During the course of the case, Cunha alleged that Judge Gerald Adelman favored Jews in cases, noting that several officials involved in the court’s inquiry were Jewish, as well as discriminated against the disabled and, in this matter, was protecting child sexual abuse, Moukawsher wrote in his memorandum.
Thursday, October 10, 2024
The Fine Line
The Connecticut Superior Court Judicial Division of New Haven ordered consecutive suspensions of an attorney based on findings in three seperate presentments
There is a fine line between attorneys’ actions taken in the interest of zealous advocacy for the interests of their clients and reckless, inappropriate behavior that should be subject to sanctions. Not all that long ago, bombast and outright aggression were regularly employed by certain well-known members of the bar in an attempt to gain an advantage through intimidation, both of opposing lawyers and their clients. While most of the notable practitioners of this approach have since gone to their great reward, the legal profession still does not want for people who practice close to or over the line. In this case, the evidence before the court certainly gives rise to the conclusion that the Respondent was one of these lawyers. In evaluating the issues raised in this presentment, the court must determine on which side of the line the Respondent’s behavior lies in each particular situation.
A footnote on gender
The court is aware that a professional double standard exists whereby women who exhibit these tendencies are viewed more harshly than men who do. In fashioning a remedy in this case, the court will make every effort not to fall into this trap.
One count involved statements made about a guardian ad litem
Attorneys are allowed to be wrong. There are probably very few practitioners who have not misstated a principle of law with a great sense of certainty at one time or another. There is no question that the Respondent’s statements regarding Cousineau’s status were completely inaccurate and most likely delivered in an accusatory tone. However, the Respondent’s statements involved a statute that had gone into effect 19 days prior to the date she made them. Knowledge of falsity is an essential underpinning of these claims and the court simply cannot find, by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent knew that Cousineau was not a mandated reporter when she the Respondent made the statements. As a result, the court finds in favor of the Respondent on these claims...
The court takes a different view of the Respondent’s claims regarding Cousineau’s participation in a conspiracy that rose to the level of a RICO violation, specifically that she and another attorney conspired to request a status conference with the court in order to increase their legal bills. Even if there were a shred of evidentiary basis for this claim, which there is not, even a first-year law student would recognize that under no conceivable circumstances would RICO apply to a request of a status conference in a state court family case. The Respondent’s leveling of such an accusation was reckless at best and the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent recognized that the allegation was false, both that Cousineau requested the status conference to make more money and the fact that it constituted a RICO violation, at the time she made it.
Client related allegations
All of the claims in this presentment involve the respondent refusing to communicate and/or cooperate with someone, be it [client] Ms. Recalde, her subsequent attorney, or the grievance authorities. To the extremely limited extent the Respondent was willing to recognize these failures during her testimony before this court, she attributed them to issues the pressures of work. Experience tells us that the pressures of life challenge many people, lawyers included, and can often interfere with one's ability to meet professional responsibilities. It is at that precise point where lawyers are under an obligation to communicate candidly with those affected by their inability to meet their obligations.
However, the record reveals that the respondent did the exact opposite; when she became overwhelmed, she refused to communicate; ignoring the needs of others. In addition, the statements made by the Respondent in her email to the Disciplinary Counsel clearly constitute an attempt by the Respondent to intimidate both the Disciplinary Counsel and Ms. Recalde to abandon the matter.
Third presentment
There is really no defense to the Respondent’s preparation and filing of the Application for Relief from Abuse and the accompanying affidavit that falsely claimed that there were no pending actions or current orders in effect. She claims that the pending action was listed in the Application, but does not really have any answer to the question of why the affidavit does not list the action or orders in effect for the benefit of the judge, as it is clearly designed to do. As result, the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent violated the Rules of Professional Conduct that relate to the false affidavit, with the exception of Rule 3.3(a)(2), which the court reads as applying to the failure of an attorney to bring relevant legal authority to the court’s attention. In this case, the Respondent’s actions relate to a failure to bring facts to the court’s attention rather than legal authority.
Order
Based on the foregoing findings, the court enters the following orders:
1) As related to Grievance 19-0649 (Cousineau v. Cunha), the Respondent is hereby suspended from the practice of law for a period of six (6) months.
2) As relates to Grievance 21-0336 (Recalde v. Cunha), the Respondent is hereby suspended from the practice of law for a period of one (1) year.
3) As relates to Grievance 20-0445 (Nusbaum v. Cunha) the Respondent is hereby suspended from the practice of law for a period of one (1) year.
4) The foregoing suspensions are imposed consecutively, for a total effective suspension period of two-and-one-half years; such suspension period to commence immediately upon the conclusion of the Respondent’s disbarment period.
New Haven Register reported on the above-referenced disbarment
A Hamden-based attorney was disbarred earlier this week after a judge found she had made “empty and malicious claims” alleging another judge was engaged in a Judaism-based conspiracy and protecting child sexual abuse.
Judge Thomas Moukawsher filed a memorandum regarding his order to disbar attorney Nickola Cunha earlier this week, saying Cunha had engaged in “grave misconduct” while representing a Glastonbury woman engaged in a dissolution of marriage case.
Cunha said in a statement Friday that she was being “targeted for going public with the truth” regarding the case, including the alleged mistreatment of her client and her client’s children.
Cunha had alleged that she had evidence, including a list of cases in which Adelman had inappropriately favored Jewish people, but, when asked at a hearing, failed to produce any such information and admitted she did not have such a list, Moukawsher said.
“This is a matter about a lawyer. When lawyers speak, the public rightly assumes they don’t speak lightly. After all, the truth is their business. Therefore Ms. Cunha’s lies about a Jewish conspiracy are particularly reprehensible. Without the court exposing them as lies, the public might give them some credit when they deserve none,” said Moukawsher. “Misconduct like this threatens to drag the courts into the primordial ooze that passes for public discourse in some quarters today. One whiff of this swamp should be enough for the courts and those of its officers that are true to their duties to set out firmly in the other direction. This moment is one chance to do so.”
Cunha also had alleged that a relative of her client had sexually abused her client’s children, arguing this was demonstrated in records from the state Department of Children and Families that Adelman was ignoring, according to the memo.
(Mike Frisch)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2024/10/the-connecticut-superior-court-judicial-division-of-new-haven-ordered-consecutive-suspensions-of-an-attorney-based-on-finding.html