ODC and binding arbitration

No attorney likes to be involved in a complaint made to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC), as the potential sanctions can be quite harsh. One Honolulu attorney went to extremes on this. This attorney (and former Hawaii judge!) was sanctioned by the ODC because his fee agreements included a clause in his retainer agreement that required clients to pay him $2,000 if the ODC became involved in a fee dispute before an attempt was made to resolve the dispute through binding arbitration.

The ODC board found that this practice was designed to intimidate and penalize the clients if they contacted or filed an ethics complaint with the agency, with the result that it eliminated future ethics complaints against him. He was later disbarred by the Hawaii Supreme Court.

This attorney was considered the "poster child" for a rule passed by the Hawaii Supreme Court, over the objection of some attorneys, that made all ethics rulings public. For instance, until this rule passed, the attorney mentioned above appeared to have only one ethics violation. After the rule came out, a member of the public considering hiring him could find out that he violated ethics rules in seven more cases, ranging from charging unreasonable fees to engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, and had three pending complaints before the ODC. This is a good thing for the public, as they do not have to wait until an attorney's conduct sinks to the lowest levels before finding out about his or her ethical conduct.

Here's a link about this rule:

http://starbulletin.com/2004/08/01/news/story3.html

Here's a link to an editorial that discussed these particular violations and more:

http://starbulletin.com/2005/10/07/editorial/editorials.html