No Answer to Grievance Committee Letters on Failure to Appear at Guardianship Proceedings Gets Lawyer Suspended

The First Department appeals panel granted an attorney grievance committee’s motion to suspend the lawyer based on his failure to cooperate with an investigation into professional misconduct allegations against him.

By Jason Grant

Photo:roberthyrons

A New York lawyer has been suspended from practicing law after not answering at least five grievance committee letters regarding a guardianship-related complaint that said he never appeared for court proceedings aimed at discharging him as the guardian for an incapacitated person who had died.

Kavin L. Edwards—who according to Avvo.com practices real estate law, apparently as a solo practitioner—has been suspended pending further court order by an Appellate Division, First Department panel.

The panel, in a unanimous decision, granted the First Department attorney grievance committee’s motion to suspend Edwards based on his failure to cooperate with the committee’s investigation into professional misconduct allegations against him.

Edwards did not submit a response to the grievance committee’s motion, the panel noted.

Attempts to reach Edwards for comment Tuesday were not successful.

Angela Christmas, a First Department grievance committee spokeswoman, also couldn’t be reached.

In reciting facts in the opinion, which it appears were conveyed by the grievance committee, the First Department panel pointed out that the committee has also become aware of “a second guardianship matter in which [Edwards] failed to file a final accounting pursuant to court rules, and he repeatedly failed to appear for scheduled compliance dates.”

In addition, the panel explained, again reciting committee-presented facts, that although Edwards did appear at an August 2018 deposition before the committee, he failed in November and December 2018 to show up for a deposition continuation.

He also has allegedly still not answered the original guardianship complaint made in January 2018 by Bronx Supreme Court guardianship department compliance referee John D’Alessandro, the panel wrote. The panel noted that as of the grievance committee’s January 29, 2019 motion date, the committee still hadn’t heard from Edwards.

D’Alessandro’s complaint kicked off the grievance committee’s 2018 efforts to reach Edwards for answers, the panel’s opinion said.

The panel of Justices John Sweeny, Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, Cynthia Kern, Jeffrey Oing and Anil Singh also noted—while again citing the presented facts—that Edwards had been appointed as the guardian for the incapacitated person in June 2015.

In January 2018, D’Alessandro sent the committee a complaint saying the client had passed away, and Edwards “had repeatedly failed to appear in court in connection with proceedings to discharge him as her guardian even though he was notified by letter, telephone and court order,” the panel wrote citing presented facts.

The next month, the committee asked Edwards by letter to respond to the complaint. It used an Office of Court Administration-listed address for him, the panel said, citing the facts.

That first letter was returned as undeliverable, but then the committee discovered a new address for Edwards, on Seventh Avenue, the panel said.

In April and May, the committee sent additional letters and in one advised Edwards “of 22 NYCRR 1240.9(a) and citing precedent that provided for suspension of attorneys who failed to cooperate with the Committee,” the panel wrote, still citing the presented facts.

In July 2018, the committee subpoenaed Edwards for a deposition. He later appeared pro se and was directed again “to provide an answer to D’Alessandro’s complaint and reminded … that, if he was needed to appear for a subsequent examination under oath, the subpoena remained in effect throughout the duration of the case,” the panel also wrote.

In suspending Edwards, the panel wrote that he “has repeatedly failed to submit an answer to the [compliance referee’s] complaint and has not appeared for a continuation of his deposition, even though he was advised of the possible need for a subsequent deposition under this Court’s subpoena.”

“Additionally, he has defaulted on this motion seeking his interim suspension,” the panel continued, adding that “such conduct demonstrates a willful noncompliance with a Committee investigation and warrants his immediate suspension,” citing Matter of Matic, 165 AD3d 45; Matter of Morgado, 159 AD3d 50; Matter of Spencer, 148 AD3d 223; and Matter of Raum, 141 AD3d 198.

Edwards was admitted to the state bar in 2006, the decision noted.

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No Answer to Grievance Committee Letters on Failure to Appear at Guardianship Proceedings Gets Lawyer Suspended