Opinion ID: 2056733
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: gerald bini

Text: In May of 2004, Gerald Bini (Bini) hired respondent to represent him in various matters arising from his employment with the United States Department of Defense. Bini was a civilian employee serving at Camp Darby in Livorno, Italy. The respondent agreed to represent Bini at an hourly rate of $200 for legal services rendered, and Bini paid an initial retainer of $2,000. During the course of the representation, which ended in November of 2005, Bini paid respondent a total of $28,500 upon respondent's numerous verbal requests for payment of fees due. However, respondent did not give Bini any bills or invoices to support these fees. At the disciplinary hearing respondent acknowledged that he had failed to act with appropriate diligence in his representation of Bini. He continually missed deadlines imposed by the Merit Systems Protection Board [1] for the filing of pleadings, in violation of Article V, Rule 1.3 of the Rules of Professional Conduct. [2] Additionally, he failed to adequately communicate with Bini when he sought information about his case, in violation of Article V, Rule 1.4(b) of the Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct. [3] The respondent withdrew from representing Bini in November of 2005, and subsequent to that withdrawal, Bini made a number of requests for an accounting of the fees charged, a refund of unearned fees and also asked for a complete copy of his file. The respondent did not provide that information for over two and one-half years. In March of 2008, Bini filed a disciplinary complaint with the board. It took the intervention of disciplinary counsel to finally prompt respondent to provide Bini with a copy of his file. Disciplinary counsel's repeated requests for an accurate accounting did not bear fruit until June 2, 2009, almost four years after the conclusion of the representation, in violation of Article V, Rule 1.17(d) of the Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct. [4] The accounting indicated respondent had charged unreasonable fees for ministerial tasks in violation of Article V, Rule 1.5(a) of the Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct [5] . His failure to timely comply with the reasonable requests from disciplinary counsel was a violation of Article V, Rule 8.1(b) of the Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct. [6]