The opinion
[This opinion has been published in Ohio Official Reports at 175 Ohio St.3d 310.]
CLEVELAND METROPOLITAN BAR ASSOCIATION v. BROWN.
[Cite as Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. Brown, 2024-Ohio-2789.]
Attorneys—Misconduct—Violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct by
neglecting a client’s legal matter, failing to reasonably communicate, and
failing to protect the client’s interests upon termination of her
representation—Conditionally stayed six-month suspension.
(No. 2024-0487—Submitted May 7, 2024—Decided July 25, 2024.)
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Professional Conduct of the Supreme
Court, No. 2023-042.
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The per curiam opinion below was joined by KENNEDY, C.J., and FISCHER,
DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, and DETERS, JJ. BRUNNER, J., did not participate.
Per Curiam.
{¶ 1} Respondent, Joanne Brown, of Cleveland, Ohio, Attorney
Registration No. 0050039, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1977. On
December 18, 2002, we suspended her license (under her prior name) for two years,
with one year stayed, for commingling personal funds and client funds while
serving as guardian, attorney for the guardianship, and later attorney for her
deceased ward’s estate; failing to account for approximately $12,000 of her client’s
funds; and failing to cooperate in the ensuing disciplinary investigation.
Disciplinary Counsel v. McCully, 2002-Ohio-6724. She was reinstated to the
practice of law on April 15, 2004. Disciplinary Counsel v. McCully, 2004-Ohio-
2238.
{¶ 2} In a December 2023 complaint, relator, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar
Association, charged Brown with professional misconduct arising from her neglect
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of a client’s legal matter, failure to reasonably communicate with her client, and
failure to protect the client’s interests upon the termination of her representation.
{¶ 3} After a three-member panel of the Board of Professional Conduct
rejected the parties’ consent-to-discipline agreement, the parties submitted
comprehensive stipulations and jointly recommended that Brown be given a
conditionally stayed six-month suspension for her misconduct. The panel chair
granted the parties’ motion to waive the scheduled hearing and submitted the matter
to the panel on the parties’ stipulations and joint exhibits.
{¶ 4} The panel issued a report finding by clear and convincing evidence
that Brown had committed the charged misconduct and recommending that we
adopt the parties’ proposed sanction. The board adopted the panel’s report and
recommendation. We adopt the board’s findings of misconduct and suspend Brown
from the practice of law in Ohio for six months, fully stayed on the condition that
she engage in no further misconduct.
MISCONDUCT
{¶ 5} The stipulated evidence shows that in October 2018, Brown agreed to
represent Virgil Collins in a foreclosure action filed against him in Cuyahoga
County. Around the time Brown agreed to represent Collins, Collins provided
Brown with a 24-page counterclaim and asked her to file it in the proceeding.
Collins frequently visited Brown’s office and called her, sometimes more than once
a day, to discuss the foreclosure action and his proposed counterclaim. Brown
never agreed to file the counterclaim, believing that the claims within it were time-
barred or otherwise lacked merit.
{¶ 6} From December 2018 through June 2019, Brown filed several
motions and pleadings on Collins’s behalf, including a motion for leave to answer
the complaint instanter, an untimely motion for mediation and an extension of time
to respond to the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, and a motion for
extension of time to file an amended answer and counterclaim.
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{¶ 7} In May 2019, the court conducted a settlement conference. During
that conference, Collins decided that he did not want to resolve the action through
a loan modification and instructed Brown to file the counterclaim. Although Brown
twice sought and was granted leave to file a counterclaim on Collins’s behalf, she
never filed the counterclaim, believing that a loan modification was a better course
of action.
{¶ 8} In November 2019, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor
of the plaintiff and against Collins in the foreclosure action. Collins learned of the
court’s summary-judgment order when he checked the trial court’s docket. Around
that time, Collins made repeated attempts to contact Brown, who was absent from
her office for six weeks due to an illness.
{¶ 9} From December 2019 through February 2020, Brown filed several
motions on Collins’s behalf—including a motion to vacate the summary-judgment
order against Collins. But the trial court denied that motion on February 25, 2020.
In an attempt to block the foreclosure on his home, Collins filed several pro se
motions, removed the action to federal district court, and filed a separate federal
action and appeal in which he named Brown as a defendant.
{¶ 10} Although Brown ceased representing Collins as of February 28,
2020, she did not file a notice of withdrawal as counsel in the foreclosure action.
Consequently, the court continued to serve documents in that case on Brown rather
than on Collins until October 2022.
{¶ 11} On this evidence, the parties stipulated and the board found that
Brown’s conduct violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.3 (requiring a lawyer to act with
reasonable diligence in representing a client), 1.4(a)(3) (requiring a lawyer to keep
a client reasonably informed about the status of a matter), 1.4(a)(4) (requiring a
lawyer to comply as soon as practicable with a client’s reasonable requests for
information), and 1.16(d) (requiring a lawyer withdrawing from representation to
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take steps reasonably practicable to protect a client’s interest). We adopt the
board’s findings of misconduct.
RECOMMENDED SANCTION
{¶ 12} When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we consider all
relevant factors, including the ethical duties that the lawyer violated, the
aggravating and mitigating factors listed in Gov.Bar R. V(13), and the sanctions
imposed in similar cases.
{¶ 13} The parties stipulated and the board found that just one aggravating
factor is present in this case—Brown’s prior discipline. See Gov.Bar R.
V(13)(B)(1). As for mitigating factors, the parties stipulated and the board found
that Brown did not act with a selfish or dishonest motive, made full and free
disclosure and exhibited a cooperative attitude toward the disciplinary proceeding,
and presented evidence of her good character and reputation in the form of letters
from a fellow attorney, the chief deputy clerk for the Cleveland Municipal Court,
and a former client. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(2), (4), and (5).
{¶ 14} The parties suggested that the appropriate sanction for Brown’s
misconduct is a conditionally stayed six-month suspension. In support of that
sanction, the parties cited five cases in which we imposed conditionally stayed six-
month suspensions on attorneys who had previously been disciplined and who had
engaged in misconduct comparable to that of Brown in this case. The board found
four of those cases to be instructive.
{¶ 15} In Lorain Cty. Bar Assn. v. Haynes, 2020-Ohio-1570, Haynes failed
to finalize a client’s qualified domestic-relations order for more than two years,
failed to keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the matter, and
failed to respond to the client’s repeated requests for information. Haynes had been
publicly reprimanded 20 years earlier for neglecting another client’s legal matter.
Id. at ¶ 1, 13. In addition to the mitigating factors present in this case, Haynes also
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made full restitution to his client. Id. at ¶ 14. We imposed a conditionally stayed
six-month suspension for Haynes’s misconduct. Id. at ¶ 18.
{¶ 16} In Mahoning Cty. Bar Assn. v. Vivo, 2019-Ohio-1858, Vivo
neglected a client’s legal matter, failed to provide competent representation, failed
to consult with the client about the means by which her objectives would be
accomplished, and failed to inform the client of decisions that required her informed
consent. Vivo also failed to comply as soon as practicable with the client’s
reasonable requests for information. Vivo had previously been suspended for one
year, with the entire suspension conditionally stayed, for engaging in similar acts
of misconduct and failing to cooperate in the resulting disciplinary investigation.
Id. at ¶ 2. We adopted the parties’ consent-to-discipline agreement and suspended
Vivo from the practice of law for six months, fully stayed on the conditions that he
complete six hours of continuing legal education focused on law-office
management and engage in no further misconduct. Id. at ¶ 14. We also ordered
Vivo to serve one year of monitored probation upon the reinstatement of his license.
Id.
{¶ 17} In Mahoning Cty. Bar Assn. v. Mickens, 2018-Ohio-2630, we
imposed a conditionally stayed six-month suspension on Mickens for his neglect of
a single client matter, failure to reasonably communicate with the client, and failure
to inform the client that he did not maintain professional-liability insurance. Id. at
¶ 8-9. Although it was Mickens’s second disciplinary case, the misconduct at issue
predated similar acts of misconduct for which we had publicly reprimanded him in
2016. Id. at ¶ 2-3.
{¶ 18} Finally, the board considered Disciplinary Counsel v. Falconer,
2020-Ohio-1194, in which we adopted a consent-to-discipline agreement and
imposed a conditionally stayed six-month suspension for an attorney’s misconduct,
id. at ¶ 1-2. According to the board’s report in that case, which recommended that
we adopt the parties’ consent-to-discipline agreement, Falconer neglected two
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client matters and failed to reasonably communicate with the affected clients. He
also failed to take steps to protect one client’s interests on the termination of his
representation and failed to hold property separate from his own property and to
promptly refund the unearned portion of his fee on the termination of his
representation for the second client. Falconer had previously been suspended from
the practice of law for nine days for failing to timely register as an attorney for the
2007-2009 biennium. See In re Falconer, 2007-Ohio-6463, reinstatement granted,
2008-Ohio-290.
{¶ 19} We agree with the board and the parties that Brown’s misconduct in
this case—her neglect of Collins’s legal matter, her failure to reasonably
communicate with Collins regarding the status of his matter, and her failure to
protect his interests upon the termination of her representation—is comparable to
the misconduct at issue in Haynes, Vivo, Mickens, and Falconer. Given that her
prior discipline occurred more than 20 years ago and that she has established the
presence of three mitigating factors, we agree that a conditionally stayed six-month
suspension will adequately protect the public from future harm. We therefore adopt
the board’s recommended sanction.
CONCLUSION
{¶ 20} Accordingly, Joanne Brown is suspended from the practice of law in
Ohio for six months, with the suspension fully stayed on the condition that she
commit no further misconduct. If Brown fails to comply with the condition of the
stay, the stay will be lifted and she will serve the full six-month suspension. Costs
are taxed to Brown.
Judgment accordingly.
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Christopher J. Klasa, Bar Counsel, for relator.
Gallagher Sharp, L.L.P., Monica A. Sansalone, and Timothy T. Brick, for
respondent.
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