Court Opinion

ID: 9730422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:11:52.639139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:06.356154
License: Public Domain

Nolan, J.
(dissenting). Suspension from the practice of law is too harsh a sanction to impose in this case. The respondent’s conduct, while undeniably improper and in contravention of S.J.C. Rule 3:07, Canon 1, DR 1-102 (A) (5) and (6), as appearing in 382 Mass. 769 (1981), does not approach the level of unethical behavior for which the sanction of suspension is properly reserved. In my opinion, a public censure would have addressed this situation adequately and responsibly. Indeed, the hearing committee of the Board of Bar Overseers (board) and bar counsel rejected the suggestion that the respondent’s misconduct subjected him to license suspension, and they jointly recommended that this matter be concluded by a public censure — a less severe, but certainly not inconsequential or ineffective disciplinary measure. The court’s rejection of the board’s informed recommendation is not warranted in this case. See Matter of Alter, 389 Mass. 153, 157-158 (1983) (recomendations of the board and bar counsel should be accorded substantial deference on appeal).
What we consider here is an isolated instance of indiscretion in an otherwise unimpeachable forty-year devotion to the system of justice.1 This single error, when viewed in the context of the respondent’s long and distinguished career, does not qualify as a basis for suspending the respondent’s license to practice law. Cf. Matter of Saab, 406 Mass. 315, *559326 (1989) (long-standing and continuous pattern of unethical conduct warranted sanction of suspension from practice). To be sure, the ruling does not comport, as it should, see Matter of the Discipline of an Attorney, 392 Mass. 827, 834 (1984) (court should strive to ensure that the dispositions in discipline cases are not “markedly disparate”), with disciplinary measures approved or imposed by this court in past cases, most notably Matter of Ryan, S.J.C. BD 90-15 (1990). In Ryan, a single justice considered the discipline to be imposed on a district attorney for his improper ex parte communication with a judge regarding the merits of a case pending before that judge. The single justice recognized that “a single offense of this nature by a forty-year member of the Massachusetts Bar with a long and distinguished career of public service [did not merit] more than a private reprimand.”2 The instant case, in contrast, involves a less offensive ethical violation than Ryan (the present respondent was not found to have discussed the merits of a pending case with the judge), yet the court views it as meriting a far greater discipline. I do not agree with this “markedly disparate” treatment. Matter of the Discipline of an Attorney, supra.

 The respondent’s unblemished forty-year career as an attorney in this Commonwealth ought to weigh in the balance of the interests intended to be protected by this disciplinary proceeding, i.e., the effect of the sanction on the attorney and preservation of public confidence in the bar. Matter of Alter, 389 Mass. 153, 156 (1983). It is difficult to discern where this “important consideration” factored into today’s decision to suspend the respondent from the practice of law. Id.

 The Justice imposed a public reprimand in Ryan, however, since “the details of the respondent’s offense and the recommended sanctions [had] already become known to the public,” and the imposition of “the appropriate level of discipline” — private reprimand — would serve no realistic purpose.