on 
Grievances and Discipline heard the cause, and based on the parties’ stipulations, 
testimony, and exhibits, found that, in engaging in the described marketing 
system, respondent had violated DR 2-103(C) (improperly using an organization 
or person to promote a lawyer’s services), DR 3-101(A) (aiding a nonlawyer in 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
4 
the unauthorized practice of law), 3-102(A) (sharing fees with a nonlawyer), 4-
101(D) (failing to reasonably protect client confidences), 9-102(A) (failing to 
deposit client funds in an identifiable Ohio trust account), and 9-102(B)(3) 
(failing to render appropriate accounts). 
{¶10} In recommending a sanction, the panel consulted the mitigating 
and aggravating considerations in Section 10 of the Rules and Regulations 
Governing Procedure on Complaints and Hearings Before the Board of 
Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline.  The panel considered as 
mitigating factors character witnesses’ descriptions of respondent’s competence 
and integrity and that respondent has been a practicing lawyer for over thirty-five 
years without any previous findings of professional misconduct.  The parties 
stipulated that respondent had cooperated completely in the disciplinary process.  
As aggravating factors, the panel considered respondent’s misconduct to be more 
egregious than the living trust marketing scheme used by the attorney in 
Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Kathman (2001), 92 Ohio St.3d 92, 748 N.E.2d 1091, and 
noted that respondent could see nothing unprofessional about his marketing 
tactics. 
{¶11} The panel recommended that respondent be suspended from the 
practice of law in Ohio for one year.  The board adopted the panel’s findings of 
misconduct and recommendation.  Because ample proof of the cited infractions 
exists in the record and because a one-year suspension is a commensurate 
sanction, we agree with the board. 
{¶12} Respondent unquestionably violated DR 2-103(C).  He contracted 
with an organization that independently targeted and solicited prospects for his 
representation, dispatched personnel to offer that representation, and then paid 
itself, respondent, and the personnel for their services.  Despite respondent’s 
arguments to the contrary, this was not a lawyer’s accepting employment in 
January Term, 2002 
5 
response to his own advertising, notwithstanding any compliance with more 
content-oriented rules on the subject. 
{¶13} Respondent also insists that he sufficiently supervised lay AHC 
personnel through his client contact and documentary review and thereby did not 
violate DR 3-101(A).  But he misses the point. 
{¶14} To counsel a client, an attorney must advise only in accordance 
with the client’s best interest and, consequently, after independent analysis has 
revealed what those interests are.  Thus, it is not enough for an attorney to look 
over the shoulders of nonattorneys in a process through which clients are advised 
about and accede to a living trust.  In that situation, the reviewing attorney enters 
the relationship too late—the nonattorney has already processed information for 
the client about his or her affairs and has generated a legal solution of which the 
client is already convinced.  Kathman, 92 Ohio St.3d 92, 94, 748 N.E.2d 1091.  
Compound this scenario with the fact that the nonattorney has a financial stake in 
the legal solution, and there can be no real confidence in the attorney.  The 
attorney’s status as the client’s personal, yet objective advocate has been 
sacrificed for the sake of the sale. 
{¶15} It is manifest from the evidence in this case that AHC 
representatives not only explained legal principles relative to wills and trusts, they 
also manipulated these principles in directing prospective clients to choose living 
trusts.  Such client consultation is, at its most elemental, the practice of law.  
Disciplinary Counsel v. Willis, 96 Ohio St.3d 142, 2002-Ohio-3614, 772 N.E.2d 
625, at ¶ 3-8.  Respondent therefore unquestionably also aided nonattorneys in the 
unauthorized practice of law. 
{¶16} Respondent violated DR 4-101(D) by failing to reasonably protect 
his clients from the improper use of their confidences and secrets by associates 
and others whose services he engaged.  Respondent facilitated the arrangement 
through which a client’s private information was disseminated to insurance agents 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
6 
whose primary purpose was to sell annuities on commission.  He then obtained 
the client’s permission to be solicited without first exercising any real 
independent judgment as to whether the solicitation was for the client’s benefit.  
Again, despite respondent’s arguments to the contrary, this practice is simply not 
analogous to the use of copier or courier services, as is practical and necessary, in 
furthering the best interests of the client. 
{¶17} The remaining violations found by the board all relate to the 
financial side of respondent’s business with AHC.  The board concluded that 
respondent impermissibly shared fees with AHC, commingled unearned funds in 
an out-of-state bank account, and failed to properly account for client property.  
We concur that respondent committed this misconduct and quote the board’s 
cogent explanation: 
{¶18} “Respondent exercised little control over [AHC representatives] 
and their sales activities and * * * funds for these legal services were collected 
and funneled through bank accounts controlled by AHC.  Prior to January 1, 
2001, the process of depositing, accounting for and disbursing the funds received 
from the client for legal work to be accomplished in the future by Respondent was 
done by AHC in its offices outside Ohio using bank accounts outside of Ohio.  
The accounts used for these purposes were not IOLTA accounts, nor were they 
maintained as trust accounts.  Individuals who [were] not attorneys and who 
[were] not directly employed by the Respondent, but with whom Respondent had 
contractual relationships, [had] signature authority over such accounts and [could] 
and [did] make deposits and withdrawals from these accounts without the direct 
knowledge or consent of Respondent.  Accounts in which funds belonging to 
Respondent’s clients [had] been deposited by AHC [were] overdrawn, and checks 
written on those accounts [were] dishonored.” 
{¶19} Having concluded that respondent violated DR 2-103(C), DR 3-
101(A), 3-102(A), 4-101(D), 9-102(A), and 9-102(B)(3), we turn our review to 
January Term, 2002 
7 
the recommended sanction.  In Kathman, 92 Ohio St.3d 92, 748 N.E.2d 1091, we 
first addressed the issue of attorneys aiding nonattorneys in the sale or marketing 
of living trusts.  In that case, we suspended the attorney from the practice of law 
for six months for participating in the business of marketing living trusts and 
thereby violating DR 3-102(A) and 3-101(A), among other Disciplinary Rules.  
And more recently, we imposed a public reprimand for similar misconduct based 
on the board’s recommendation and significant evidence of mitigating 
circumstances.  Columbus Bar Assn. v. Moreland, 97 Ohio St.3d 492, 2002-Ohio-
6726, 780 N.E.2d 579. 
{¶20} We agree that the misconduct here warrants a more severe sanction 
than in either Kathman or Moreland.  Respondent abandoned his professional 
responsibility to protect his clients’ best interests.  But respondent went far 
beyond this.  He surrendered to AHC his duty to keep separate and properly 
account for his clients’ funds.  Then, he set up his clients as sales prospects for 
insurance agents with no overriding commitment to their financial and personal 
security.  Even the unseasoned attorney Moreland recognized this impropriety 
when confronted with it.  Yet respondent remains oblivious to the full 
significance of his unprofessional conduct. 
{¶21} For these reasons, we agree that respondent’s misconduct deserves 
the sanction recommended by the board.  Respondent is hereby suspended from 
the practice of law in Ohio for one year.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY COOK and LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissents and would indefinitely suspend respondent. 
__________________ 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
8 
 
Wiles, Boyle, Burkholder & Bringardner and Michael L. Close; James K. 
Hunter III; John K. McManus; Bruce A. Campbell, Bar Counsel, and Jill M. 
Snitcher McQuain, Assistant Bar Counsel, for relator. 
 
Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter, Geoffrey Stern and Christopher J. Weber, 
for respondent. 
__________________