Opinion ID: 2403862
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Order Granting Leave to Withdraw

Text: The wife argues that the trial court should not have allowed Mr. Gray to withdraw without ascertaining whether he and Charles Bruce, who was once associated with Gray's law firm, [13] assisted the husband in hiding assets from the wife. We disagree. The decision to grant or deny a motion by an attorney to withdraw as counsel is committed to the discretion of the trial court. See Atlantic Petroleum Corp. v. Jackson Oil Co., 572 A.2d 469, 474 (D.C.1990). In his motion Gray represented that he had moved to his firm's London office in June of 1991 and could not continue to represent the husband from there; that the husband had discharged him, but had refused to put the discharge in writing; that he could no longer afford to represent the husband, who owed his firm more than $23,000 in unpaid legal fees; that no one in his firm's Washington, D.C. office was available to represent the husband because that office no longer handled domestic relations litigation; that he had done nothing to circumvent any court order; and that there were no unanswered discovery requests directed to the husband's counsel. Pursuant to Rules 1.16(b)(3) and 1.16(b)(4) of the District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct, an attorney may withdraw from representing a client if [t]he client fails substantially to fulfill an obligation to the lawyer regarding the lawyer's services and has been given reasonable warning that the lawyer will withdraw unless the obligation is fulfilled, or if [t]he representation will result in an unreasonable financial burden on the lawyer or obdurate or vexatious conduct on the part of the client has rendered the representation unreasonably difficult. Where a client refuses to communicate with his attorney and makes no arrangements to pay the attorney for past services, the attorney's motion to withdraw will ordinarily be granted. See Hancock v. Mutual of Omaha Ins. Co., 472 A.2d 867, 869 (D.C. 1984). See also Hammond v. T.J. Litle & Co., 809 F.Supp. 156, 162-63 (D.Mass.1992). Furthermore, the wife is not unduly prejudiced by Gray's withdrawal. [14] No pending trial or other scheduled court proceeding is imperiled and, unless and until the husband arranges for substitute counsel, the wife can rightfully assume he has elected to proceed in propria persona. [15] If the wife has a legitimate claim that Mr. Gray or members of his law firm assisted the husband in perpetrating a fraud by creating a bogus extra-territorial trust with marital property owed to her, she can prosecute that claim just as effectively, if not more effectively, with Gray no longer acting as the husband's lawyer. To the extent that the wife's search for the husband's assets may be frustrated by an assertion of the attorney-client privilege, both Mr. Gray and Mr. Bruce (if, indeed, Mr. Bruce ever acted as the husband's lawyer, an issue we do not decide) are under a continuing duty to assert the privilege on any matters as to which they have a good faith belief that the privilege pertains, and their obligation to assert the privilege on the husband's behalf does not evaporate now that Gray no longer represents the husband in this proceeding. District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6(a)(1), 1.6(f). In any event, neither Mr. Bruce nor Mr. Gray has been called upon to assert the privilege because neither has been subpoenaed by the wife. Under these circumstances, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting Gray's motion to withdraw. For the foregoing reasons, the orders of the trial court are hereby Affirmed.