Opinion ID: 2361926
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Correia.

Text: On August 30, 1990, Lawrence Correia retained Lopes to represent him in an employment discrimination matter. On January 11, 1991, Lopes filed a complaint on Correia's behalf in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The defendant subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment. On December 21, 1993, in a supplemental opposition to this motion, Lopes submitted an affidavit on which he had signed Correia's name and had attempted to reproduce Correia's signature. Mr. Correia was not in the District of Columbia when the affidavit was executed and, contrary to a representation in the affidavit, he did not personally appear before the notary. In his testimony before the Hearing Committee, Lopes maintained that he had not intended to mislead the court by signing his client's name. He claimed that all of the information in the affidavit was true, and that it had been provided, and later confirmed, by Mr. Correia. Although Lopes' pleadings and motions in Correia's case were repeatedly filed at least a few days late, they were all accepted by the court without sanction or admonition. Lopes failed to respond in timely fashion to discovery requests, and the defendant ultimately filed a motion to compel the plaintiff to respond. In October 1994, when Lopes belatedly answered the defendant's interrogatories, he signed his client's name to the responses without disclosing that the signature was not Correia's. According to his testimony before the Hearing Committee, Lopes believed that he was authorized to sign his client's name to the answers. In March 1995, Mr. Correia attempted to mail a document to Lopes at Lopes' business address. Lopes had moved from his office without notifying his client, and Correia's letter was returned undelivered. In March 1995, Correia's discrimination case was decided adversely to Correia. Having failed to notify the court of his change of address, Mr. Lopes did not receive a copy of the court's decision. Mr. Correia ultimately learned of the court's disposition of his case by contacting the judge's chambers.