Disciplinary Case Summaries, 0917 COBJ, Vol. 46, No. 8 Pg. 85
August, 2017
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDING DISCIPLINARY JUDGE
No. 16PDJ082. People v. Levings. 4/17/2017. Following a sanctions hearing, the PDJ suspended William Frederick Levings, attorney registration number 24443, from the practice of law for one year and one day, effective May 22, 2017.
Levings was hired to appeal his client’s order of deportation. Levings abandoned his client by never fling an appeal brief and never communicating with the client after the initial consultation. He thereby violated Colo. RPC 1.3 (a lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness when representing a client). Levings also collected an unreasonable fee by charging the client $2,200 despite failing to file the brief. By doing so, he violated Colo. RPC 1.5(a) (prohibiting a lawyer from charging an unreasonable fee or an unreasonable amount for expenses). Later, Levings disregarded requests for information from the disciplinary authorities in contravention of Colo. RPC 8.1(b) (a lawyer shall not knowingly fail to respond to a lawful demand for information from a disciplinary authority). He defaulted in this disciplinary proceeding.
No. 16PDJ067. People v. Miller. 6/1/2017. The PDJ approved the parties’ conditional admission of misconduct and publicly censured Randall H. Miller, attorney registration number 33694, effective June 1, 2017.
Beginning in early April 2014, Miller and his law fr m defended a civil case in which one member of the client group was accused by a former employer of taking confidential information and trade secrets when he left the company’s employ. Before Miller’s representation began, the client attempted to purge the email account he had used for business involving his former employer, though not all emails were in fact deleted at that time. Contrary to an allegation made in the civil case, the client told Miller that he had not taken any documents with him when he left the company and that he maintained none of the company’s information.
On April 9, 2014, while planning a response to a motion for a temporary restraining order, Miller directed his associate to confirm that the client possessed no company information. Based on a miscommunication, the associate directed the client to delete still-existing company emails. Te associate rescinded the instruction...
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