Court Opinion

ID: 9758773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:44:32.318347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:55.566073
License: Public Domain

BELSON, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I join in the majority opinion, except with respect to sanction. I agree with the majority that the sanction for the two respondent attorneys should be equal. In my opinion, however, the sanction of suspension for a year and a day is too severe in light of the respondents’ previously unblemished records.
This court is the final arbiter of Bar disciplinary sanctions. Our rules reflect our decision to accord great weight to the sanction recommendations of the Board on Professional Responsibility.1 In a case like this where the sanction issue is novel, it is instructive to take note also of the recommendations of the other participants in the disciplinary process. In this proceeding, the Hearing Committee recommended that both respondents merely be reprimanded. The Bar Counsel took the position that they should be publicly censured. The four-member minority of the Board also recommended that both attorneys receive public censure. Turning to the Board, its five-member majority recommended that respondent Reback be suspended for a year and a day — but based that recommendation in part on a holding that we reject, that is, that Reback was guilty of a violation of D.R. 7-101(A)(l), intentional failure to seek client’s lawful objectives. As to respondent Parsons, the Board recommended a *244suspension of only 30 days. Compared with the recommendations, then, of all those called upon to express an opinion until now, the majority’s imposition of a suspension of a year and a day on both respondents is severe.
I agree with the majority that we are dealing with a matter of first impression. None of our precedents in the area of bar discipline deals with an instance in which an attorney has falsely signed a pleading which was then filed with the court. This case will be a precedent by which any similar violations in the future will be measured. That circumstance counsels that we proceed not simply with severity, but upon a careful weighing of both the nature of the misconduct and the records of the attorneys involved. We have stated that the fact that an attorney has had no prior disciplinary actions is “highly relevant and material” to the determination of the sanctions. In re Cope, 455 A.2d 1357, 1361 (D.C.1983). It follows that we should not treat the respondents with a degree of severity which is not due them in consideration of their previously unblemished records, simply for the purpose of making an “example” of them and thereby deterring like conduct in the future by respondents or others.
After noting that the case before us is one of first impression, the majority arrives at a sanction principally by reference to the case of In re Ferrell, U.S.D.Ct., D.C.Misc. No. 28-68, in which the respondent was suspended indefinitely from practice by the United States District Court after being convicted of forgery and uttering in that court.2 That precedent affords little guidance here. Since Ferrell’s suspension was of indefinite duration, it is not helpful with respect to the length of any suspension to be imposed here. Moreover, Ferrell’s conviction, of itself, furnished a sufficient basis for suspension or disbarment.3 Thus, the United States District Court was not required, as we are, to give weight to the respondent’s professional record in determining the proper sanction.
The majority links this case to Ferrell by concluding, precipitously, that if a jury should convict respondents of forgery and uttering, this court would undoubtedly sustain their convictions. D.C.Code § 22-1401 (1981). The majority acknowledges the existence of a justiciable controversy over whether respondents had the specific intent to defraud. I note that there is not only a fact issue with respect to their specific intent, but also the legal issue of whether the filing of a second complaint, identical to an original complaint authorized by the client, could be found capable of prejudicing the client’s interests.
Relevant to the issue of prejudice is the fact that Reback and Parsons could have obtained the same result in their client’s case by filing a motion to vacate the dismissal of the complaint for divorce and to reinstate the complaint. If granted, that motion could scarcely be said to have prejudiced their client’s interest. I note this only to raise the question. The issues of criminal responsibility raised here have not been fully briefed by the parties, nor could they have been on this record. They cannot and should not be settled here. It is enough to say, as the Board did, that respondents’ actions were possibly criminal.
I emphasize that in dissenting with respect to sanction, I do not mean to minimize the seriousness of respondents’ mis*245conduct.4 The courts, the public, and the profession have the right to expect honesty of members of the Bar. Respondents’ conduct with respect to the divorce complaint was intolerable. It calls for a substantial sanction.
To determine what that sanction should be in this matter of first impression, we must look to the purposes of Bar discipline. We have identified those purposes as avoiding “erosion of public confidence in the profession,” “protection of the public from generally incompetent or unethical lawyers, and deterrence by example.” In re Kleindienst, 345 A.2d 146, 147 (D.C.1975). We have similarly described the purpose of discipline as being “to protect the public, the courts and the legal profession.” In re Haupt, 422 A.2d 768, 771 (D.C.1980); In re Smith, 403 A.2d 296, 303 (D.C.1979). The discipline meted out must also reflect the nature of the misconduct, and any mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Haupt, supra at 771.
It seems clear that the protection of the interests we have identified does not require permanent removal of respondents from practice. Thus, their temporary suspension will be for the purpose of deterring such future misconduct by respondents or others, and to assure the public that it can be confident that the profession is doing what is necessary to prevent misbehavior of the sort in question. I submit that a suspension of 6 months will serve those goals.
Let us examine first the effect of such discipline upon respondents. They have been humiliated already by their error and have been contrite and cooperative throughout the disciplinary process. Coming after 15 years and 30 years of unblemished professional performance, respectively, by attorneys Parsons and Reback, the experience of this proceeding together with a 6-month suspension would surely deter them from any similar misconduct in the future. Other members of our profession would realize from this unhappy proceeding that falsely signing a document and filing it with the court is a serious offense, and that if lawyers with such long and unsullied professional careers are suspended for 6 months for such conduct, offending lawyers who had previously been disciplined would face a sanction of correspondingly greater severity. The impact of that discipline would serve the goal of protecting the public. Interested members of the public who looked at the consequences of the discipline could be expected to recognize the adequacy of the sanction.
Respondents are the only members of a two-lawyer firm. Respondent Parsons is apparently a member of the District of Columbia Bar only. A suspension of 6 months would require him to arrange for other counsel to go forward with his existing cases and would undoubtedly cause a substantial disruption of his practice. That sanction is severe enough to accomplish the avowed purposes of discipline. The majority sanction of suspension for a year and a day will be devastating. It must be remembered that a suspension of that length requires one to reapply for permission to practice. Disciplinary Rule XI § 21(1), (5). It does not terminate of itself when its period has run. Therefore, the resultant term of suspension will be far longer than a year and a day. A suspension of that length can be expected to obliterate Mr. Parsons’ practice. The same considerations apply in the case of respondent Re-back, mitigated only by the fact that he *246apparently is a member of the Maryland Bar also, and some delay could be expected in reciprocal discipline.
Whether the discipline imposed by this court is a 6-month suspension or a suspension of a year and a day, this case will have alerted not only respondents but our entire Bar and the public of the seriousness of the misconduct involved here. Either sanction would serve all of the recognized purposes of Bar discipline. Respondents’ prior good records should lead us to impose the least onerous sanction that will serve those purposes. Because the majority’s sanction is far more severe than necessary, I respectfully dissent.

. D.C. Bar Rule XI, § 7(3).

. The records of the United States District Court disclose that Ferrell was suspended by order dated July 26, 1968. The suspension was made effective pending his appeal of his criminal conviction. No subsequent order of the United States District Court altered his status. Neither the records of the United States District Court nor the records of his reinstatement proceeding in this court, M-16-75, reveal whether the fact that Ferrell was not subsequently disbarred was the result of a decision or, as the majority surmises, was inadvertent.

. D.C.Code § 11-2103 (1967). This was so even though the statute then in force, unlike the present statute, § 11-2503 (1981), did not make disbarment mandatory upon conviction of an offense involving moral turpitude.

. Respondents’ serious misconduct has to do with the signing, notarizing and filing of the complaint. A first instance of neglect, of itself, normally warrants only a reprimand or censure. In re Mailloux, Bar Docket No. 66-79 (BPR June 14, 1981) (attorney neglect of client’s lawsuit, resulting in dismissal for want of prosecution, warranted reprimand); In re Roundtree, Bar Docket No. 31-76 (BPR September 29, 1978) (attorney reprimanded for neglecting to file notice of claim which resulted in dismissal of subsequent suit); In re Rosenthal, Bar Docket No. 118-77 (BPR July 21, 1978) (attorney reprimanded for failing to file landlord/tenant action on behalf of client); In re Mizel, No. 18-75 (D.C. December 17, 1975) (attorney censured for neglect which resulted in dismissal of a suit for want of prosecution).