Court Opinion

ID: 9746340
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:12:51.41175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:12.359377
License: Public Domain

BELSON, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but write separately because, in my view, the majority averts its attention from the record’s clear and convincing evidence that respondent violated DR 7-101(A)(3).
In its footnote 2, the majority notes that the Board on Professional Responsibility rejected the Hearing Committee’s conclusion that respondent had violated DR 7-101(A)(3) (“A lawyer shall not intentionally • • • [prejudice or damage his client during the course of the professional relation-ship_”). While the majority neither explicitly approves nor disapproves of the Board’s recommendation on this issue, I believe that the evidence on record establishes clearly that the Hearing Committee’s conclusion was correct.
In the division opinion in In re Reback, 487 A.2d 235 (D.C.1985) (per curiam), adopted in relevant part, 513 A.2d 226, 229 (D.C.1986) (en banc), we held that the test for an “intentional” failure to seek a client’s lawful objectives under DR 7-101(A)(1) was whether the attorney was “demonstrably aware” of his or her neglect, or whether the neglect “was so pervasive that [the attorney] must have been aware of it.” Reback, supra, 487 A.2d at 240. The same test should apply in determining, under the same disciplinary rule, whether an attorney intentionally prejudiced his or her client.
Applying this test, I would conclude that respondent was “demonstrably aware” that his failure timely to move for a new trial and to appeal prejudiced his client. By agreeing that respondent violated DR 7-101(A)(1) and (A)(2), the majority has already accepted the conclusion that respondent was consciously aware of his failure to act. Furthermore, it is undisputed that *1249respondent was aware of the early deadlines for filing a motion for a new trial and an appeal, and indeed had stressed to his client in writing the imminence of the former. The meeting of those deadlines was crucial to the client’s prospects of obtaining redress. Given his knowing and conscious failure to act in the face of foreclosure of his client’s options, there can be little room for doubt that respondent was “demonstrably aware” of the prejudice to his client.
In sum, I would decline to adopt the Board’s recommendation in part, and would hold that respondent violated DR 7-101(A)(3). This additional holding would not lead me to differ with the majority’s conclusion that respondent’s course of conduct deserves the sanction recommended by the Board.