Courts

Maine Doubles Down On Suspension Of Attorney Who Tried To Bodyswap His CLEs

Just attend them and sleep like everyone else does, buddy.

By  
on

Keyboard key blue – Copy / PasteOne of the most misleading feelings for a young lawyer is the thought that they are done with law classes now that they’ve earned their JD. If only! Even once you — or your firm — shell out the thousands of dollars for a competitive bar prep course, you’ll have to don your thinking cap every now and again for CLEs.

Seems common knowledge, but the you in that sentence refers to you, not one of your representatives. A Maine lawyer didn’t catch that part, tried to get his assistant to sit in his CLEs, and got suspended for a year. He fought the decision up to the highest court he could and it went just about how you’d expect. From ABA Journal:

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed a one-year suspension of an attorney who asked his assistant to take his continuing legal education classes.

Solo practitioner Donald F. Brown of Brewer, Maine, had appealed the October 2022 order of Justice Thomas R. McKeon of the Maine Superior Court, who found that Brown violated the Maine Rules of Professional Conduct and the Maine Bar Rules.

According to McKeon’s findings, Brown became aware in late February 2020 that he had to complete 12 hours of CLE. Brown signed up for four live seminars that require participants to acknowledge their presence when prompted. But Brown realized that he had scheduling conflicts, so he asked his assistant to sign on to the online classes in his place.

In case that wasn’t enough, the Court also dinged Brown for representing a client in a divorce case after they had a sexual relationship. I know its Maine and all, but there’s no way the dating pool is that small. For anyone else whose confused, paying attention to your client’s personal matters is a part of the job. Getting “personal” with them is not.

I think that the best way to classify Brown’s actions, legally speaking, is stupid. There’s no doubt that being a solo practitioner is hard; whenever you get the chance to delegate something you should generally take it. But this is one of those times when you’re supposed to do things on your own. Not to mention one of the times when it would be really dumb to leave a paper trail: some of the strongest evidence against him came from the text messages he sent to his assistant. What? Did the guy hang up his own shingle without watching “Better Call Saul“? Traceability is how they get ya!

Maine’s Top Court Affirms Suspension Of Lawyer Who Asked Staffer To Take His CLE Classes [ABA Journal]

Sponsored

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

Sponsored

Topics

, ,