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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 15-BG-984

IN RE WAYNE RICHARD HARTKE, RESPONDENT.

A Member of the Bar of the

District of Columbia Court of Appeals

(Bar Registration No. 200378)

On Order to Show Cause

(BDN-100-15)

(Submitted March 22, 2016 Decided May 12, 2016)

Wayne Richard Hartke, pro se.

Wallace E. Shipp, Jr., Disciplinary Counsel, and William R. Ross, Assistant 

Disciplinary Counsel, for the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. 

Before BECKWITH and MCLEESE, Associate Judges, and PRYOR, Senior 

Judge.

PER CURIAM: In April 2015, respondent Wayne Richard Hartke was

suspended from the practice of law in Virginia for six months. This court issued 

an order directing Mr. Hartke to show cause why this court should not impose 

identical reciprocal discipline. Mr. Hartke argues that he should not be sanctioned

at all. We adopt Disciplinary Counsel’s recommendation that we impose identical 

reciprocal discipline. 

5/12/16
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I.

The following facts were stipulated by Mr. Hartke and the Virginia State Bar 

Disciplinary Board. In January 2014, Mr. Hartke attended a Continuing Legal 

Education (“CLE”) seminar in Virginia. During the morning session, Mr. Hartke 

fell asleep and began snoring, causing the seminar’s coordinator to intervene and 

wake Mr. Hartke. During the afternoon session, Mr. Hartke began talking loudly 

at a video presentation and continued to do so after the seminar coordinator asked 

him to stop. In response to Mr. Hartke’s continued outbursts, another attendee led 

Mr. Hartke from the room. That attendee smelled alcohol on Mr. Hartke’s person. 

Another attendee saw a nearly empty liquor bottle among Mr. Hartke’s possessions

and noticed that Mr. Hartke appeared to be intoxicated. Mr. Hartke admitted to 

one attendee that he had been drinking. 

In a written response to the Virginia State Bar and orally to a Virginia State 

Bar investigator, Mr. Hartke denied bringing alcohol to the seminar and denied 

being intoxicated during the seminar. When speaking with the investigator, Mr. 

Hartke also denied falling asleep and snoring during the morning session, insisting
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that he had been taking notes. In a subsequent conversation with an Assistant 

Virginia Bar Counsel, however, Mr. Hartke admitted that those representations 

were not accurate and that he did not take the steps necessary to correct his

misrepresentations. 

Based on the stipulated facts, Mr. Hartke and the Virginia State Bar 

Disciplinary Board stipulated that Mr. Hartke violated the Virginia Rules of 

Professional Conduct by “fail[ing] to disclose a fact necessary to correct a 

misapprehension known by [Mr. Hartke] to have arisen” in connection with a 

disciplinary matter, Va. R. Prof. Conduct 8.1(b), and by “violat[ing] or 

attempt[ing] to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct,” Va. R. Prof. Conduct

8.4(a). Mr. Hartke stipulated to a six-month suspension of his license to practice 

law in Virginia. 

II.

“We have adopted a rigid standard in reciprocal discipline cases, 

presumptively imposing identical reciprocal discipline, unless the attorney 

demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that the case falls within one of 
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five specified exceptions articulated in D.C. Bar Rule XI, § 11 (c).” In re Nosal, 

112 A.3d 919, 921 (D.C. 2015) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). 

Mr. Hartke argues that he was disciplined in Virginia for conduct that “does not 

constitute misconduct in the District of Columbia.” D.C. Bar Rule XI, § 11 (c)(5). 

We disagree.

Mr. Hartke contends that his Virginia suspension was based on “sleeping 

and snoring in a [CLE] class.” To the contrary, as he acknowledged in the Virginia 

stipulation, Mr. Hartke was not suspended for sleeping and snoring. Rather, he 

was suspended for failing to correct misrepresentations that he made to the 

Virginia State Bar in the course of the Virginia disciplinary proceedings. This 

court’s Rules of Professional Conduct also prohibit misrepresenting facts in the 

course of a disciplinary proceeding. D.C. R. Prof. Conduct 8.1 (“[A] lawyer . . . [,]

in connection with a disciplinary matter, shall not . . . [f]ail to disclose a fact 

necessary to correct a misapprehension known by the lawyer . . . to have arisen in 

the matter . . . .”); see also D.C. R. Prof. Conduct 8.4 (c) (“It is professional 

misconduct for a lawyer to . . . [e]ngage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, 

deceit, or misrepresentation.”). 
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Mr. Hartke also relies on circumstances that he contends mitigate his 

conduct. The Virginia disciplinary process afforded Mr. Hartke a right to present 

evidence of any mitigating circumstances, and he apparently did so. Va. Sup. Ct. 

R. Pt. 6, § 4, ¶ 13-18(K) (Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board must permit 

respondent to present evidence of mitigation); id. at ¶ 13-18(M) (Board must 

consider mitigating evidence in determining appropriate sanction); In re Hartke, 

No. 14-51-98765, at 7 (Va. State Disciplinary Bd. Apr. 17, 2015) (before 

suspending Mr. Hartke, Board “considered the factors in aggravation and 

mitigation argued by the Bar and [Mr. Hartke]”). Mr. Hartke has provided us with 

no basis upon which to look behind the sanction imposed in Virginia. See In re 

Briggs, 108 A.3d 1248, 1249 (D.C. 2015) (per curiam) (“Put simply, reciprocal 

discipline proceedings are not a forum to reargue the foreign discipline. . . . 

[R]espondent was permitted to submit evidence and argument in the originating 

jurisdiction on why he should not be disbarred. To the extent that respondent 

argues that mitigating circumstances exist that would support a lesser disciplinary 

sanction, the originating court considered and rejected these circumstances and this 

court defers to the decision of the originating jurisdiction.”) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). To the extent Mr. Hartke asks us to consider evidence of 

mitigation that arose after and because of Mr. Hartke’s suspension in Virginia, we 
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do not find sufficient grounds to support a departure from the discipline imposed in 

Virginia. See D.C. Bar R. XI, § 11 (c)(3) (permitting departure from reciprocal 

discipline if “imposition of the same discipline by the Court would result in grave 

injustice”). 

Mr. Hartke and Disciplinary Counsel disagree about the date on which any 

suspension should begin to run. Specifically, Mr. Hartke argues that any 

suspension should be imposed nunc pro tunc to April 2015. Disciplinary Counsel 

argues that the suspension should not begin to run until October 13, 2015, the date 

on which Mr. Hartke filed the affidavit required under D.C. Bar Rule XI, § 14 (g). 

We need not decide, however, whether the six-month period should be viewed as 

having begun in April or October of 2015, because either way the period has now 

run. 

It is therefore

ORDERED that Wayne Richard Hartke is suspended from the practice of 

law in the District of Columbia for a period of six months, nunc pro tunc to no later 

than October 13, 2015.

 So ordered.