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Mahoning County Bar Association v. Lavelle11/23/2005
Submitted March 29, 2005
{ } Respondent, Mark Joseph Lavelle of Youngstown, Ohio, Attorney Registration No. 0061904, was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1993.
{ } On May 14, 2004, relators -- Mahoning County Bar Association and Disciplinary Counsel -- filed an amended complaint charging respondent with two counts of professional misconduct. A panel of the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline held a hearing and made findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a recommendation, all of which the board adopted.
Misconduct
Count One
{ } Gloria Lynn Short retained respondent in October 2002 to represent her in a domestic-relations matter. She met with respondent, discussed her interest in obtaining a dissolution of her marriage, and received paperwork from respondent that she and her husband were to complete.
{ } Two weeks later, Short and her husband returned to respondent's law office and met with his secretary, Pamela Rodriguez. They reviewed and signed paperwork that Rodriguez had typed. Thereafter, Short called respondent's law office weekly to find out when her dissolution hearing would be held. Rodriguez assured her that the case was pending and a hearing would be scheduled, but in fact neither respondent nor anyone else in his office had ever filed the dissolution pleadings in court. In May 2003, Short hired a different lawyer and secured a dissolution by July of that year.
{ } Short filed a grievance against respondent in May 2003. The bar association sent a letter and a copy of the grievance to respondent in May 2003 and asked that he respond within 15 days. Respondent did not do so and likewise did not reply to two additional letters sent to him by a member of the bar association in June and July 2003. After respondent received a fourth letter from the bar association in August 2003, he called the bar association's investigator, scheduled an interview, and prepared a written response to the grievance.
{ } At his August 2003 interview and in his written response to the grievance, respondent told the investigator that he could not find his file and was not certain what had happened with Short's case. He indicated that he learned in May 2003 that Short's dissolution pleadings had never been filed by his office.
{ } The board found that respondent had thereby violated DR 6-101(A)(3) (barring an attorney from neglecting an entrusted legal matter). Other allegations against respondent in the amended complaint had not been proven by clear and convincing evidence, according to the board, including an allegation that respondent had tried to hide his misconduct by providing a misleading story to the bar association's investigator.
Count Two
{ } Respondent met with Brian and Lori Cupp concerning a domestic-relations matter in 2002. Respondent prepared a summons, an affidavit, financial disclosure forms, and a proposed judgment entry granting Cupp and his wife a dissolution. Brian never paid the agreed retainer in full, and respondent never filed a petition for dissolution or any other documents with the common pleas court to initiate the case.
{ } During respondent's representation of Brian Cupp, persons employed in respondent's law office altered documents or falsely notarized them. The affidavit prepared by respondent for the case purports to bear the signatures of both Cupp and his wife, Lori Cupp, with one notary verification. The jurat on the affidavit states that it was signed in the presence of the notary on December 10, 2002, but Lori did not in fact sign it that day. The notary on the document was Gregory Lavelle, the respondent's brother
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