Thursday, January 23, 2025
One Star Review Draws Retort
A Hearing Committee Report of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers recommends a two-and-a-half year suspension for misconduct in four matters.
One matter involved responses to a negative online review.
That client had retained Respondent for a divorce but things went south
After terminating the attorney-client relationship, Dr. Nah wrote an online Google review of the respondent’s law firm, Johnson Law & Mediation Services, in which she gave the respondent one star and made negative comments. Her Google review showed her username as “Y N.” Ans. ¶ 4. Dr. Nah’s initials are “YN.” See Tr. II:5 (Nah).
The client’s Google review read as follows: “Michael Johnson will tell you as if he knows [sic] ins and outs of the law and he emphasizes how strong he is in negotiation to reach the agreement. However, he is very passive when you need him for the representation. Poor quality.”
Respondent was able to figure out the client's identity
Shortly thereafter, the respondent posted an online response to the client’s Google review. Ans. ¶ 4. He wrote:
Thank you for your input. As I told you from the outset, I am a negotiator. One must choose when to fight carefully. You wished to fight in [sic] the issue of parenting time, whicH [sic] you have denied the father of a child you had together. In the end, he will have parenting time and if you are not careful, custody too. You have your expertise and I have mine. All that being said, good luck as you proceed.
The client emailed Respondent that she was "flabbergasted" by the reply and filed a bar complaint.
In or about January 2021, after receiving correspondence from bar counsel about the client’s bar complaint, the respondent edited his online response to the client’s Google review. Ans. ¶ 6. He posted: “Unfortunately, this client did not agree with my strategy and the requirement that she provide the other party parenting time absent good cause. I regret that I had to terminate our relationship.” Id. As discussed supra, we find that Dr. Nah terminated the attorney-client relationship with the respondent. Therefore, the respondent’s edited online response to Dr. Nah’s Google review was knowingly false.
We find that the respondent did not obtain Dr. Nah’s informed consent to post the information he disclosed in his edited online response.
Finding
By posting the information in his edited online response, in which he portrayed his client as unreasonably contesting her husband’s parenting time against the legal advice of her lawyer, the respondent violated Rules 1.9(c)(2) and 1.6(a) again...
Bar counsel charged that, by stating false information about the representation in his edited online response, the respondent violated Mass. R. Prof. C. 8.4(c) (do not engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation). The respondent falsely claimed that he terminated the attorney-client relationship, when it was Dr. Nah who did so. We conclude that bar counsel has proved this charge.
The hearing committee found misconduct in three unrelated matters.
He had claimed COVID-related mitigation
We take administrative notice that, in mid-March 2020, the pandemic began in earnest in Massachusetts and severely impacted public health for a period of time. Yet, the respondent has the burden of proving mitigation and he has provided scant evidence of COVID diagnoses and zero evidence of either his suffering from “long COVID” or of how COVID caused his misconduct. Rules of the Board of Bar Overseers (“BBO Rules”) § 3.28; see also Matter of Ablitt, 486 Mass. 1011, 1018, 37 Mass. Att’y Disc. R. 1 (2021) (requiring causal connection between claimed mitigating factor and misconduct) (internal citations omitted). We conclude that the respondent failed to prove this mitigating factor.
Aggravating factors included a prior three-month suspension
The respondent lacked candor at the disciplinary hearing. He testified falsely under oath before us on multiple occasions. We find that the respondent intended to deceive us with his testimony. Lack of candor before the hearing committee is an aggravating factor.
Proposed sanction
Bar counsel recommends that the respondent be suspended from the practice of law for three years. The respondent recommends a suspension of no more than three months. We recommend a suspension from the practice of law for two-and-one-half-years...
The core of the instant disciplinary proceeding is that the respondent repeatedly neglected three of the four client matters at issue (including SQ’s case), failed to keep his clients reasonably informed about the status of their matters, and made multiple misrepresentations to them to conceal his neglect. See Counts II-IV. Under the standards set forth in Matter of Kane, a “suspension is generally appropriate for misconduct involving repeated failures to act with reasonable diligence, or when a lawyer has engaged in a pattern of neglect, and the lawyer’s conduct causes serious injury or potentially serious injury to a client.” Matter of Kane, 13 Mass. Att’y Disc. R. 321, 328 (1997). Here, we find that the respondent’s conduct risked potentially serious injury to his clients because they could have lost the opportunity to pursue their claims due to his neglect and misrepresentations. For example, in Ms. Albano’s matter, the respondent did not file a petition for appointment of guardian of a minor as he claimed he did. Fortunately, Ms. Albano terminated the respondent and accomplished the filing herself, pro se. If she had not, Ms. Albano could have lost the opportunity to petition for guardianship. The fact that she was ultimately denied guardianship does not absolve the respondent since even the loss of a weak claim constitutes harm.
And
The respondent’s desire and willingness to lie to cover up his shortcomings is stunning and incredibly troubling. The respondent made many misrepresentations over multiple cases; he made misrepresentations to each of the four clients at issue, to a court, to bar counsel during the investigation, and to this committee when he testified before us. He claimed in two separate cases that three different courts failed to docket something that he filed. Tr. I:96-97 (respondent). He has shown a clear willingness to lie when it suits him. He lacked credibility, integrity, and candor before us. Finally, he carelessly revealed his client’s confidential information online not once, but twice. His conduct is dangerous for the public and for the integrity of the legal system. We are mindful of the consequences of such behavior on the public’s trust in, and perception of, lawyers and the legal profession. As expressed above, we consider the totality of these violations in determining our sanction recommendation.
(Mike Frisch)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2025/01/lone-star-draws-retort.html