In re Application of Richmond

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as In

re Application of Richmond, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-3169.]

NOTICE

This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an

advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to

promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65

South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other

formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before

the opinion is published.

SLIP OPINION NO. 2022-OHIO-3169

IN RE APPLICATION OF RICHMOND.

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it

may be cited as In re Application of Richmond, Slip Opinion No.

2022-Ohio-3169.]

Attorneys—Character and fitness—Applications to register as a candidate for

admission to the practice of law in Ohio and as a candidate to take the Ohio

bar exam—Applicant failed to establish present character, fitness, and

moral qualifications by clear and convincing evidence—Applications

disapproved—Applicant permitted to reapply to register as a candidate for

admission to the practice of law in March 2025.

(No. 2022-0338—Submitted June 14, 2022—Decided September 13, 2022.)

ON REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness of the

Supreme Court, No. 811.

_______________________

SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} Applicant, ReeJade Jenice-Diamon Richmond, of Westerville, Ohio,

is a 2012 graduate of Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law

School. Richmond applied to register as a candidate for admission to the Ohio bar

and to take the July 2021 bar exam.

{¶ 2} Two members of the Columbus Bar Association Admissions

Committee interviewed Richmond in June 2021, and the committee issued

provisional and final reports recommending that her character and fitness be

approved. The Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness, however,

invoked its authority, sua sponte, to investigate her character, fitness, and moral

qualifications. See Gov.Bar R. I(12)(B)(2)(e). That investigation focused primarily

on Richmond’s dishonesty while in law school and her unauthorized practice of

law in Michigan.

{¶ 3} After a three-member panel of the board conducted a hearing, the

board issued a report recommending that Richmond’s applications be disapproved

and that she be permitted to reapply to register as a candidate for admission to the

practice of law in Ohio no earlier than March 2025. No objections have been filed.

For the reasons that follow, we adopt the board’s recommendations.

Facts

{¶ 4} In February 2012, Richmond sat for and failed the Texas bar exam.

Subsequently, while enrolled in an LL.M. program at Cooley Law School,

Richmond and other students in her class were discussing whether they had passed

the bar and Richmond falsely stated that she had passed the Texas bar exam. One

of the students later discovered that that was not true and reported Richmond to the

dean.

{¶ 5} When questioned by the dean, Richmond continued to falsely

represent that she had passed the Texas bar exam. The dean then instructed

Richmond to obtain letters from people who could verify her claim that she had

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passed the Texas bar exam. Richmond submitted letters that were purportedly

written and signed by a Texas judge and by a Michigan attorney for whom she had

worked during law school. However, an investigation revealed that Richmond had

forged the letters. She was expelled from the LL.M. program in February 2013 for

violating the school’s honor code.

{¶ 6} At her character-and-fitness hearing, Richmond testified that after her

expulsion, she started learning more about business structures and leadership.

Around 2014, she started two Michigan corporations—the nonprofit “Leadership

for Women” and the for-profit “Search for Her Existence.” At first, Richmond

focused on her nonprofit corporation, lining up sponsors and scheduling events to

offer information and leadership training to minority women. She operated the

nonprofit until 2017, when her declining health required her to scale back. Around

that time, Richmond obtained a master’s degree in organizational leadership from

South University in Savannah, Georgia.

{¶ 7} Richmond testified that her focus then shifted to Search for Her

Existence, which she described as a “business consulting firm.” The company’s

website described Richmond as a “legal strategist.” The accompanying text was

deceptively written to strongly suggest—without actually stating—that Richmond

was a licensed attorney. In fact, at her character-and-fitness hearing, Richmond

more or less conceded that by holding herself out as a “legal strategist,” she was

inviting people to believe that she was, in fact, a licensed attorney.

{¶ 8} Through Search for Her Existence, Richmond accepted speaking

engagements promoting a book that she had written about business formation and

social-media plans for businesses. Richmond testified that she had obtained form

contracts dealing with incorporation and copyright matters from an attorney and

had then sold them to clients along with a series of how-to videos on the Search for

Her Existence website.

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SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

{¶ 9} On at least four occasions in 2019, Richmond held herself out as a

licensed attorney and/or provided legal services to people. For example, she helped

a friend and someone she had met at a speaking engagement obtain copyrights for

books they had written. She also helped another friend obtain a copyright for the

content of a training course that the friend had developed. In addition, Richmond

testified that she had negotiated terms of employment for a third friend and

represented her in a related mediation. When asked to explain what she meant by

negotiating her friend’s terms of employment, Richmond stated that she had sent

out a cease-and-desist letter on behalf of the friend and later represented that friend

in a mediation related to that letter and that in each of those instances, she had held

herself out as an attorney. Richmond testified that she had attempted to get an

opinion from the Michigan Bar Association regarding her activities but that her

request had been denied because she was not a member of the bar and no complaint

had been filed against her.

{¶ 10} Later in 2019, Richmond’s activities came to the attention of the

Michigan Bar Association, which investigated her for engaging in the unauthorized

practice of law. On January 10, 2020, Richmond signed an affidavit stating that

she understood that holding herself out as being authorized to practice law in

Michigan, preparing legal documents, and giving legal advice or assistance to any

person regarding any legal matter when she was not licensed to do so constituted

the unauthorized practice of law. She further averred that she would no longer

engage in any of those activities unless and until she was admitted to practice in

that state.

{¶ 11} In June 2020, just six months after signing that affidavit, Richmond

engaged in another act of the unauthorized practice of law by filing a trademark

application on behalf of another friend. She testified that she had known at the time

that her conduct was wrong but explained that she had done it anyway because she

had wanted to feel useful (she said she had been feeling useless because she

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January Term, 2022

“couldn’t do anything because of dialysis and having a special needs child”) and

she had wanted to help her friend, who could not afford to hire an attorney. Later

in June 2020, Richmond notified the Michigan Bar Association that she had once

again engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. In May 2021, she signed a

stipulated order permanently enjoining her from engaging in the unauthorized

practice of law in Michigan.

{¶ 12} During her character-and-fitness hearing, Richmond stated that she

had been a disappointment to herself and others. She testified that she could not

promise that she would never make a mistake again. She then said, “What I can

say is that when I do make a mistake I will always hold myself accountable and

deal with the consequences of my actions.” Although Richmond was quick to state

that she knows what she did was wrong, the board found that she showed little

remorse for her actions, other than conceding that her behavior could have harmed

others.

{¶ 13} The board found that from the time she graduated from law school

in 2012 until mid-2021, Richmond conducted herself “in a manner that exemplifies

the opposite of character and fitness to practice law.” She lied to her husband, her

family, and her friends, telling them that she had passed the Texas bar exam. When

confronted with her lies, she lied to the dean of Cooley Law School, and she

submitted forged documents in response to the resulting honor-code investigation,

which led to her expulsion from the LL.M. program. She then engaged in the

unauthorized practice of law in Michigan—and continued to engage in the

unauthorized practice after executing an affidavit acknowledging her wrongdoing

and agreeing to stop.

{¶ 14} On these facts, the board found that Richmond had failed to

demonstrate that she currently possesses the character and fitness to practice law in

Ohio. Given that she engaged in the unauthorized practice of law as recently as

June 2021, the board recommended that she be prohibited from reapplying to

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register as a candidate for admission to the practice of law in Ohio until March

2025.

Disposition

{¶ 15} An applicant for admission to the bar bears the burden of proving by

clear and convincing evidence that the applicant possesses the requisite character,

fitness, and moral qualifications for admission to the practice of law in Ohio.

Gov.Bar R. I(13)(D)(1). An applicant may be approved for admission if the

applicant satisfies the essential eligibility requirements for the practice of law as

defined by the board and demonstrates that the applicant’s record of conduct

justifies the trust of clients, adversaries, courts, and others. Gov.Bar R. I(13)(D)(3).

{¶ 16} A record that manifests a significant deficiency in the honesty,

trustworthiness, diligence, or reliability of an applicant may constitute grounds for

disapproval. Gov.Bar R. I(13)(D)(3). The factors to be considered in making a

recommendation as to an applicant’s character, fitness, and moral qualifications

include whether the applicant has (1) committed an act constituting the

unauthorized practice of law, (2) violated the honor code of the applicant’s law

school or engaged in any other act of academic misconduct, (3) engaged in a pattern

of disregard of the laws of this or any other state. See Gov.Bar R. I(13)(D)(3)(c),

(d), and (f).

{¶ 17} Given Richmond’s dishonesty in response to Cooley Law School’s

honor-code investigation, the recency of her unauthorized practice of law, and her

knowing and unrepentant decision to continue engaging in the unauthorized

practice of law after assuring the Michigan Bar Association that she would cease

such conduct, we accept the board’s finding that Richmond has failed to

demonstrate her current character and fitness to practice law in Ohio.

{¶ 18} Accordingly, we deny Richmond’s pending applications but permit

her to reapply to register as a candidate for admission to the practice of law in Ohio

in March 2025.

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Judgment accordingly.

O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART,

and BRUNNER, JJ., concur.

_________________

ReeJade Jenice-Diamon Richmond, pro se.

Schmidt Law, L.L.C., and Katarina V. Schmidt; and Bloomfield & Kempf,

L.L.C., and Orsolya Hamar-Hilt, for the Columbus Bar Association.

_________________

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