In almost every lawyer’s professional career, something negative will happen with a client at least once. More rare is to have multiple issues fall within the same calendar year, particularly when you did nothing wrong and simply abided by court orders. Our client was and is an extremely successful practitioner, focusing on personal injury and commercial litigation. In one year, he was forced to deal two grievances and one reciprocal discipline proceeding.
Challenge:
Given the barrage of cases, it was necessary to narrow the focus before the State Bar and Board of Disciplinary Appeals to each case’s specific facts and circumstances, as opposed to a more simplistic approach of “where there is smoke, there must be fire” because multiple cases existed.
Solution:
In each case, the Ayres Law Office issued a h3 and forceful response. Careful and meticulous analysis of each allegation of misconduct was provided with the true facts of the case, the underlying proceedings in court, and the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct. In the proceeding before Board of Disciplinary Appeals, an aggressive decision was made to self-report the situation to present our version of story and the applicable law.
Result:
Each grievance was summarily dismissed after receipt of a response by the Ayres Law Office and these dismissals were affirmed. As to the other matter, after a full trial, the Board of Disciplinary Appeal found proof by clear and convincing evidence that our client had committed no misconduct warranting reciprocal discipline, in stark contrast to the findings made in another jurisdiction.