Court Opinion

ID: 9703702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:05:31.808456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:51.297375
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: I concur in the result reached in this case, but I disagree with the majority’s characterization of the respondent’s conduct as “considerably less egregious” (115 Ill. 2d at 504) than that found in In re Levinson (1978), 71 Ill. 2d 486. In both cases, the initial misconduct was similar. Levinson neglected an adoption case and misstated the facts to his clients. Here, the respondent neglected a worker’s compensation case and misstated the facts to his client. Following complaints to the Administrator of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, Levinson neglected the resulting disciplinary proceedings until after the court entered an order approving the report and recommendations of the Review Board. He then offered as an excuse for his neglect the extended illness of his son, who had passed away a little more than a month prior to the order. He also failed to pay the annual attorney’s registration fee. In the present case, the respondent failed to respond to the Commission’s complaints, subpoenas, notices of depositions and notices to produce documents and failed to attend the initial proceeding before the Hearing Board. When he did respond to the complaint made by his client to the .Administrator, he did so in such a way that he was later found guilty by the Hearing Board of making false statements to the Administrator with the intent to obstruct the disciplinary investigation. The acts of misconduct of the respondents in both In re Levinson and the present case are egregious. The real difference between the two cases is that in In re Levinson there is no indication that the respondent had been charged with any prior acts of misconduct. In the case before us, the respondent has been suspended from the practice of law on two occasions before this, once for failing to finalize an adoption and for failing to conclude the administration of a decedent’s estate and a second time for failing to comply with a subpoena duces tecum issued by the Commission for the production of documents relating to the matters of three additional clients. Because the respondent here is being suspended from the practice of law for two years as opposed to the six months and until further order of court suspension ordered in In re Levinson, I concur in the result reached by the majority. I would not, however, depreciate the seriousness of the respondent’s conduct by characterizing it as “considerably less egregious” (115 Ill. 2d at 504) than that found in In re Levinson.