Suspended Pa. Lawyer Arrested for 2nd Time This Month in UPL Case

Charged earlier this month with practicing law without a license, a suspended Pennsylvania attorney allegedly is still presenting himself as a licensed practitioner.

E. Larry Kovel, 58, who was freed on bond in the initial case, was arrested a second time today and taken to the Allegheny County Jail, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Detectives from the county district attorney's office say Kovel had arranged to collect money at the arrest site from the fiancé of a jailed "client" for whom he has done no work.

It isn't clear from the article what additional charges, if any, Kovel may now be facing in what the newspaper describes as the "latest case" against him.

Kovel has a history of erratic behavior and has been the subject of substance abuse complaints, reports an earlier article in the Post-Gazette. He pleaded guilty to a cocaine possession charge in July of 2007 and was given a year's probation.

In 1989 and 1990, he pleaded guilty in drunken driving cases, reports the Tribune-Review.

In one matter earlier in his career, the Post-Gazette writes, relying on information from the mother of a former client of Kovel's, he "showed up for court so disoriented that he began representing the wrong man, insisted it was really his client using an alias, then had to be convinced he'd attended the wrong hearing."

None of the articles includes any comment from Kovel. Licensed since 1976, he is a former prosecutor who subsequently went into private practice as a criminal defense lawyer, the Tribune-Review says.

His initial arrest this month for unauthorized practice of law resulted from a Jan. 21 courtroom incident in which Kovel is accused of arriving late, smelling of alcohol, in a criminal case before Common Pleas Judge David Cashman.

His law license also had lapsed at that point, and although Kovel told Cashman's secretary he had "taken care of the issue," that wasn't true, the judge tells the Tribune-Review. "She made a call to the disciplinary board, and he hadn't taken care of anything."