Court Opinion

ID: 9706806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:52:07.412694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:25.223840
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, C.J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with Justice Boyle’s analysis in this case. She has correctly stated the factors which should and do govern the determination whether a disbarred attorney should be readmitted to the profession in light of past misconduct and present rehabilitation, and she has persuasively analyzed how those factors should and do interact in the general sense.
With regard to the standard of review, I would add only that this Court’s precedents have been somewhat vague about the degree of deference that should be accorded, and to which body it should be accorded, when the Attorney Discipline Board happens to reverse a finding or conclusion of a hearing panel. We cannot apply the deferential "proper evidentiary support on the whole record” standard to the decisions of both bodies in that event, because it may well be that both decisions (even though contradictory) aré reasonable and supported by the evidence. I think our only recourse where the board and the panel *315disagree is to exercise somewhat greater scrutiny of the board’s decision, in order to ascertain whether the board itself properly accorded the panel all due deference.
I do not believe the board did so in this case. While the board purported to follow the correct standard of review, it appears to me that the board, in fact, simply substituted its judgment de novo for that of the panel. I do not see how it can be said that the panel’s denial of August’s petition lacks proper evidentiary support on the whole record. In light of the factors set forth by Justice Boyle, there is plainly ample evidence on this record from which the panel majority could reasonably conclude, as it did, that August does not, at this time, qualify for reinstatement under MCR 9.123(B)(7).
While Justice Boyle would take the entirely reasonable course of remanding this case to the hoard for reconsideration in light of her analysis, I believe the result of that analysis on the facts of this case is sufficiently clear that I would prefer to simply reverse the board’s decision and reinstate the hearing panel’s denial of August’s petition for reinstatement. Given the gravity of August’s prior criminal misconduct striking at the heart of the fair administration of justice, as weighed against his subsequent rehabilitation, I do not believe he can safely be recommended at this time to the people of Michigan as a person fit to reassume the singular trust and privilege of practicing law.
Given that a majority of this Court is not disposed to do more than remand this case to the board for reconsideration, however, I concur with. Justice Boyle’s analysis as the appropriate standard to guide the board’s reconsideration.