Opinion ID: 1980664
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Ms. Soininen's practice before the DOL.

Text: It is undisputed that, while she was under suspension, Ms. Soininen practiced before the DOL. She has taken the position throughout these proceedings that her activities at the DOL did not require a law license. Indeed, the Board, agreeing with Ms. Soininen, found that [m]ost of the work done by [Ms. Soininen] during her suspension period consisted of filings before state employment agencies and the Department of Labor. One is not required to be an attorney to do this work. As Bar Counsel points out, however, this blanket statement, while literally true, does not tell the whole story. Although the DOL permits persons who are not attorneys to practice before it, non-lawyers must put their clients and the agency clearly on notice that they are acting as agents and not as attorneys. Except to the very limited extent discussed below, Ms. Soininen did not provide notice to the DOL that she was not acting as an attorney, see 20 C.F.R. § 656.20, and she gave no notice at all to her clients of this important circumstance. [17] On the contrary, Ms. Soininen's retainer letters, in which she agreed to represent clients who were seeking labor certificates, reflect that she represented herself to these clients as being an attorney, not an agent. These false representations, like the others described earlier in this opinion, occurred while Ms. Soininen was suspended from practice by order of this court. Ms. Soininen testified before the Hearing Committee that she filed notices of appearance (Forms G-28) before the DOL, thus advising the DOL that she was representing the individuals as an attorney. See 20 C.F.R. § 656.20(b). Ms. Soininen stated that she represented hundreds of clients as an attorney before the DOL during the year 2001, long after the court had placed her under interim suspension. If, as she testified, she filed a notice of appearance in each case, she necessarily filed hundreds of incorrect notices. As she explained, there were hundreds. On their face, Ms. Soininen's retainer agreements reflected that she claimed to be representing her clients as an attorney. Moreover, Ms. Soininen explicitly so testified: Q: You did submit G-28s for the people you were representing before the [DOL] during the time that you were suspended, isn't that correct? A: Yes. That's correct. Q: The G-28 and the EOIR-28 and all those [Form] 28s, they are all the same thing, they are all praecipes of appearance? A: Yes. Q: In those praecipes of appearance[,] you are saying who[m] you are representing and that you are representing that person as an attorney; is that correct? A: Yes. Q: And in every case for every client that you represented before the [DOL], before the INS, before the Immigration Court, before the [BIA], you file some kind of [Form] 28 Notice of Appearance, isn't that correct? A: Yes. Thus, by her own admission, Ms. Soininen held herself out as a District of Columbia attorney in good standing not only to her immigration clients, but also to the DOL, in hundreds of notices of appearance. To be sure, Ms. Soininen also testified that in March 2001, she filed one notice of appearance before the DOL in which she described herself as a former D.C. Bar member  reinstatement pending. This information was misleading; at the time, reinstatement was not pending. On the contrary, Ms. Soininen's status was that of an attorney under an interim suspension, and she had no way of knowing when (and even whether) she would be reinstated. Indeed, having been convicted of driving while intoxicated, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and theft, Ms. Soininen certainly had no assurance that she would be granted probation; she might well have been suspended from practice for a substantial period of time, and might properly have been required to prove her fitness to practice as a condition of reinstatement. See, e.g., In re Spiridon, 755 A.2d 463, 469 (D.C.2000) (imposing one-year suspension with fitness requirement following criminal conviction of misdemeanor theft); In re Chisholm, 679 A.2d 495, 503-06 (D.C.1996) (six-month suspension with fitness requirement for multiple acts of dishonesty). Moreover, the inaccurate March 2001 praecipe apparently constitutes the only document provided by Ms. Soininen to the DOL in which she made any disclosure at all that she was not a member in good standing of the District of Columbia Bar. Prior to March 2001, in numerous notices of appearance, Ms. Soininen had held herself out to her clients and to the DOL as a member in good standing of our Bar, when in fact she was not.