Summary
The Supreme Court of Ohio reviewed extensive professional misconduct allegations against Dea Lynn Character, including client neglect, excessive fees, improper handling of client funds, conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, and failure to cooperate with disciplinary investigations. The court adopted most of the findings and concluded that the respondent’s extensive record of serious misconduct warranted permanent disbarment.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the alleged misconduct was supported by clear and convincing evidence despite the absence of testimony or affidavits from some clients.
- Whether the disciplinary procedures, including Character's incarceration and inability to attend the hearing in person, violated due process.
- Whether two members of the three-member hearing panel constituted a sufficient quorum.
- Whether Character's personal and business conduct outside her capacity as an attorney was subject to professional discipline.
- Whether the extensive pattern of misconduct warranted permanent disbarment.
Holdings
- In a contested attorney-discipline proceeding in which the respondent appears and defends against the allegations, misconduct may be established by the entire evidentiary record and is not dependent on sworn testimony or affidavits from each client.
- The procedures used in Character's disciplinary proceeding satisfied due process because she received the process required by the Ohio disciplinary rules and precedent, including an opportunity to present testimony by deposition.
- The participation of two members of a three-member disciplinary hearing panel was sufficient because a majority constituted a quorum.
- An attorney may be disciplined for personal or business conduct outside the attorney's professional representation of a client when that conduct involves dishonesty, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, or otherwise adversely reflects on fitness to practice law.
- Permanent disbarment was warranted by Character's extensive, repeated, and dishonest misconduct involving multiple clients, prior discipline, vulnerable victims, failure to make restitution, and failure to acknowledge wrongdoing.
Key quotations
“attorney-discipline proceedings “are neither civil nor criminal; they are instituted to safeguard the courts and to protect the public from the misconduct of those who are licensed to practice law.”” (¶ 76)
“All told, she committed more than 40 violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility and Rules of Professional Conduct.” (¶ 84)
“Therefore, we adopt the board’s recommended sanction of permanent disbarment.” (¶ 86)
Factual background
Dea Lynn Character, an Ohio attorney previously disciplined for trust-account, fee, fee-sharing, and neglect violations, engaged in extensive misconduct involving multiple clients over several years. The proven conduct included neglecting bankruptcy, criminal, domestic-relations, real-estate, foreclosure, and appellate matters; charging or collecting excessive fees; mishandling client funds; entering undisclosed business transactions with clients; misrepresenting her law-firm status and malpractice-insurance status; and failing to cooperate with the disciplinary investigation. The Board found more than 40 violations of Ohio's former Code of Professional Responsibility and Rules of Professional Conduct, with multiple aggravating factors and no applicable mitigating factors.
Procedural history
The Cuyahoga County Bar Association initiated a disciplinary complaint in 2006. After multiple amendments and transfer of the matter to Disciplinary Counsel, a sixth amended complaint alleged 20 counts. The hearing panel dismissed some counts, recommended an indefinite suspension, and the Board adopted the panel's findings while recommending permanent disbarment. The Supreme Court of Ohio independently reviewed the record, adopted most of the Board's findings, dismissed or rejected specified violations, overruled Character's evidentiary and due-process objections, and permanently disbarred her.