Opinion ID: 2060466
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Appropriateness of the Recommended Sanction.

Text: Having concluded that the Board's findings are supported by substantial evidence, we now turn to the question of the appropriate sanction. Under our rules, we adopt the Board's recommended sanction unless to do so would foster a tendency toward inconsistent dispositions for comparable conduct or would otherwise be unwarranted. D.C. Bar R. XI, § 9(g)(1) (1997). We have imposed suspensions of thirty days and longer for cases of client neglect. See In re Wright, 702 A.2d 1251 (D.C.1997) (per curiam) (thirty-day suspension for lawyer who filed case and neglected it for four years); In re Lewis, 689 A.2d 561 (D.C.1997) (per curiam) (thirty-day suspension plus requirement to show fitness for reinstatement for neglecting single case; respondent was first-time offender); In re Dunietz, 687 A.2d 206 (D.C.1996) (thirty-day suspension for neglect and related ethical violations; sanction stayed pending successful completion of probation); In re Sumner, 665 A.2d 986 (D.C. 1995) (per curiam) (thirty-day suspension for neglect, failure to return client papers, and related violations); see also In re Carr-Kennedy, 698 A.2d 1021 (D.C.1997) (per curiam) (240 days for client neglect in reciprocal discipline case). Several of these cases involved attorneys who, like respondent, did not attend to their clients because they were preoccupied with serious personal problems. See Carr-Kennedy, supra, 698 A.2d at 1022 (attorney took refuge in women's shelter and saw marriage deteriorate into divorce); Lewis, supra, 689 A.2d at 563 (combination of plummeting caseload, and the emotional strain and exhaustion of [a] capital case, left Respondent severely depressed); Dunietz, supra, 687 A.2d at 208-09 (attorney preoccupied with illness of family member). Early in these proceedings respondent expressly waived his opportunity to raise clinical depression as a mitigating factors. [10] Cf. In re Peek, 565 A.2d 627, 632-34 (D.C.1989); Dunietz, supra, 687 A.2d at 208-09. Moreover, respondent has not demonstrated the other mitigating factors considered in Dunietz, such as expressing remorse, voluntarily compensating the client, or merely acknowledging that one has committed misconduct. See 687 A.2d at 212. Any alleged depression would not excuse the long delay between July 1989 and December 1992, when respondent testified that his personal problems began. We are quite unable to accept respondent's attack on what he describes as the Board's moral numbness as regards mitigating circumstances. We must conclude that the thirty-day suspension recommended in this case is consistent with the discipline imposed in comparable cases and is not otherwise unwarranted.