Marino v. Statewide Grievance Committee

The plaintiff attorney appealed to the trial court, challenging the reprimand imposed on her by the defendant, the Statewide Grievance Committee, for having violated rules 3.3 (a) (1) and 8.4 (3) of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The plaintiff, who was a court-appointed trustee of an estate, had filed an amended final accounting with the Probate Court that sought fiduciary fees for her work after she previously had represented to that court that she would waive the fees and remove them from the final accounting. The defendant upheld the determination of its reviewing committee that the amended final accounting constituted a knowingly false statement in violation of rule 3.3 (a) (1) and that the false statement also was dishonest in violation of rule 8.4 (3). The trial court dismissed the plaintiff's appeal, concluding, inter alia, that the reviewing committee's decision was not clearly erroneous and that the record supported the reviewing committee's findings of fact. The plaintiff thereafter appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming that the trial court improperly expanded the application of rule 3.3 to include attorneys functioning in a fiduciary role and improperly upheld the reviewing committee's determinations that she violated rules 3.3 (a) (1) and 8.4 (3). The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, and the plaintiff, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on her claim that rule 3.3 (a) (1) did not apply to her because the Probate Court had appointed her to act as a fiduciary for an estate and the commentary to that rule indicates that it governs the conduct of a lawyer representing a client in the proceed- ings of a tribunal: although the commentary illustrates the most common context in which the rule would apply, that is, lawyers appearing before a tribunal in the course of client representation, there are many other contexts in which a lawyer might appear before a tribunal, and a

The plaintiff attorney appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court dismissing, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, his appeal from the decision of the defendant Statewide Grievance Committee, which had denied his request to vacate a prior decision by a reviewing commit- tee of the defendant that imposed a disciplinary sanction against him. The plaintiff, who had represented L in a real estate transaction, intro- duced L to one of the plaintiff's then law partners, O, who was looking to secure a loan for the law firm. In 2001, L loaned the plaintiff's law firm $70,000, and, by 2008, when the law firm had not repaid the loan, the plaintiff and O each executed new notes for repayment of the loan by 2013. In 2011, L filed a grievance complaint against the plaintiff. The reviewing committee concluded in its 2013 decision that the plaintiff violated rule 1.8 (a) of the Rules of Professional Conduct by failing to advise L that he should seek the advice of independent counsel in connection with the loan, and by failing to advise L in writing that he was not acting as his lawyer in connection with the loan and to establish in writing the precise nature of the plaintiff's role in the transaction. The reviewing committee ordered the plaintiff to attend a continuing education course in legal ethics. The defendant thereafter denied the plaintiff's request for review, in which he stated that he accepted the discipline that was imposed and waived any appeal to the Superior Court. Four years later, the defendant declined to act on a motion that the plaintiff filed in 2017, pursuant to Disciplinary Counsel v. Elder (325 Conn. 378), in which he sought to vacate the disciplinary sanction on the ground that the six year time period in the applicable rule of practice (§ 2-32 (a) (2) (E)) for filing a grievance mandated the dismissal of L's grievance. The defendant also declined to act on the plaintiff's subsequent motion for reconsideration. In granting the defendan