The Dangers Of Copy And Paste

The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the Disciplinary Review Board ("DRB") that a three-month suspension was the appropriate discipline for misconduct in two matters. The court reviewed two reports of the DRB that had proposed the suspension.

In one matter, the DRB found that the attorney's handling of a client's matter involved more than neglect. Rather, it reflected the attorney's "way of doing business."

The other matter, which involved a default and failure to cooperate by the attorney, led to some interesting comments by the DRB. The charges against the attorney appeared to be a "copy and paste" job from another complaint. The charges were inconsistent with respect to the gender of the grievant and the nature of the underlying case. The DRB rejected all charges in the matter save for the failure to cooperate.

Nothing wrong with using a prior charging document as a template. Just make sure you fix it up to accurately recite the allegations. (Mike Frisch)