Opinion ID: 835812
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failing to Respond Truthfully to Disciplinary Authorities

Text: The Bar's second cause of complaint charges the accused with violating DR 1-103(C) and DR 1-102(A)(3) by failing to respond truthfully to the disciplinary authorities. DR 1-103(C) provides that [a] lawyer who is the subject of a disciplinary investigation shall respond fully and truthfully to inquiries from    a tribunal or other authority empowered to investigate or act upon the conduct of lawyers. As discussed above, DR 1-102(A)(3) provides that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to [e]ngage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation. Specifically, the Bar alleged, and the trial panel concluded, that the accused violated those rules when, in her letter to the Bar, she wrote without elaboration that I did not advise Patricia Battle and that [a]ll pre-hearing contact with Ms. Battle was with another attorney employed by my law firm. In response to those charges, the accused continues to adhere to her position that she did not give Patricia Battle advice. She also argues that, when she used the phrase pre-hearing contact, she meant contact with Patricia Battle before the date of the hearing. We already have concluded that the accused did advise Patricia Battle. We also view the accused's explanation of her statement regarding pre-hearing contact as implausible. Accordingly, we find that the accused was untruthful with the Bar when she made both statements. However, before concluding that the accused violated DR 1-103(C) and DR 1-102(A)(3) when she made those untrue statements to the Bar, we think that more needs to be said. In its letter to the accused, the Bar told the accused that it was requesting her response to allegations that her conduct with respect to Patricia Battle violated DR 7-104(A)(2), so that it could make a fair and informed analysis of these allegations. Under both DR 1-103(C) and DR 1-102(A)(3), the accused had a duty to respond fully and truthfully to that letter. That is, the accused was obligated under both rules to disclose fully to the Bar investigator all facts pertinent to the ethical inquiry, including descriptions of all her and her firm's contacts with Patricia Battle. When the accused responded simply that she had not advised Patricia Battle and that all prehearing contact was with another lawyer in her firm, the accused had to have known that she was concealing information that was essential to the Bar's assessment whether the accused had violated the disciplinary rules. Thus, as in our analysis of the accused's conduct in her dealings with Judge Harris, the relevant inquiry does not turn solely on whether the accused, in her own mind, thought that she had not provided advice to Patricia Battle or that she had used the word prehearing to mean something different than commonly understood. It is critical that the accused knew that she had omitted material facts that would inform the Bar's analysis of her conduct. We find that the accused was not truthful or complete in her response to the Bar. We hold, therefore, that the accused violated DR 1-103(C). We also hold that the accused's knowing misrepresentations to the Bar constitute a violation of DR 1-102(A)(3).