Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Smith

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Smith, Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-1304, 2015-Ohio-1304.] 
 
 
 
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. 2015-OHIO-1304 
DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. SMITH. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Disciplinary Counsel v. Smith,  
Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-1304.] 
Attorneys at law—Misconduct—Board proceedings—Discovery—Remand. 
(No. 2014-0197—Submitted June 10, 2014—Decided April 7, 2015.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 2011-072. 
_______________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Scott Clifford Smith of Pepper Pike, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0039828, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1988.  In 
July 2011, relator, disciplinary counsel, charged Smith with multiple violations of 
the Disciplinary Rules of the Code of Professional Responsibility and the Rules of 
Professional Conduct arising from his alleged use of unethical billing practices in 
five separate cases involving three clients who operated nursing homes in Ohio:  
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Beverly Enterprises of Ohio, Inc., Altercare Care of Ohio, Inc., and Covenant 
Care, Inc. 
{¶ 2} Relator alleged that while Smith was employed by a law firm, 
Weston Hurd, he billed as his own for work that was performed by another 
attorney at the firm, billed time in excess of the time actually spent on a particular 
task, billed for work that was never performed by anyone at the firm, and billed 
time to multiple cases and clients for identical services and time on the same day.  
A probable-cause panel of the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline1 certified relator’s complaint to the full board. 
{¶ 3} Smith answered the complaint.  As his primary affirmative 
defense, he alleged that his clients had requested and approved generic billing 
narratives that could be assigned to one of seven litigation phases and deducted 
from a preapproved budget without disclosing the specific action that he took on 
his client’s behalf.  He claimed that this billing method was necessary to protect 
his clients against punitive-damages awards that might arise from violations of the 
Ohio Nursing Home Patients Bill of Rights, codified at R.C. 3721.10 et seq.  He 
further alleged that he was unable to fully defend himself against relator’s 
complaint because much of the evidence he needed to do so was protected by 
attorney-client privilege, which the affected clients had not fully waived, and also 
because his former firm had prevented him from accessing documentary evidence 
essential to his defense. 
{¶ 4} In April 2012, Smith moved for summary judgment, alleging that 
he could not adequately defend himself “because certain documents that could 
exonerate him [had] not been reviewed or produced by the participants in [the] 
case” and because his former clients refused to disclose privileged documents and 
                                                 
1 Effective January 1, 2015, the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline has been 
renamed the Board of Professional Conduct.  See Gov.Bar R. V(1)(A), 140 Ohio St.3d CII. 
 
January Term, 2015 
 
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conversations pertaining to their billing guidelines.  The motion, which was 
opposed by relator, was denied by the panel chairperson on July 24, 2012. 
{¶ 5} A panel of the board conducted a hearing on February 4, 5, and 6, 
2013, and heard testimony from six witnesses, including general counsel for two 
of the nursing-home clients affected by his conduct, three representatives of 
Weston Hurd, and Smith.  The panel also received hundreds of pages of 
documentary evidence including billing records, correspondence, and deposition 
transcripts. 
{¶ 6} After the hearing, the panel issued a report finding that Smith had 
violated the Disciplinary Rules and Rules of Professional Conduct as charged in 
the complaint.  Relator then argued that Smith’s misconduct warrants a two-year 
suspension, but the panel recommended that Smith be indefinitely suspended 
from the practice of law.  The board adopted the panel’s findings of fact and 
misconduct and also recommends that Smith be indefinitely suspended from the 
practice of law. 
{¶ 7} Smith objects to the board’s report on multiple grounds.  Among 
other things, he alleges that the panel denied him due process when it failed to 
support his efforts to obtain discovery from relator and his former law firm. 
{¶ 8} For the reasons that follow, we remand this cause to the board with 
instructions to remand it to the panel for additional discovery and hearing. 
Discovery 
{¶ 9} Since he filed his first pleading, Smith has maintained that his 
billing methods were consistent with the billing instructions he had received from 
his long-term-care clients.  He maintained that those billing methods were 
designed to conceal the nature of the clients’ trial strategies from any opposing 
parties.  He has also argued that every document in the five cases set forth in the 
complaint was uploaded to one or more online databases—Serengeti, Power 
Brief, and Client Connect—maintained by his clients or the third-party 
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administrators involved in their litigation.  Smith contends that while his billing 
narratives do not describe the work he performed, the computerized databases 
would contain all the documents he prepared or reviewed in those cases and thus 
are needed for him to justify the time that he billed each client. 
{¶ 10} Smith contends that Weston Hurd, relator, and the board failed to 
understand how the electronic billing systems used by his long-term-care clients 
or their third-party administrators worked.  Consequently, he argues that they did 
not examine, let alone produce, all the records relevant to the cases at issue here. 
{¶ 11} Smith sought and received some discovery from relator beginning 
in November 2011.  Following a January 24, 2012 prehearing conference, the 
panel chairperson recognized that there were some discovery issues to be resolved 
and ordered the parties to “exchange and submit to the Board an accounting of 
those documents requested by Respondent that are in possession of Relator.”  
Smith served supplemental discovery requests on relator on February 14, 2012, 
and indicated that the documents were “requested but not provided” in his 
February 23, 2012 disclosure to the panel.  Relator asserted that any documents 
that he had failed to produce were not in his possession and that a number of those 
documents, including copies of Smith’s computer hard drive and e-mails from his 
time at Weston Hurd, were not relevant to the issues at hand.   
 
{¶ 12} Throughout this disciplinary proceeding, Smith and his counsel 
stated that they had requested documents from Weston Hurd but that they had not 
received them.  In his affidavit in support of his motion for summary judgment 
and again in his testimony, Smith stated that the firm refused to answer discovery 
requests or go forward with a related mediation that was required by Smith’s 
employment agreement with the firm. 
{¶ 13} Although Smith’s counsel sent subpoenas duces tecum to two 
Weston Hurd employees in anticipation of their January 2013 depositions, the 
January Term, 2015 
 
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panel quashed the subpoenas on the ground that they did not afford the witnesses 
adequate time to gather and produce the requested documents. 
{¶ 14} Given the nature of Smith’s longstanding and consistent defense of 
the charges against him, we are alarmed by the conspicuous absence of 
documentary or testimonial evidence regarding the actual content of the online 
databases with respect to the five cases at issue—evidence that in all probability 
would serve to either confirm or discredit Smith’s claims.  While the record 
shows that the affected clients or their third-party administrators used online 
databases to transmit and store pleadings, correspondence, billing, and other 
documents related to the clients’ underlying actions, the testimony of the 
witnesses with access to those databases suggests only that the content of those 
databases should, theoretically, mirror the content of Weston Hurd’s hard file.  
Therefore, in the interest of justice, we remand this cause for further discovery 
and hearing. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 15} Based upon the foregoing, we remand this cause to the board with 
instructions to grant Smith a reasonable time to subpoena the documents and 
records previously identified in his January 2013 subpoenas duces tecum and 
discovery requests propounded on relator from the persons or entities that possess 
or have access to them (e.g., his former firm, the clients whose matters are set 
forth in the complaint, the insurance companies, or third-party-administrators 
involved in these matters).  We further instruct the board to conduct any 
additional proceedings necessary to address any discovery issues or newly 
discovered evidence that may arise as a result of this remand. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
_________________________ 
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Scott J. Drexel, Disciplinary Counsel, and Stacy Solochek Beckman, 
Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, for relator. 
Anspach, Meeks & Ellenberger, L.L.P., and Kenneth R. Donchatz; and 
Montgomery Rennie & Jonson, L.P.A., and George D. Jonson, for respondent. 
_________________________