(Reuters)
- Leaders of the State Bar of California said Monday that they have
implemented changes to the Office of Chief Trial Counsel, which
investigates and prosecutes attorney disciplinary matters, with more
reforms on the way.
Those
efforts include increasing staff, including the addition of a full-time
administrator and a forensic auditor, and increasing pay for outside
lawyers hired to investigate attorney complaints.
The
office is also rolling out new ways to proactively identify potential
lawyer misconduct instead of relying solely on complaints, officials
added at a press conference highlighting the changes.
The
bar will seek to identify attorney misconduct risk factors, then
provide support for lawyers before they get into trouble, said state bar
executive director Leah Wilson.
“This
move into proactive regulation is new for the bar,” she said. But she
and other bar leaders acknowledged that it will take more than minor
changes to rebuild public trust in their organization.
Each
state is responsible for regulating lawyer conduct. California has the
second-largest population of lawyers behind New York, and its
disciplinary system has been beset by years of critical audits and
high-profile scandals, in particular surrounding the downfall of
prominent plaintiffs’ lawyer Tom Girardi.
Girardi, who is accused
by a rival law firm of using settlement funds meant for the families of
victims of the 2018 Lion Air crash to fund a lavish lifestyle, was the
subject of numerous complaints over the past four decades, but the bar
allowed him to keep his license. The bar ordered an outside investigation of its handling of complaints against Girardi, who was disbarred in June.
State
audits have for years raised red flags about delays in attorney
misconduct investigations, case backlogs and low rates of discipline.
The latest audit
found that the bar too often resolves allegations of lawyer misconduct
behind closed doors and does not consistently address conflicts of
interest with lawyers who come under investigation.
Bar
leaders said Monday that they are implementing the audit’s
recommendations for improvements. They also said they are looking to
address racial disparities in attorney discipline, as well as the
perception that the bar is reluctant to pursue disciplinary charges
against lawyers at large firms.
“While
we have done much, let me be clear. We have more work to do” to reform
the disciplinary system, Ruben Duran, chair of the bar's board of
trustees, said Monday.
The South Florida lawyers on the Florida Bar’s monthly discipline report
include a convicted fraudster, both name partners of one law firm and
an attorney who seems to have trouble putting things in writing.
Though the last two discipline reports from the Florida Bar included a
relatively light combined total of 19 attorneys combined, the stories
behind the disbarments and suspensions have a little more weight.
There’s at least over $1 million in
“misappropriated funds,” some of which went to Heat tickets. Lawyers
victimized by fraud and lawyers who participated in fraud. And attorneys
who took the money and, if not ran, disappeared, at least
professionally.
So, below in Part 1 are the alphabetical first 10 of the 19. The remaining nine will be in Part 2, which will post Monday.
▪ Golden
Beach attorney Jeremy Alters, admitted 1997 out of UM School of Law,
jumped in the deep end of trouble over improper transfers from Alters,
Boldt, Brown, Rash and Culmo’s trust account to the operating account.
The Bar alleged that forty-nine such
transfers occurred, totaling approximately $2,051,474.32, between
September 2009 and December 2010. The Court approved the Bar’s Petition
for Emergency Suspension and suspended Alters from the practice of law
on December 28, 2011.
The Referee found that Alters
should be reinstated because there was “no basis to conclude that Alters
had made or authorized the improper transfers, and that no clients had
been injured by the improper transfers.”
When the Florida Supreme Court
reinstated Alters in January 2012, the Bar filed another complaint
alleging Alters violated six Bar rules regarding the transfers. The
Referee opined that Alters not be further sanctioned, but that he pay
the Bar’s administrative costs ($1,250) while the Bar pays Alters’ legal
defense costs ($143,913.35).
The Bar challenged everything in the Referee’s Report but the ink and asked the State Supreme Court to disbar Alters.
The Court found the Referee
improperly excluded evidence that Alters lied about his personal tax
status and called the Referee’s Report “inadequate.” Not only did the
Court find the Referee came to “only the most basic conclusions from the
summarized testimony, and oftentimes has failed to make any findings
regarding undisputed evidence in the case,” but noted the findings of
fact were only four pages of the 71-page report.
“It is inconceivable that the
facts of such a complicated case, which has taken years to litigate and
the record of which spans thousands of pages, could be reduced to four
pages.”
The Court ultimately found that Alters misappropriated client funds and “must be disbarred.”
The Bar’s auditor testified at the final hearing
before the Referee that in addition to funds slid straight to Alters, he
used trust fund money to cover firm expenses and overdrafts and
personal expenses. Among those personal expenses: Miami Heat tickets.
▪ Orlando’s
Elizabeth Anderson, a Stetson Law School graduate admitted in 2003,
Stetson, has been suspended since Nov. 7 for trust account shortages of
$160,000, most of which were in two accounts.
A bar audit found a shortage of
$37,000 in the trust account at Seaside Bank that The Anderson Law
Group used for matters involving Stoneybrook West Master Association.
“During her sworn statement on
August 1, 2018, respondent admitted to the shortage in her Seaside trust
account and stated that she would not have been able to pay the
balances she owed to Stoneybrook without obtaining either the loan from
her parents or using funds from her retirement account.”
The Bar’s audit also revealed
that there was a shortage of at least $122,330.62 in another trust
account at Fairwinds Credit Union.
From
this account, the Bar says in its Petition for Emergency Suspension,
she used settlement funds for a client to office rent, rent, herself,
American Express, and Florida Lawyers Mutual.
▪ John
Borland of Ocala started his suspension Dec. 28, but seems like he
suspended his law career well before that. The Bar says Borland
abandoned his law practice, client files, fell behind in his Bar fees
and continuing legal education credits and then ignored Bar inquiries
about all this. The Florida Coastal School of Law had been a Bar member
since 2006.
John Borland
The Florida Bar
▪ Aldo
Busot of Coral Gables has been disbarred. In handling a suit to collect
a promissory note, Busot neglected his duties, missed deadlines and
kept his client ignorant of the case’s progression. She learned he filed
for voluntary dismissal from a friend. Busot was suspended for three
years on April 19.
When Busot didn’t submit an affidavit with the
clients, tribunals and opposing lawyers notified of his suspension and
the names and addresses of people and businesses that got a copy of his
suspension order, the Cal Berkeley School of Law graduate was found in
contempt and disbarred. He’d been a member since 1987.
▪ West
Palm Beach attorney Richard Carey, a Bar member since 2009 out of the
University of Pittsburgh’s law school, served a 10-day suspension in
December. According to Carey’s guilty plea, non-lawyers at his Pinnacle
Land and Title handled a real estate sale that involved a fraudulent
court order. Carey said he was on vacation at the time. He tried to
rectify matters upon hearing of the problem and eventually reached a
settlement with the harmed party.
▪ Miami’s
Robert Dixon’s 90-day suspension in May for mishandling his trust
account and suffering a shortage in trust funds required he produce
trust account records from July 2015 to the present. The University of
Florida School of Law graduate, a Bar member since 2006, needed to do
this by June 24. Dixon came across with records June 25 that the Bar’s
auditor found a day late and several dollars short of accuracy — checks
that had cleared listed as outstanding, deposits that had cleared listed
as not having cleared. For this failure, Dixon received a public
reprimand.
▪ John
Eagen of Tallahassee, a Florida State law school man and Bar member
since 1990, served a 30-days suspension that ended Jan. 7. Eagen
continued to represent a defendant in Volusia County in January 2017
despite being ineligible to practice law. This got revealed after he
failed to show up for a scheduled hearing and didn’t tell the judge of
his status, even as the judge asked repeatedly over the phone, “Is there
anything else you want to tell me?”
Eagen was ineligible because he was delinquent
paying $2,500 restitution from a previous Bar discipline case involving
how he charged a client.
Federal judges in Orlando say they want to know why 16 attorneys have
repeatedly ignored rules about filing lawsuits over wheelchair access
to businesses in Central Florida.
And they are asking for ideas on
how to discipline those attorneys. U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton
recently opened a case ordering the 16 lawyers – mostly from the Miami area – to show why they shouldn’t be fined or banned from filing similar cases in the future.
Hundreds
of lawsuits have been filed in Orlando federal courts alleging that
local businesses violate the Americans with Disabilities Act – by not
having wheelchair ramps or wheelchair accessible bathrooms, for example.
Many of the attorneys filing such cases previously did the same in
South Florida federal courts.
The lawsuits most often settle after
businesses make a payment, and sometimes they agree to make changes to
their facilities, but business owners have said the feel like they’re
been extorted.
One
of the attorneys in question, Thomas B. Bacon of Cooper City, ran a law
firm that employed several attorneys on the list. The Sun-Sentinel
newspaper wrote about him in 2014. He told the newspaper then that “the
only people who enforce the ADA are these few plaintiffs and their
attorneys."
But the paper also quoted a Delray Beach code
enforcement officer saying that the lawsuits are purely a money-maker
and the attorneys are not concerned about compliance.
Bacon
couldn’t be reached for comment for this article. His phone number on
the Florida Bar’s website was disconnected, and the email address he
listed bounced back.
The Orlando judges who are handling the
discipline case said they have tried to be patient and inform the
attorneys about how to proceed, but they’ve become frustrated.
“Also disturbing is Counsel's repeated filing of vague,
boiler-plate complaints — often improperly joining multiple defendants —
that fail to comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” wrote
U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Irick, who is handling the matter.
Two
of the attorneys involved responded to the Orlando Sentinel’s
questions, Joshua Sheskin and Rafael Viego. Both said they had gone to
work for law firms doing ADA cases, and were overwhelmed by the number
of cases the firms tried to assign to them. Both said they quit as soon
as they could.
According to the judges’ order, more than 200
“negative” orders have been filed against the 16 attorneys. Following is
a list of the attorneys with the most negative orders, according to the
case:
Thomas B. Bacon, Cooper City, 61 negative orders; Philip M. Cullen, III, Fort Lauderdale,
31 negative orders; Fort Lauderdale; Aaron Finesilver, Miami, 23
negative orders; Miami; Christine N. Failey, St. Petersburg, 7 negative
orders; St. Petersburg; Barry S. Mittelberg, Coral Springs, 2 negative orders; Coral Springs; Ayesa Conger, Cutler Bay, 61 negative orders; Cutler Bay; Eric Matthew Rodriguez, Hollywood,
65 negative orders; Hollywood; Sheskin, Miami, 83 negative orders;
Miami; Mario Elias Lopez, Miami, 63 negative orders; Miami; Viego,
Miami, 56 negative orders; Nadine A. Brown, Winter Springs, 5 negative
orders; Andrew C. Enfield, Miami, 7 negative orders; William T.
Leveille, II, Miami, 23 negative orders; Michael Christine, Miami, 8
negative orders; Anthony J. Perez, Miami, 54 negative orders; Alfredo
Miguel Garcia-Menocal, Miami, 35 negative orders.
