Roy-based attorney disbarred for 3 years for not responding to clients, billing issues

Ryan Schaffer, left, appeared in court in Ogden with his lawyer Paul Remy on Monday, Feb. 23, 2015.
BENJAMIN ZACK/STANDARD-EXAMINER

OGDEN — A Roy-based attorney had his license to practice law suspended by an Ogden judge in December after a number of complaints were filed against him in past years, according to court records.

Paul Remy, who was licensed to practice law in Utah and Idaho, was disbarred for three years after a judge ruled that Remy had violated state rules for lawyers multiple times since 2011. The findings in the case were entered into court records on Dec. 19, 2018.

Court documents illustrate six cases where Remy, who has been licensed with the Utah State Bar since 2003, reportedly failed his clients. The complaint against Remy outlines a number of rules he broke while being paid by his clients, including failing to timely file court documents, failing to respond to his clients’ concerns, and collecting fees for meets he did not attend, among other complaints.

In one case, Remy represented a woman in a guardianship matter in 2014 and paid him as a retainer for his services. In January 2015, the court notified Remy that the case would be dismissed unless he filed a response. Remy filed a motion to extend the deadline, however, he did not file any response to the original motion. The case was later dismissed due to inactivity, and he failed to notify the woman that her case was dismissed.

Remy later claimed that he was relying on a paralegal to work on the woman’s case, but later learned the paralegal had not done the work.

In another case named in the report, a woman paid Remy to be on retainer for a bankruptcy matter in 2016. The two met for an initial consultation, but she did not hear back from Remy for over three months. She believed that Remy was still working on her case, but she was unable to meet with him and Remy did not return her phone calls in that time, the complaint says.

Remy’s assistant told the woman to stop by his office to sign some forms and release letters, and required that she pay hundreds for the office visit and forms. No bankruptcy forms were filed, and no work was done to stop creditor harassment, the woman said.

The office later charged her for an office visit that was cancelled. She requested a full refund from Remy’s office and only received part of the money back, the complaint says. By the time she contacted the state bar’s Office of Professional Conduct weeks later, Remy’s office had not sent the woman’s file back to her.

Two other cases would also culminate in complaints filed to the OPC. Those complaints would cause the office to send Remy NOICs, or a Notice of Informal Complaint, to which Remy was instructed to respond within a certain amount of time. In both of those cases, Remy failed to respond to the informal complaints, leading to a formal complaint being filed on Jan. 17, 2018.

During a Nov. 13, 2018 hearing to decide what Remy’s sanctions could be, he did not appear. Judge Mark DeCaria ruled at the hearing that Remy’s license be suspended for three years. A formal letter spelling out the details of Remy’s shortcomings as an attorney and his suspension was filed on Dec. 19, 2018.

Remy was also an accredited attorney in Idaho since 2001, but according to the Idaho State Bar, his license is currently inactive. A public reprimand was filed against Remy in 2017 by the Idaho State Bar, which reported that he took several-month gaps to respond to a civil suit on behalf of his client. The case was later dismissed due to inactivity. Remy told investigators that he relied on a paralegal to do the work in the case, and discovered after she was terminated that she had not done the work.

The public reprimand did not limit Remy’s ability to practice in Idaho, but as of January, his Idaho Bar status is listed as inactive.

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Roy-based attorney disbarred for 3 years for not responding to clients, billing issues