The ABA e-Journal discusses the plight of a former judge, now practicing law in Hawaii, facing disbarment for trying to impose penalties on clients who complain about him. Richard Y. S. Lee is “perturbed at the system.”
Terry Carter writes (excerpt):
Lee’s recent run-in with the ODC isn’t the first time he’s been called on by state officials to explain his actions. Because aggravation was an element in the ODC’s case, prosecutors were able to enter into evidence a string of private reprimands that had been issued against Lee, making them public for the first time. These informal admonishments were for improper administration of trust and business accounts; unreasonable fees and failure to tell clients the basis of fees; threatening criminal charges to gain advantage in a civil matter; charging a client for an initial consultation that had been advertised in the Yellow Pages as free; billing clients for time spent responding to ethics complaints they filed; and not keeping copies of bills and bookkeeping on hand for the required six years.
One previous ethical breach by Lee had been made public. In 1996, he received a public reprimand for handling a post-divorce custody dispute in a case he had handled as a judge before returning to private practice. Besides charging a “substantial retainer,” the ODC determined, Lee also got the client to sign over to him “exclusive media rights” to the client’s story in the post-divorce litigation. No story was ever published.
Guys like him (based on the allegations in the story) create the lawyer jokes we work so hard to dispel. Most lawyers are hard working professionals who go to bat for their clients. Most lawyers have no ethical complaints during their entire career, though certain areas of law (examples are in fact divorce and criminal) tend to get a higher incidence because of the nature of the outcomes (if you lose a custody battle or the client winds up in prison — even if you did the best job that could be done — the client is dissatisfied and strikes back with a grievance). The profession owes it to itself to police the unprofessional among it. If the reporting is accurate in this case, then more power to them limiting the ability of the offending lawyer from doing future damage to clients.