Title: Dayton Bar Assn. v. Suarez

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as Dayton Bar Assn. v. Suarez, 97 Ohio St.3d 235, 2002-Ohio-5935.] 
 
 
DAYTON BAR ASSOCIATION v. SUAREZ. 
[Cite as Dayton Bar Assn. v. Suarez, 97 Ohio St.3d 235, 2002-Ohio-5935.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Eighteen-month suspension with nine months 
of sanction suspended on condition that no further misconduct be 
committed — Failing to adequately advise client of proceedings in his 
divorce and then attempting to hide the neglect. 
(No. 2002-1086 — Submitted August 27, 2002 — Decided November 13, 2002.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 99-18. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
This case requires us to decide the sanction for an attorney who 
failed to adequately advise her client of proceedings in his divorce and then tried 
to hide her neglect.  The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline 
found that respondent, Isabel Suarez of Dayton, Ohio, Attorney Registration No. 
0015899, committed this misconduct in violation of DR 1-102(A)(4) (conduct 
involving fraud, deceit, dishonesty, or misrepresentation) and (6) (conduct 
reflecting adversely on an attorney’s fitness to practice law), 6-101(A)(3) (neglect 
of an entrusted legal matter), and Gov.Bar R. V(4)(G) (failure to cooperate in an 
investigation of misconduct).  The board recommended that respondent be 
suspended from the practice of law in Ohio for 18 months.  Upon review, we 
agree with the board’s findings of misconduct; however, we find that an eighteen-
month suspension, with nine months of this sanction stayed, is appropriate. 
{¶2} 
In September 1997, respondent accepted $5,000 to represent a 
client in his divorce.  The client advised respondent that he wanted to obtain 
custody of his four children because his wife could be abusive.  The client 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
brought respondent the divorce complaint that had been filed against him as well 
as other papers.  During November 1997, the client signed an affidavit of 
financial disclosure and, later, an affidavit regarding child custody, at 
respondent’s office.  Respondent reassured him at those times that his case was in 
good hands. 
{¶3} 
On December 11, 1997, respondent found his wife removing items 
from their marital residence and learned from her that the final hearing in the 
divorce had been held on December 5, 1997.  Respondent never notified her client 
of the hearing, nor did she appear on his behalf.  After the client discovered 
respondent’s neglect by visiting the courthouse and learning that respondent had 
filed nothing in the case, he went to her office, where respondent’s staff advised 
him that she was out. 
{¶4} 
Respondent called the client later that evening and offered to meet 
to discuss the divorce case.  She also offered to represent him concerning a recent 
auto accident.  The client declined, advising her that he did not want her 
representing him further, and retained another attorney. 
{¶5} 
On December 15, 1997, three days after their last meeting, 
respondent filed an answer and counterclaim on her former client’s behalf.  She 
also filed the financial disclosure affidavit that she had prepared the month before.  
On January 9, 1998, the trial court granted a final judgment and decree of divorce 
based on petitioner’s pleadings and the final hearing. Suarez’s former client was 
not granted custody. 
{¶6} 
Respondent repaid her former client’s retainer fee, and he has since 
obtained custody of his two youngest children.  He did not obtain custody, 
however, until the children had suffered domestic assaults. 
{¶7} 
Thereafter, relator, Dayton Bar Association, investigated the 
allegations of this misconduct.  In response to inquiries about the work she 
performed for the $5,000 fee her client paid, respondent claimed to have 
January Term, 2002 
3 
conducted computerized research and produced a printout of her work as proof.  
According to the printout, however, the computer research was not undertaken 
until March 1998, almost three months after the former client’s final divorce 
decree. 
{¶8} 
Relator filed a complaint on April 12, 1999, charging respondent 
with violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility.  A panel of the board 
heard the cause, found the facts regarding Suarez’s conduct as stated, and 
concluded that respondent had committed the cited misconduct.  Specifically, the 
panel found that respondent’s failure to act on her client’s behalf was 
“compounded by her misrepresentations to him that she was, in fact, protecting 
his interests.”  The panel also found that respondent had attempted to deceive 
relator about the work that she had done on her client’s behalf. 
{¶9} 
In recommending a sanction, the panel considered as an 
aggravating factor respondent’s public reprimand for misconduct several years 
ago.  Disciplinary Counsel v. Suarez (1998), 84 Ohio St.3d 4, 701 N.E.2d 683.  
The panel was also troubled by what it considered to be her lack of candor, 
remorse, and inability to take responsibility for her misconduct.  The panel 
recommended that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for 18 
months.  The board adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct and 
recommendation. 
{¶10} We agree that respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(4) and (6) and 
Gov.Bar R. V(4)(G).  On credibility issues, we generally defer to the panel’s and 
board’s determinations.  Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Cleary (2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 
191, 198, 754 N.E.2d 235.  We follow this rule here despite respondent’s 
assurances that she did not mean to delude her client or relator with 
misrepresentations. 
{¶11} In her objections and before the panel, respondent contended that 
she had to recreate her computer research because a former staff person had 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
4 
tampered with her office files.  She also claimed that she had provided the 
printout to relator as an example of her work, not as the actual work product.  This 
explanation would be more plausible if respondent had not already supplied two 
conflicting accounts for having failed to appear at the hearing in her client’s 
divorce. 
{¶12} During the investigation, respondent said that she had received 
notice of her client’s December 5, 1997 hearing date but had placed it by mistake 
on her calendar for a date in January 1998.  At the panel hearing, however, 
respondent said that she had been under the impression that a staff member had 
already filed the answer and counterclaim that she had prepared.  Thus, she 
claimed to have missed the December 5th hearing because she was waiting for the 
court to assign a hearing date and had not realized that the case had been put on 
the court’s noncontested docket as a result of the default. 
{¶13} We also find that respondent neglected her client in violation of 
DR 6-101(A)(3).  We do so, however, not only because respondent’s former 
client attested to her neglect, but because respondent conceded this misconduct 
and took  responsibility for it at various times during these proceedings.  As a 
result of her concessions and contrary to the board’s conclusions, we find 
mitigating factors in this record.  In fact, we are also encouraged that respondent 
returned her client’s money. 
{¶14} For these reasons, it is not necessary to remove respondent from 
her practice for the full eighteen-month suspension recommended by the board.  
Accordingly, we order that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for 
18 months, but nine months of this sanction will be suspended on the condition 
that she commit no further misconduct.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER and LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
January Term, 2002 
5 
 
COOK, J., dissents. 
__________________ 
 
COOK, J., dissenting. 
{¶15} Because I would adopt the recommendation of both the panel and 
the board to suspend Suarez for eighteen months, I respectfully dissent. 
__________________ 
 
Green & Green and Thomas L. Czechowski, for relator. 
 
Bieser, Greer & Landis, L.L.P., and David C. Greer, for respondent. 
__________________