Court Opinion

ID: 9623599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:37:29.331807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:31.740484
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Chief Justice,
dissenting in part.
I agree with all aspects of the court’s opinion, except for the court’s imposition of a ninety-day suspension in the Zurich matter. To protect the public, and to insure that Triem is effectively rehabilitated, I would impose a six-month suspension.
This court has held that the American Bar Association’s Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions are an “appropriate model for determining sanctions for lawyer misconduct” in Alaska. In re Buckalew, 731 P.2d 48, 52 (Alaska 1986). The Standards provide in part that suspensions “should be for a period of time equal to or greater than six months.” American Bar Association Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions § 2.3 (1992) reprinted in Laws. Man. on Prof. Conduct (ABA/BNA) 01:810-11 (1995). Short-term suspensions “are not an effective means of protecting the public.” ABA Standards § 2.3 commentary, ABA/BNA at 01:811. Suspensions of at least six months help “insure that the attorney has been rehabilitated before he or she resumes practice.” Id. (“While it may be possible in some eases for a lawyer to show rehabilitation in less than six months, it is preferable to suspend a lawyer for at least six months in order to insure effective demonstration of rehabilitation.”).
In imposing a suspension, the court notes that probation and public censure have proven to be ineffective in influencing Triem’s conduct. I am skeptical a ninety-day suspension will succeed where probation and public censure have failed. A ninety-day suspension is not so much a substantial penalty as it is an unpaid vacation because it allows Triem merely to delay performing requested services.1 See id. (“In reality, a short-term suspension functions as a fine on the lawyer, and fines are not one of the recommended sanctions_”). If Triem’s misconduct is serious enough to warrant a suspension from practice, then he should be made to suffer the consequences of its actual cessation. A six-month suspension accomplishes this end.

. It is not clear to me what “circumstances of this case” suggest that a "ninety-day suspension will impose considerable hardship and will be a significant sanction for Triem, a solo practitioner in a small community.” I find no mitigators for "solo” practitioners, or practitioners in a “small community," advanced in the ABA Standards, nor are any readily apparent.