An Insult To Bare Bones Motions Everywhere

The Ohio Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney who had a high volume practice of personal injury, immigration and criminal matters. As recenty as 2009, he had handled over a thousand matters a year.

The court found that the attorney had taken advantage of vulnerable clients and concluded that disbarment was the appropriate sanction:

The scope and magnitude of [the attorney's] misconduct, encompassing fraud, gross neglect, duplicity, incompetence, and the fleecing of clients, are truly egregious. We have little trouble concluding that nothing less than [his] disbarmentwill protect the public and maintain the integrity of the profession.

In one matter, the attorney filed a motion to reopen consisting of three sentences. The panel's analysis:

To call [his] motion to reopen "bare bones" is too give it too much credit.

(Mike Frisch)