In re Nathaniel H. Speights, Respondent. A Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Bar Registration No. 952036
Argued
June 6, 2018
On
Report and Recommendation Of the Board on Professional
Responsibility (BDN-253-10)
Nathaniel H. Speights, pro se.
Hamilton P. Fox, III, Disciplinary Counsel, with whom Hendrik
deBoer, Senior Staff Attorney, was on the brief, for the
Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Before
Thompson and McLeese, Associate Judges, and Farrell, Senior
Judge.
PER
CURIAM
The
Board on Professional Responsibility (the Board) has
recommended that respondent Nathaniel H. Speights be
suspended from the practice of law in the District of
Columbia for two years, and be required to prove fitness
before reinstatement. In arriving at that recommendation, the
Board adopted the findings of fact and conclusions of law of
a Hearing Committee which determined that respondent, while
acting as personal representative of the Estate of Arnold
Lindsey, had violated Rules 1.1 (a), 1.1 (b), 1.3 (a), 1.3
(c), and 8.4 (d) of the District of Columbia Rules of
Professional Conduct. Regarding sanction, however, the Board
has taken into account discipline it previously recommended
and this court imposed in In re Speights, 173 A.3d
96 (D.C. 2017) (Speights I), and on that basis
recommends a suspension exceeding by one year the sanction
recommended by the Hearing Committee. Respondent takes
exception both to the sufficiency of Disciplinary
Counsel's proof of the ethical violations, and to the
fairness of the proceeding leading to the imposition of
sanction.
In
considering respondent's objections, we review de
novo the Board's legal conclusions and related legal
questions, but defer to the factual findings of the Hearing
Committee and the Board "unless they are unsupported by
substantial evidence" in the record. In re
Vohra, 68 A.3d 766, 769 (D.C. 2013) (quoting D.C. Bar R.
XI, § 9 (h)(1)); see also In re Martin, 67 A.3d
1032, 1039 (D.C. 2013). We will adopt the Board's
recommended discipline "unless to do so would foster a
tendency toward inconsistent dispositions for comparable
conduct or would otherwise be unwarranted." D.C. Bar R.
XI, § 9 (h)(1); see also In re Pierson, 690
A.2d 941, 946-48 (D.C. 1997). We are not persuaded by
respondent's exceptions, and thus impose the sanction
recommended by the Board.
I.
The
disciplinary matter before us stems from what we had occasion
five years ago to style "the long and tortuous probate
administration of Arnold Lindsey's estate." In
re Estate of Lindsey, No. 09-PR-1201, Mem. Op. & J.
at 1 (D.C. May 29, 2013). After over nine years of
litigation, the Superior Court in August 2009 removed
respondent as the estate's personal representative, a
position to which he had been appointed in August 2000.
Respondent appealed from his removal and the simultaneous
requirement that he reimburse the estate for $51, 312.32 in
lost interest because of his failure to diligently collect
and distribute proceeds owed to the estate from the
settlement of wrongful death and survival actions. In
affirming the trial court's action, this court found
"no grounds . . . for disturbing either the removal
order or the order directing reimbursement."
Id. We explained: "[Mr. Speights] offers no
serious challenge to Judge [Rhonda] Reid Winston's
well-substantiated conclusion that his repeated
non-compliance with 'the [Superior] Court's Orders
[requiring distribution of assets and related filing of
accounts] and the attendant delays caused by [his
non-compliance] prolonged the administration of [the] estate
and . . . caused at least one of the decedent's heirs and
his widow . . . to await that to which they were
entitled,' and that in general he had 'failed to
perform material duties of his office.'"
Id.
In the
ensuing disciplinary proceedings brought by Disciplinary
Counsel, the Hearing Committee received documentary evidence
from the lengthy probate proceedings and heard
respondent's testimony, then found that respondent had
committed each of the ethical violations charged, namely,
failure to "provide competent representation to a
client," D.C. R. of Prof. Conduct 1.1 (a), failure to
serve as personal representative "with skill and care
commensurate with that generally afforded to clients by other
lawyers in similar matters," id. 1.1 (b),
failure to "represent a client zealously and diligently
within the bounds of the law," id. 1.3 (a), and
failure to "act with reasonable promptness in
representing a client." Id. 1.3 (c). Further,
it found that he had "[e]ngage[d] in conduct that
seriously interferes with the administration of
justice." Id. 8.4 (d). These violations, the
Hearing Committee determined, were established by:
proof by clear and convincing evidence of: [respondent's]
prolonged delay in collecting . . . total payments of $575,
000 from the three defendants [in the wrongful death and
survival actions]; his claim that other lawyers represented
the [e]state, after he himself had already discharged these
lawyers; his extended failure - for approximately 17 months -
to provide correct information to accountants for the
[e]state; and his failures to comply with court orders,
thereby prolonging administration of the [e]state . . . . Not
only did [r]espondent's inaction over a significant
period of time delay the collection of all the [settlement]
funds for more than two years, he also failed to distribute
them promptly even after he collected them. After that, he
ignored the court-approved arbitration award [providing for
distribution of the funds among estate members], and delayed
the final resolution of the [e]state in a futile effort to
further enrich himself with legal fees that the court had not
authorized.
The
Board, in concluding that substantial evidence in the record
supported these findings, unanimously agreed with the Hearing
Committee that respondent had "failed to make even the
slightest effort to collect the amounts due to the [e]state
(even failing to negotiate checks sent to [his] law firm),
failed to distribute the assets (even when ordered by the
court to do so), and ...