Powers v. State Bar

Opinion

THE COURT.

This is a proceeding to review the recommendation of the State Bar Court that petitioner Joseph Daniel Powers be disbarred. The recommendation is based on a finding that Powers wilfully failed to comply with the provisions of rule 955, California Rules of Court.

Powers contends that disbarment is unwarranted because he had no notice of the rule 955 proceedings and did not believe that the requirements of rule 955 applied to him since he had no clients or pending cases at the time he was ordered to comply with rule 955. We disagree.

Powers was admitted to practice in 1970. He has a prior disciplinary record involving three separate matters. In 1971, he removed from his trust account, without authorization, $5,000 that had been deposited on behalf of a client. He was criminally prosecuted for his conduct and in March 1973 was placed on interim suspension by this court following his plea of nolo contendere to violation of Penal Code sections 484 and 487 (misdemeanor grand theft). (Bar Misc. 3554.) In August 1974, we issued an order terminating the suspension on the ground that the period of interim suspension was adequate discipline.

In 1975, Powers was publicly reproved for wilfully delaying settlement of an estate for which he had been retained in January 1971.

In May 1983, Powers was placed on probation for one year on conditions including no actual suspension for failing to notify his client in 1978 that the client was to appear for deposition, for failing to appear on the date set, for failing to notify the client of the resulting motion to dismiss the client’s action with prejudice, and for failing to appear at the hearing on the dismissal motion. (Bar Misc. 4594.) Although Powers had been personally served with the State Bar’s notice to show cause and the notice of hearing date, he did not appear at the December 15, 1981, hearing. In August 1982, Powers signed for receipt of the notice of hearing before the review department. Again, he failed to appear.

[340]

In August 1983, a notice to show cause was issued regarding revocation of probation for Powers’s failure to comply with the conditions of probation. Specifically, Powers failed to meet with the probation monitor assigned to him, and he failed to file the reports required as a condition of probation. Efforts to personally serve the notice of the probation revocation hearing were fruitless; notice was ultimately published in December 1984. The declaration in support of the application for publication of notice stated: (1) Powers had vacated his official State Bar address—9550 Warner Ave., Fountain Valley, California—in May 1980. (2) Powers was not to be found at the address listed for his current driver’s license. (3) There was no Orange County telephone listing, business or personal, for Joseph D. Powers. (4) The Orange County Department of Voter’s Registration said that Powers was not registered to vote.