Opinion ID: 2602282
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: factors raised by respondent in mitigation

Text: ¶ 48 Mitigating circumstances may be considered in assessing the quantum of discipline that is appropriate. [70] Respondent has raised several factors in mitigation. In the Cothran matter, respondent contends that he was pressured not to file a lawsuit against Ms. Cothran's former conservator and his law partners, whom he describes as persons with a lot of influence in southeast Oklahoma. [71] Respondent never directly says that he failed to aggressively pursue the matter because of this pressure, but he implies in his testimony that the possibility of unspecified reprisals was on his mind. Yet when pressed to be specific, respondent backed off, saying that what he heard was no more, or less, than what virtually every other lawyer has heard at some point down the road in dealing  that does litigation. He further testified that none of the attorneys involved did anything that I would consider to be unethical. In further questioning, respondent explained his inaction as a consequence of the rapid expansion of his practice, stating, I basically lost control over it. Respondent's testimony does not persuade us that the influential positions occupied by two of the defendants in the civil action, or any conduct on their part or on their behalf, played a significant role in respondent's mishandling of the Cothran matter. ¶ 49 Respondent further contends that if this court disciplines respondent for his conduct in the Cothran matter, it will be viewed, rightly or wrongly, by many attorneys, particularly in Southeastern Oklahoma, as a warning or statement that the `politically powerful' should not be challenged. We fail to see how the imposition of discipline on respondent for not aggressively pursuing a civil action against two politically powerful attorneys could possibly be construed by other attorneys as a warning not to pursue legitimate claims against those in positions of power or prestige. The message we intend is precisely the opposite  a lawyer's obligation to a client is the same regardless of whom an opposing party happens to be. ¶ 50 Respondent urges us to consider his father's illness and death in mitigation of his failure to respond to the Bar. Respondent's father fell ill in August of 1999 and died on 12 September 1999. During his deposition on 30 July 1999, respondent promised to furnish the Bar with certain documents relating to the Kathy Reed grievance. As of the date of the PRT hearing  2 November 1999  he still had not done so, but attributes this lapse to his preoccupation with his father's deteriorating condition and subsequent death. Respondent also attributes his failure to answer the second amended complaint to the fact that he did not go to the post office to collect his certified mail for an unspecified, but considerable, period of time following his father's death. ¶ 51 Were respondent's failures to respond to the Bar confined to this period of time, we would be inclined to place greater credence in his father's death as a cause of respondent's misconduct. [72] They are not. Respondent also failed to pick up certified mail from the Bar in the Sharon Sanders matter in 1998, a time well-removed from the period of respondent's father's illness and death. In fact, respondent's failures to respond to Bar inquiries extend over many years. Even if respondent's father's illness and death contributed in the two cited instances to his failure to respond, they do not provide any excuse for the many other times he neglected his duty to answer the Bar. ¶ 52 It is this court's duty to protect the public. Regardless of his personal loss, respondent nevertheless had a duty to his clients and to the Bar to claim certified mail within a reasonable time after his father's death. [73] As it is, he indicates he did not retrieve that mail for more than three weeks  perhaps for more than a month  after his father's death. If respondent did not claim certified mail for such an extended period of time, he not only put off learning what the Bar had to say, but put his clients at risk that something of importance to them would not be timely addressed. ¶ 53 Respondent testified that he has agreed to work at his own expense with Jim Calloway, a risk assessment manager for the Bar's law office management program, and that he has instituted changes in his office procedures. We have previously considered these undertakings as mitigating factors in assessing discipline. [74] Respondent's efforts to correct deficiencies in the way his office is managed have been taken into account in mitigation of the disciplinary measure to be visited upon him today. ¶ 54 The remaining circumstances put forth by respondent as mitigating are summarily rejected. They provide neither justification nor excuse for respondent's misconduct and give the court no reason to lessen the severity of the disciplinary measure otherwise warranted by respondent's lapses of professional ethics.