Golfing Lawyer Gets 30-Day License Suspension
An Arizona lawyer has been suspended for 30 days after a suspicious judge’s assistant learned he was out golfing the same afternoon he had told her he could not be in court because of a doctor’s appointment.
A hearing officer’s report (PDF) said some of the facts of the case were in dispute and the state bar had conceded some of the evidence could not be proven by clear and convincing evidence. The lawyer, Carl Macpherson, maintains he did indeed go to the doctor’s office after being told he could be squeezed in for an appointment, but the doctor had already gone for the day when he arrived. He says he then went to the country club and joined a group of golfers whose game was already in progress.
Because of Macpherson’s request, a judge had rescheduled testimony by Macpherson’s client, the wife of a doctor on trial for allegedly seeking a contract killing.
A hearing officer recommended a 30-day suspension of Macpherson’s license under an agreed disposition of the charges, and the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the sanction. The court also placed Macpherson on probation for a one-year period and ordered him to take an ethics class “on integrity, honesty and the absolute necessity of candor toward the tribunal.”
A hat tip to Legal Profession Blog.
