Rule Change Allowing Discipline by Consent Proposed
The Disciplinary Board is requesting comments on a proposed change to Rule 215 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement, which would allow Disciplinary Counsel and a lawyer facing disciplinary inquiry to file a joint petition requesting Disciplinary Board approval for an agreed statement of charges and violations, and a joint recommendation for discipline.
Under the current rules, a disciplinary matter may be settled by agreement only if the lawyer consents to be disbarred. The rule change would provide a procedure to allow lesser levels of discipline to be approved by agreement. The agreement is a recommendation only. The request is reviewed by a panel of the Disciplinary Board, which may resolve a matter upon approval of an agreement for private discipline, or approve the reference of an agreement for public discipline to the Supreme Court. If either the Disciplinary Board or the Supreme Court rejects the agreed recommendation, the matter would go back before a hearing committee and be litigated as though there had never been any agreement, and the members of the Disciplinary Board who serve on a reviewing panel would not participate any further in the consideration of the case.
The rule changes proposes that if an agreement for public discipline is approved by the Disciplinary Board panel and the Supreme Court, the agreed discipline would be imposed, and only the order imposing the discipline and the joint petition would be matters of public record. Private discipline imposed on order of the Disciplinary Board after review by a panel would not be matters of public record.
The full text of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published at 34 Pa.B. 6130 on November 13, 2004, and is available online here. Comments are being accepted until January 7, 2005.