Yale v. the State Bar

THE COURT.

This is a proceeding to review the record in a disciplinary proceeding initiated when the respondent State Bar issued its notice to the petitioner, an attorney, and his law partner to show cause why they should not be disciplined for asserted professional misconduct based on facts alleged in four separate counts, only three of which, however, had application to the petitioner herein. We are not presently concerned with the charges as they may affect petitioner’s law partner. That is a matter for consideration in a separate review proceeding here pending.

At the conclusion of its hearings, at which considerable evidence was adduced, a local administrative committee made findings and recommended that petitioner be disciplined " but certainly not more than thirty days suspension”. In the

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main, the board of governors adopted the findings as to the circumstances underlying the several charges, but deleted therefrom such portions thereof as tended to indicate innocence or good faith on the petitioner’s part.

The evidence has been examined and we are satisfied that upon two of the charges made against petitioner no discipline should be meted out to him. As to these charges, it definitely appears that petitioner was free of reprehensible conduct, either because his partner had handled the matter or because the fault underlying his conduct was the result of an apparent honest error of law. To sustain our conclusion with respect to the so-called “Lockwood Fee” matter we need only refer to the brief of the respondent State Bar, wherein it is stated that “The facts here are, in substance, that the firm of Stanford and Yale charged and collected an unconscionable fee for services rendered, in a manner which amounted to a fraud upon the client. The board found that petitioner had no part .in fixing the fee, and is willing to have his civil liability fixed and to return to the client so much of the excessive portion of the fee as he may have received as a member of the partnership. The evidence here sustains those findings. We believe that petitioner correctly states the law to be that he is not subject to discipline for the acts of his partner in which he did not participate.

(In re Luce,