Opinion

In Re John D. CONRY

  • 158 So. 3d 786
  • 2015 La. LEXIS 15
Court
Supreme Court of Louisiana
Filed
Jan 28, 2015
Status
Published
Author
Crichton
On the bench
Crichton, Victory
Cited by
1 cases
Authority
More cited than 11.6%

The opinion

CRICHTON, J.,

concurring and assigning additional reasons.

hi join in the majority’s opinion permanently disbarring respondent, but I write separately to note that I find respondent’s pattern of intentional and flagrant misconduct to be particularly outrageous.

Respondent’s repeated acts of professional misconduct, as set forth in the per curiam, cannot be considered a mistake or omission. The hearing committee found that respondent engaged in multiple instances of conversion (an intentional act), and the disciplinary board determined that respondent knowingly and intentionally violated duties owed to his clients, the public, the legal system, and the profession. Indeed, even after being sued by Whitney National Bank for overdrawing his client trust account (in part as a result of making personal car and phone payments from the account), respondent did not stop committing intentional acts of misconduct. For instance, the month after resolution of the Whitney Bank lawsuit, he again overdrew a client trust account at Chase Bank. He thereafter committed several additional in *798 fractions, including repeated failures to promptly disburse settlement funds.

In short, over the years, he continued to disburse settlement funds belonging to one client to other clients — conduct that borders on a Ponzi scheme. See Ponthier v. Monalla, 06-632 (La.App. 5 Cir. 1/30/07) , 951 So.2d 1242, 1251 (defining “Ponzi scheme” as “a scheme in which a swindler uses money from later victims to pay earlier victims”) (citing Cunningham v. Brown, 265 U.S. 1 , 44 S.Ct. 424 , 68 L.Ed. 873 (1924)). Further, respondent’s offhand reference to paying clients “lagniappe for the hassle” of late and missing payments is incongruous — and ridiculous. In my opinion, the |2vast majority of professional attorneys who follow the Rules of Professional Conduct would view respondent’s “lagniappe” as pure theft.

Separately, as explained in the per cu-riam, the hearing committee noted that respondent’s psychiatrist did not make a causal connection between respondent’s ADHD and his misconduct, but viewed it as playing a part in that misconduct. In my view, though, even if respondent’s ADHD was not a “cause” of his misconduct and was merely a contributing factor, it is, at the least, obvious from the outcome that respondent failed adequately to manage his disability. As this Court recognized in another case involving attorney discipline and the claim of ADHD: “ADHD does not deprive an individual of the ability to know the difference between right and wrong.” In re Sharp, 2009-0207 (La.6/26/09), 16 So.3d 343, 346 . As such, it “does [not] excuse respondent’s behavior” in this matter. Id.

Given the repeated and intentional pattern of misconduct here, I support the result of permanent disbarment.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

A word about cookies

We need a few to keep you signed in and the library working. The rest help us see which pages people use and where they get stuck. They stay off unless you say yes.