Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Gildee

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Disciplinary Counsel v. Gildee, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5641.] 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2012-OHIO-5641 
DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. GILDEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Disciplinary Counsel v. Gildee,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5641.] 
(No. 2012-1011—Submitted August 22, 2012—Decided December 5, 2012.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 11-088. 
_____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Eva Catherine Gildee of Columbus, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0072685, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 2000.  
The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline recommends that we 
suspend Gildee from the practice of law for two years with one year stayed on 
conditions.  We accept the board’s findings of professional misconduct and its 
recommendation of a two-year, partially stayed, conditional suspension. 
{¶ 2} Relator, Disciplinary Counsel, charged Gildee in a two-count 
complaint with multiple violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct.  The 
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parties stipulated to certain facts, rule violations, and aggravating and mitigating 
factors.  They jointly recommended that Gildee be suspended from the practice of 
law for two years with one year stayed upon the conditions that she commit no 
further misconduct and that she make restitution of $11,290.98 to the client who 
had submitted the grievance against her, before she could be reinstated. 
{¶ 3} A panel of three board members heard the case and made findings 
of fact and conclusions of law.  The panel recommended adopting the parties’ 
stipulated sanction.  The board adopted the findings, conclusions, and 
recommendation of the panel. 
{¶ 4} The parties have not objected to the board’s report and 
recommendation. 
Misconduct 
Count One—Failing to Deliver Client Funds and 
Fabricating a Letter to Justify the Failure 
{¶ 5} In 2007, Gildee agreed to represent a client and his company on a 
one-third contingent-fee basis in a commercial-lease dispute against a sports club 
and its owner in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.  In 2008, the case 
settled,  and the defendants agreed to pay the client a lump-sum payment of 
$32,500, followed by quarterly payments representing a percentage of lease 
payments received from a new tenant over the next four years.  In January 2008, 
Gildee gave her client a check drawn on her client trust account in the amount of 
$21,669.92, which represented two-thirds of the $32,500 settlement payment. 
{¶ 6} After the defendants obtained a new tenant, Gildee received a lease 
payment from them in an amount below what Gildee and her client had been 
expecting given the value of the lease.  In July 2008, the client agreed to retain 
Gildee to pursue a second lawsuit against the club and its owner for breach of the 
settlement agreement entered in the first lawsuit; the money that was owed to the 
January Term, 2012 
 
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client on the first lease payment was used as a retainer against which Gildee 
would charge $175 per hour. 
{¶ 7} The defendants continued to send Gildee lease payments, and the 
client ultimately decided not to pursue the claim for breach of the settlement 
agreement.  Gildee did not deposit all of the payments into her client trust 
account, instead cashing or depositing some of them into her operating account.  
The contingent-fee agreement required Gildee to disburse $8,347.60 of the lease 
payments made by the defendants to the client, but she misappropriated these 
funds. 
{¶ 8} In July 2011, Gildee falsely asserted to relator that she had advised 
the client that she was applying a portion of the lease payments to satisfy the 
client’s outstanding legal fees.  At that time, Gildee gave relator a letter dated 
January 3, 2010, addressed to her client that stated that she was retracting her 
prior policy of overlooking fees he owed her for the legal services rendered 
because the client had filed a complaint with relator about her actions.  Gildee 
later admitted to relator that she had created the letter before her July 2011 
meeting with relator and that she had backdated it to January 3, 2010. 
{¶ 9} The board found, and we agree, that respondent’s conduct violated 
Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a) (requiring a lawyer to hold property of clients in an interest-
bearing trust account, separate from the lawyer’s own property), 1.15(d) 
(requiring a lawyer to promptly deliver funds or other property that a client or 
third party is entitled to receive), 8.1 (prohibiting a lawyer from knowingly 
making a false statement of material fact in connection with a disciplinary 
matter), 8.4(c) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct involving 
dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation), and 8.4(h) (prohibiting a lawyer 
from engaging in conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to 
practice law). 
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{¶ 10} The parties stipulated to the dismissal of a charge of violating 
Prof.Cond.R. 1.16(e) (a lawyer who withdraws from employment shall promptly 
refund any fee paid in advance that has not been earned).  We dismiss this charge. 
Count Two—Lying about Transmitting Payment to Client 
{¶ 11} Before the settlement in the common pleas court case in 2008, the 
court found the defendants to be in contempt of court and ordered them to pay 
attorney’s fees in the amount of $7,500.  In August 2009, the client filed a 
grievance against Gildee claiming that she had coerced him into accepting the 
settlement agreement and had failed to remit his share of the fee award.  After 
relator investigated the complaint and determined that there was insufficient 
evidence to establish that Gildee had pressured her client into agreeing to the 
settlement, Gildee agreed to pay the client half of the fee award—$3,750—by 
April 17, 2010. 
{¶ 12} When Gildee failed to make the payment as promised, her client 
contacted relator.  On September 28, 2010, Gildee paid the client $1,000, leaving 
a balance due of $2,750.  After relator contacted Gildee about the status of the 
payments, Gildee sent relator a facsimile in December 2010 of a letter she had 
purportedly sent to her client on the same day, along with a copy of a check for 
$1,000 drawn on her personal account and payable to the client.  Gildee never 
sent the letter or check to the client.  After the client again complained to relator 
that he had not received any further payment, relator contacted respondent. 
{¶ 13} On May 3, 2011, Gildee sent a facsimile to relator of a letter that 
she had purportedly sent to her client on May 2, 2011, along with a copy of a 
check for $1,500 drawn on her personal account and payable to the client.  Gildee 
never sent the letter or check to the client.  Gildee did not have sufficient funds in 
her account to cover the check, and she failed to inform relator that she never 
mailed the letter and check to her client. 
January Term, 2012 
 
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{¶ 14} The board found, and we agree, that respondent’s conduct violated 
Prof.Cond.R. 8.1, 8.4(c), and 8.4(h). 
Sanction 
{¶ 15} “When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we consider 
relevant factors, including the duties the lawyer violated and sanctions imposed in 
similar cases.”  Toledo Bar Assn. v. Weisberg, 124 Ohio St.3d 274, 2010-Ohio-
142, 921 N.E.2d 641, ¶ 15.  “In making a final determination, we also weigh 
evidence of the aggravating and mitigating factors listed in Section 10(B) of the 
Rules and Regulations Governing Procedure on Complaints and Hearings Before 
the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline (‘BCGD Proc.Reg.’).”  
Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. Mishler, 127 Ohio St.3d 336, 2010-Ohio-5987, 939 
N.E.2d 852, ¶ 45. 
{¶ 16} The board found the following aggravating factors:  (1) a dishonest 
and selfish motive, (2) multiple offenses, (3) resulting harm to the victim, and (4) 
failure to make restitution.  See BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(1)(b), (d), (h), and (i).  In 
mitigation, the board found the following factors:  (1) absence of a prior 
disciplinary record, (2) full and free disclosure to the board during the disciplinary 
process, and (3) positive character evidence.  See BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(2)(a), 
(d), and (e).  The board was particularly impressed by the genuine remorse that 
Gildee expressed during the hearing, the fact that her legal career has been 
otherwise exemplary, and that her lack of restitution to the client was a 
consequence of her dire financial condition. 
{¶ 17} “The presumptive sanction for misappropriation of client funds is 
disbarment.”  Disciplinary Counsel v. Burchinal, 133 Ohio St.3d 38, 2012-Ohio-
3882, 975 N.E.2d 960, ¶ 17.  But we have tempered this sanction when the 
misconduct constitutes a solitary event in an otherwise untarnished legal career.  
Disciplinary Counsel v. Claflin, 107 Ohio St.3d 31, 2005-Ohio-5827, 836 N.E.2d 
564, ¶ 15.  This is the case here.  And similar to the circumstances in Burchinal, 
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Gildee’s multiple acts of dishonesty require an actual suspension from the 
practice of law, but the mitigating evidence—including the absence of a 
disciplinary record, full and free disclosure to the board, positive character 
evidence, and genuine remorse—warrant a lesser sanction than disbarment.  
Burchinal at ¶ 19. 
{¶ 18} Upon our independent review of the pertinent factors, we agree 
that the sanction recommended by the board is appropriate.  We therefore suspend 
Gildee from the practice of law in Ohio for two years, with one year of the 
suspension stayed on the conditions that Gildee commit no further violation of the 
disciplinary rules and that Gildee not be reinstated to the practice of law until she 
has made full restitution to the client in the amount of $11,290.98.  Costs are 
taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
_____________________ 
 
Jonathan E. Coughlan, Disciplinary Counsel, and Joseph M. Caligiuri, 
Senior Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, for relator. 
 
Eva C. Gildee, pro se. 
_____________________