Lawyer Suspended for Destroying Law Firm Docs in Court Restroom and After Hearing
An Ohio lawyer has been suspended for a year, in part because he destroyed law firm documents in a courthouse bathroom during a recess and after a civil case claiming a violation of his employment agreement.
The Ohio Supreme Court said the documents had potential evidentiary value and Columbus lawyer David Robinson had engaged in a pattern of misconduct involving lying and misrepresentation under oath, according to an opinion (PDF) issued on Wednesday. The National Law Journal (sub. req.) has the story.
Robinson had removed seven boxes of documents from his law firm, Schottenstein Zox & Dunn, after he initiated job talks with two other firms, the opinion says. He sent one of the firms detailed information about his clients and client-billing reports after obtaining a confidentiality agreement governing the information.
Schottenstein filed a civil suit against Robinson claiming he had violated nonsolicitation and nondisclosure provisions of his employment agreement. At a deposition, Robinson said he didn’t take any client files or marketing plans for his firm’s lobbying subsidiary, the opinion says. Then at a hearing for injunctive relief two days later, he said that, to the best of his knowledge, he didn’t take business plans, and didn’t recall taking any information about the lobbying subsidiary.
At a recess during the hearing on an injunction, Robinson tore up a law firm report of his billable hours and threw it in the trash bin in the courthouse restroom, the opinion says. After the hearing, he took several boxes of firm documents from his home and put them in his car, then drove off and stopped three times to tear them up and throw them away. He later self-reported the document destruction and returned remaining documents to the law firm.
Two dissenting judges said Robinson should be suspended for two years, as recommended by the state’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline.
