No Message Left

The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department issued an order immediately suspending an attorney who had allowed a client's personal injury claim to be dismissed for failure to respond to discovery demands. The  client thereafter filed a disciplinary complaint and legal malpractice action against the lawyer. The lawyer failed to cooperate with the bar investigation ("No message could be left on respondent's answering machine since, according to the recorded message, '[t]here was no room...to record [a] message' " ) and had failed to pay the judgment entered in the malpractice case. The suspension will be in effect until the bar's case concludes and until further court order. (Mike Frisch)