Court Opinion

ID: 9851254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:09:31.005228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:52.247248
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree petitioner should be disciplined. I respectfully dissent, however, to that portion of the majority opinion imposing an actual suspension of only 60 days. Petitioner was admitted to the bar in 1974, and shortly thereafter, in 1976, began what was to be a pattern of professional misconduct. After cataloging these numerous instances, and acknowledging these incidents were “neither isolated nor minor” (ante, p. 593), the majority finds a two-month period of actual suspension to be adequate discipline. I disagree.
Petitioner’s apparent progress in dealing with his alcoholism is encouraging and is a proper factor for this court to consider in determining the *594discipline to be imposed. (Tenner v. State Bar (1980) 28 Cal.3d 202, 207 [168 Cal.Rptr. 333, 617 P.2d 486].) Nonetheless, our duty is to assure the protection of the public, the bench and the bar in light of all relevant circumstances. (Doyle v. State Bar (1982) 32 Cal.3d 12, 23 [184 Cal.Rptr. 720, 648 P.2d 942].) Petitioner’s acts of misconduct occurred over a long period of time and involved several separate clients and several separate misdeeds. Though petitioner has participated in followup care from his hospital rehabilitation program, and is attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, he has yet to demonstrate a sustained period of successful rehabilitative effort. (Compare Tenner, supra, at p. 207.) At the time petitioner testified before the State Bar panel, the 70-day period of sobriety he had then completed was the longest he had sustained in the last 25 years. In contrast, in Tenner, the bar had before it evidence of almost three years of successful treatment efforts for the attorney’s alcohol problem. (Id. at pp. 205-206.)
An attorney’s recognition of his alcohol problem alone is not sufficient assurance that future misconduct will not occur. (See Tarver v. State Bar (1984) 37 Cal.3d 122, 134 [207 Cal.Rptr. 302, 688 P.2d 911] [disbarment imposed despite petitioner’s alcoholism offered as a factor in mitigation].) Petitioner admittedly has also, unlike the attorney in Tarver, acknowledged responsibility, and expressed remorse for his misconduct. Nonetheless, given the significant degree of misconduct, and in view of the fact that the usual discipline for this kind of breach is disbarment (Bradpiece v. State Bar (1974) 10 Cal.3d 742, 747 [111 Cal.Rptr. 905, 518 P.2d 337] [“The usual discipline imposed for such a breach (misappropriation) is disbarment, in the absence of strong mitigating circumstances ”]), I believe that a longer period of actual suspension than the 60 days imposed by the majority, followed by a closely supervised probation period, will emphasize to petitioner the seriousness of his misdeeds, and afford the most protection to the interests at issue. (See Finch v. State Bar (1981) 28 Cal.3d 659 [170 Cal.Rptr. 629, 621 P.2d 253] [six months’ actual suspension]; Demain v. State Bar (1970) 3 Cal.3d 381 [90 Cal.Rptr. 420, 475 P.2d 652] [same].)
Reynoso, J., and Lew, J.,* concurred.

 Assigned by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.