| Case Digest |
Respondent was charged with 20 counts of Unauthorized Practice of Law. Respondent was additionally charged with failing to adequately represent and communicate with his clients in his representation of their Personal Injury matter. The underlying facts were that from January 2, 1998 through June 14, 1998 Respondent was on inactive status for failure to pay his annual license fee. Knowing he was on inactive status Respondent continued to practice law and represent clients. Additionally Respondent was retained by a couple to represent them in a Personal Injury matter. Several arbitrations were scheduled in the matter and each time Respondent failed to notify his clients and failed to appear for the hearing. Each time the case was dismissed and each time Respondent would re-file the case in a repetitive cycle. Respondent also failed to provide his clients with documents and failed to cooperate with the client’s new counsel in the transfer of the client’s file. The Board issued a report and cited Respondent’s wide scope of unauthorized practice of law’; his misconduct in the Personal Injury representation ;
and his prior history of two informal admonitions as support for its recommendation of a suspension of a year and a day. After consideration of the Board Report, the Supreme Court adopted the recommendation of the Hearing Committee and suspended Respondent for two years |
