Opinion ID: 2394866
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Count 1 Complaint of David K. Samuels

Text: Mr. Samuels retained Mr. Albright to represent him in a custody matter on July 12, 2005; and Mr. Samuels paid a seven hundred fifty dollar retainer fee. On the day of a scheduled hearing in the matter, Mr. Samuels called Mr. Albright's office and was informed that Mr. Albright was unavailable, but that his law partner would be appearing on his behalf. Mr. Samuels's complaint alleged that the law partner omitted at least one important aspect of his case before the lower court as a result of the lack of time to prepare in Mr. Albright's absence. Subsequently, Mr. Samuels attempted to contact Mr. Albright on several occasions without success. Mr. Samuels retained new counsel who ultimately prepared and tendered an order to the lower court in April 2007. Mr. Albright agreed to provide an accounting of his use of the retainer fee to ODC; however, ODC never was provided the documentation. As a result of the abovementioned conduct, the HPS found that Mr. Albright failed to adequately communicate with Mr. Samuels, and, thus, violated Rule 1.4(b) of the West Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct. [2] The HPS further determined that Mr. Albright failed to diligently pursue his client's interests and failed to tender a prepared order in the lower court despite being ordered to do so. For this behavior, Mr. Albright violated Rules 1.3 [3] and 3.2 [4] of the Rules of Professional Conduct. Finally, Mr. Albright was found to have violated Rule 8.1 [5] of the Rules of Professional Conduct for his failure to provide an accounting of his services to ODC.