Practicing law isn’t for everyone. Most people who aren’t
cut out to be lawyers (and that says nothing bad about a particular person),
intuitively know this, and never go to law school in the first place, instead
heading to careers in other fields. For some people, however, the only way to
find out that something isn’t for you is to try it.
The Supreme
Court of Wisconsin just ruled that a lawyer who apparently disappeared off the
face of the Earth should be disbarred, and revoked his law license. All of
this was done without the lawyer being present to explain himself, because he
apparently left the country, and could not be found.
Attorneys have many ethical duties to their clients. One of the most important is the duty to regularly communicate with their clients, and keep the client apprised of the progress of their case. Failure to do so constitutes a serious ethical violation, and possibly malpractice.
Obviously, some legal matters move slowly, and an attorney
with a heavy caseload can’t be expected to update clients every day, especially
if nothing significant has happened with their case. However, they do have to
respond to client inquiries in a reasonable period of time, and update clients
about any significant developments.
By simply disappearing without telling anyone where he was going, or even that he was leaving, the attorney did a serious disservice to his clients. If any of their claims became time-barred (the relevant statute of limitations expired) due to the attorney’s inaction, you can bet that he would be facing a serious malpractice suit, as well as discipline from his state’s relevant licensing authority.
Furthermore, this attorney actually had the audacity to
abscond with some of his clients’ money, which he did not earn. One common
arrangement for paying attorneys is known as “retainer.” The client pays the
attorney a significant chunk of money up front, and the attorney then draws
from that fund as they bill for their work. If they resolve the matter without
going through the entire retainer, it is supposed to be refunded in full to the
client. The same goes for if the attorney terminates the lawyer-client
relationship before the retainer is depleted (though he can, of course, keep any
money which he actually earned and billed for).
This attorney, in addition to leaving his clients hanging with respect to their legal matters, actually took a good deal of their unused retainers with him, which, in addition to being a crime, is also an ethics violation, subjecting an attorney to discipline. In fact, mishandling (though not necessarily outright stealing) of a client’s money is one of the most common causes for disbarment and discipline of lawyers. This often happens through negligence, and is not deliberate, but it’s dealt with severely in either case.
One really has to wonder why a lawyer, who ran his own
practice which appeared to have been at least moderately successful, would
simply disappear without telling anyone. While this lawyer was a solo
practitioner, he did share office space with other attorneys (though they were
not associated with him professionally), and they quickly noticed his absence. After
all efforts to contact him failed, they found a journal in his desk. His last
entry didn’t say much, but it did say that he was “abandoning his life as he
knew it.” It quickly became apparent that he left the country, but there is
apparently no way to know where he went.
This is, obviously, a bizarre story. It’s hard to imagine what was going through this man’s head when he decided to abandon a profession he spent years, and huge amounts of work, getting into, not to mention his entire life at home. It’s one thing to work a few years in a profession and decide that you don’t like it. In those cases, most people simply (well, it’s not a “simple” process, but you know what I mean) try to work their way into a new field, hopefully one which they find more fulfilling. Leaving everyone you know behind with no word on where you are seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Now, if this guy wanted to quit the legal profession and
leave the country, nobody should try to stop him. It’s his life, after all.
However, there is a right way and a wrong way to do these things. He did it the
wrong way. As an attorney, he swore an oath to serve his clients’ interests,
even if it’s to his personal detriment. It is decidedly not in a client’s
interest to simply stop working on their case, and leave them hanging with no
clue as to what just happened.
If he wanted to quit the profession and skip town, he could have avoided burning a lot of bridges if he’d just been willing to put in the effort to wrap up his current clients’ cases, transfer as many as he can to other attorneys, and stop taking new clients. It would have taken a little time and effort, but the guy was a lawyer; he should be used to putting time and effort into things. And that says nothing about the worry he likely caused his friends and family, if he had any.
A person such as this should, of course, not be allowed to
practice law. Clients place their attorneys in positions of great trust. For
that reason, everything should be done to ensure that only the most trustworthy
individuals are allowed to become lawyers. Lawyer jokes notwithstanding, most
state licensing authorities do a pretty good job of this. However, some bad
apples inevitably slip through the cracks.
It’s very clear that this guy didn’t want to be a lawyer
anymore, so it’s not likely that being disbarred is going to bother him too
much. Of course, having all this stuff on record will probably subject him to
significant lawsuits by his former clients, and possibly criminal charges, if
he ever returns to the
By: Rusty Shackleford
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