Lawyer Suspended for Excessive Discovery; Client Had Money and a 'Zealous Interest in Litigating'
A Massachusetts lawyer has been suspended for four months for failing to restrain his overzealous client and allowing her wrongful termination cases to become “mired in discovery” for more than three years.
Lawyer Edson Rafferty charged $700,000 for the discovery work, according to the opinion by Justice Francis Spina of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
One of the client’s cases eventually settled for $40,000 and the other was dismissed, both concluding after the client hired a different lawyer.
Spina approved the four-month suspension and said the $700,000 fee should be submitted to arbitration, if requested by the estate of the now deceased client. The Legal Profession Blog noted the Jan. 28 opinion.
Rafferty’s client in the discipline case was a professional woman “with disposable income and a zealous interest in litigating,” Spina said, citing a hearing committee report. Rafferty “allowed the client to dictate a misguided strategy involving excessive and improper discovery requests that did not materially advance the client’s cases but did generate large hourly-based fees for the respondent.”
According to the hearing committee, the pleadings and motion papers were generally competently prepared, but the fee charged for discovery work “destroyed the economic viability of the cases,” Spina said.
In Massachusetts, single justices may decide ethics cases, but appeals may be made to the full court.
Rafferty has recently been in the news for his successful quest for a kidney transplant and his work with a group he used in his search for a live donor, MatchingDonors.com. He was recently named executive director of the organization, the Boston Globe reports. He received a transplant in January, although it wasn’t from a live donor, the story says.
Prior stories published in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald (sub. req.) identify Rafferty as an inventor who helped design an artificial heart and pump that was used to save his own life after a botched surgery destroyed his kidneys.
The Boston Globe describes Rafferty as “a Canton attorney, engineer, inventor, and family man known for his witty stories and keen vitality.”
Rafferty’s lawyer in the ethics case, Michael Mones Sr., did not respond to a request for comment. A call to Rafferty at MatchingDonors.com was not returned.