Court Opinion

ID: 9696689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:55:27.104299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:25.570281
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
CATHELL, Judge.
I concur with the findings of the majority. I dissent, however, from the imposition of the sanction imposed by the majority, i.e., an indefinite suspension with the right to reapply after one year. As the majority succinctly points out, respondent has been sanctioned previously for similar negligence, incompetence, and lack of diligence on four separate occasions.
In the present case, arising itself out of three different complaints, the hearing judge found, and the majority concurs, that he exhibited incompetence, lack of diligence, and failure to communicate with his client in the Robertshaw matter; lack of diligence and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the Paulk matter; and that respondent had failed to place an unearned fee in a separate escrow account, had committed conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the Ponto case.
If disbarment is not warranted in this case for these types of issues, with a respondent with this history, it will never be warranted. If it is never going to be warranted in these types of cases, we should modify the rules to say so. I would disbar.