Thursday, March 14, 2013

Claiming the client made you do it will not save your license

The Legal Profession blog is reporting on a case that reiterates an important lesson for all lawyers.  Lawyers can't blame their clients for misconduct.  Lawyers have a duty to exercise independent professional judgment which, in some cases, may require the lawyer to quit, get rid of a client, talk the client out of a proposed course of action or taking other preventive or remedial measures.

In this new case, the disciplinary authorities believed the attorney when he testified that he was "used" or "led down the wrong path" by his employer, which the lawyer characterized as an unscrupulous real estate development company.  The lawyer testified that, among other things, the client forged his name on checks. The lawyer testified to his remorse, his efforts to make his victims whole, and the fact that he did not misappropriate any funds for his personal use and realized no monetary gain from the subject transactions.

That was all fine, but the attorney was still suspended for two years by the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department. The court noted that the lawyer knew that his conduct was improper but took no action to blow the whistle or to step down from his position as in-house counsel with the company. Rather, he knowingly allowed his services to be used by another to perpetrate a fraud.

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