2017 Investigative Summary 12

Investigation of Alleged Failure to Maintain Active Bar Membership; Unauthorized Practice of Law; Failure to Keep Client Informed

A DOJ component reported to OPR that for seven months a DOJ attorney failed to maintain an active membership status in the only state bar of which she was a member. When the attorney paid her annual bar registration fee, she requested that her status be changed to “inactive” and she remained in that status until the time she had to submit her annual DOJ certification of active bar status, when she had her status restored to “active.” OPR initiated an inquiry, which it converted to an investigation.

During the investigation, OPR discovered that the DOJ attorney had previously been suspended by her state bar for a four-month period because of her failure to comply with CLE requirements. The DOJ attorney claimed that she had converted her status to inactive because she reasoned that she was not practicing law in the state where she was a bar member, and that lower registration fees for inactive attorneys could save her money. She asserted that she only realized her mistake when she had to certify her active bar status, despite the fact that she had regularly certified her active bar status throughout the course of her more than 25 years of DOJ employment.

The DOJ attorney claimed to not have been aware of the prior suspension, although the state bar authority had sent numerous notices to her. OPR concluded that the DOJ attorney engaged in intentional professional misconduct by consciously and deliberately changing her bar  membership from active to inactive, knowing that the natural and probable consequence of doing so would be for her to violate the DOJ requirement that she maintain an active membership in at least one state bar.

OPR also concluded that the DOJ attorney engaged in professional misconduct by acting in reckless disregard of her DOJ obligation to maintain an active membership in at least one state bar, when she failed to meet her CLE obligations and consequently was temporarily suspended from the practice of law. OPR further concluded that, in each of the two instances when she did not have an active bar membership, the DOJ attorney engaged in intentional professional misconduct when, in violation of the rules prohibiting the unauthorized practice of law, she continued to practice law when she was not an active member of a bar, and when she knowingly failed to advise her supervisors that she was not an active member of at least one state bar.

OPR referred its findings to the PMRU, which upheld OPR’s findings of professional misconduct. The attorney resigned from government service. The PMRU directed OPR to refer its findings to the state bar, which OPR did.