Court Opinion

ID: 9714105
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:30:45.584211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:23.445206
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join in the Court’s findings and conclusions about Robert Lehman’s violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct. I disagree about the sanction. Simply put, Lehman prepared an agreement providing for a one-third contingent fee if the ease was settled before the pre-trial conference. Actually, Lehman wanted about a 50% fee. He expected the lienholders to pay him their pro rata one-third of their liens and he wanted the client to pay him a third of the gross recovery. Lehman worked pretty hard to keep the client from knowing what he intended to charge for his services. If Lehman had told the client in the beginning that he would charge a minimum fee of one-half, the client might well have shopped around. Instead, the client learned only from his union how much Lehman had kept for himself.
I think Lehman’s behavior was-intentionally surreptitious, and I would suspend him for it.