Other types of misconduct that resulted in an admonition being issued include improper advertising, failure to pay debts, solicitation of clients, and inappropriate communication with represented parties. Here are summaries of several of the admonitions issued in 2000. Edward J. Cleary is director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Respnsibility. He has practiced both privately and as a public defender for 20 years and is past president of the Ramsey County Bar Assocation. His book, Beyond the Buring Cross, won a national award in 1996.
Small matters have a way of becoming large problems.
An attorney represented the husband in an acrimonious marital dissolution. The final decree made a very specific provision for review and duplication of the couple's family photographs. The wife was to deliver the original photographs to the attorney, who would then allow them to be reviewed by his client and those to be duplicated were to be marked. Before the husband had completed reviewing the photographs, the attorney terminated representation. The attorney released the original photographs to his client, contrary to the terms of the decree.