Court Opinion

ID: 9899113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-15 21:00:40.438492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:43.188299
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 23-1819

        IN RE: TRISTAN W. GILLESPIE,

                            Respondent - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
        James K. Bredar, Chief District Judge. (1:21-mc-00014)

        Submitted: November 8, 2023                                 Decided: November 14, 2023

        Before KING, THACKER, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

        Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        Tristan Wade Gillespie, Appellant Pro Se.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Tristan W. Gillespie, an attorney, appeals the district court’s order adopting the

        disciplinary panel’s recommendation and suspending him for six months from practice

        before the District of Maryland. We vacate and remand for further proceedings.

               After a two-year investigation, the disciplinary panel found that Gillespie had

        violated the Maryland Attorneys’ Rules of Professional Conduct (“MARPC”), to which all

        attorneys barred in the District of Maryland must adhere. Specifically, the panel found that

        Gillespie (1) failed to adequately communicate with his clients and keep them reasonably

        informed, as required by MARPC 19-301.2 and 19-301.4; (2) failed to act with candor

        towards district courts across the country, as required by MARPC 19-303.3; and (3) failed

        to act with fairness and candor towards opposing counsel during settlement negotiations,

        as required by MARPC 19-303.4 and 19-304.1. The district court adopted the panel’s

        recommendation and suspended Gillespie for six months.

               On appeal, Gillespie contends that neither the panel nor the district court gave him

        notice that he was subject to discipline based on the panel’s finding that he failed to

        adequately communicate with his clients or keep them reasonably informed. Gillespie

        argues that, by not fully investigating the facts underlying this charge, the panel and district

        court made factual errors concerning whether his clients were in fact reasonably informed

        and involved in their own cases.

               “Whether a litigant was afforded due process is a legal question that is reviewed de

        novo.” U.S. Tr. v. Delafield, 57 F.4th 414, 419 (4th Cir. 2023), petition for cert. docketed,

        No. 22-1215 (U.S. June 16, 2023). Due process requires that “a lawyer facing suspension

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        or disbarment [be] entitled to notice of the charges for which such discipline is sought and

        an opportunity to be heard on those issues.” Id. at 416.

               The Supreme Court has explained that attorney disciplinary proceedings are “of a

        quasi-criminal nature.” In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544, 551 (1968). “The charge[s] must be

        known before the proceedings commence.” Id. Disciplinary proceedings constitute “a trap

        when, after they are underway, the charges are amended on the basis of testimony of the

        accused.” Id.; see also id. at 550-51 (determining that attorney “had no notice that his

        employment of [an individual] would be considered a disbarment offense until after both

        he and [the individual] had testified at length on all the material facts pertaining to this

        phase of the case”); Nell v. United States, 450 F.2d 1090, 1093 (4th Cir. 1971) (reversing

        district court’s suspension of attorney when “[he] was never made sufficiently aware, until

        the hearing itself, of the charge against him”). Though due process does not require that

        an attorney be informed of the precise professional rules that he is alleged to have violated,

        he must receive adequate notice “of the conduct for which he was being accused and the

        sanctions that were being sought.” Delafield, 57 F.4th at 420.

               We conclude that the district court failed to provide adequate notice to Gillespie of

        its intent to rely on the adequacy of his communication with, and representation of, his

        clients as part of its determination of whether to discipline him. Our review of the record

        reveals that the disciplinary panel first expressed concerns about the scarcity of Gillespie’s

        communications with his clients at an evidentiary hearing.              However, neither the

        disciplinary panel nor the district court ever explicitly notified Gillespie that this conduct

        could subject him to discipline. Moreover, given the lack of notice, Gillespie did not have

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        an opportunity to respond to this client-focused charge before the panel’s recommendation.

        Because “charges [may not be] amended on the basis of testimony of the accused,” In re

        Ruffalo, 390 U.S. at 551, we cannot find harmless the district court’s failure to provide

        Gillespie with adequate notice that his communications with his clients, or the lack thereof,

        were a subject of potential discipline. *

               Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s suspension order and remand for further

        proceedings. We grant Gillespie’s motion to file a supplemental brief, and we deny as

        moot his motion to further accelerate this appeal and to unseal documents. We dispense

        with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the

        materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                   VACATED AND
                                                                                     REMANDED

               *
                  On appeal, Gillespie contends that the district court also failed to provide him
        adequate notice of its intent to discipline him based on the panel’s finding that his
        settlement demands were misleading to opposing counsel, specifically because the
        demands suggested that Gillespie’s clients owed attorney’s fees when, in reality, his clients
        owed fees only if the cases settled. In the disciplinary panel’s view, Gillespie’s settlement
        demands misled opposing counsel into believing that his clients owed attorney’s fees that
        the clients had never actually incurred. Our review of the record, however, confirms that
        the Gillespie received ample notice that the panel was concerned with the misleading nature
        of his settlement demands and agreements. Thus, we reject this claim.

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