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Monday, April 28, 2014

Commission hears testimony, including from judge, on 2 complaints against Billings lawyer

April 25, 2014 1:00 pm • By CLAIR JOHNSON, Billings Gazette

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A Billings lawyer with a track record of disciplinary problems and who is to be publicly censured next week by the Montana Supreme Court faced a state panel on two more misconduct complaints on Thursday.
During a daylong session, the state’s Commission on Practice heard evidence in two cases against Solomon Neuhardt, a personal injury lawyer, including testimony from state District Judge Gregory Todd of Billings.
Todd said as a judge, he had never filed an ethics complaint against an attorney until filing one last year against Neuhardt. The judge said he presided over a case in which Neuhardt represented a woman charged with felony criminal endangerment and drunken driving. The client had crashed her vehicle into a house in August 2012. The woman eventually pleaded guilty and was given a three-year deferred sentence.
Neuhardt was “making impossible legal arguments” in the case and refused to understand the law, the judge said.
“Some of it was the attitude and arrogance that Mr. Neuhardt declared in spite of weak or nonexistent legal arguments,” Todd said.
“I think Mr. Neuhardt was bilking his client,” the judge told the panel.
Attorneys for the state’s Office of Disciplinary Council, who investigated the two complaints against Neuhardt, recommended that Neuhardt be suspended for one year in the complaint filed by Todd and that he be disbarred in a second case. The second complaint alleged that Neuhardt mishandled money in two personal injury cases.
“Mr. Neuhardt has had a disgraceful legal career. Mr. Neuhardt should be disbarred,” Shaun Thompson, chief disciplinary counsel for the ODC, told the panel in the personal injury case.
Neuhardt, who represented himself, offered no defense in either case. He called no witnesses and gave no closing statements. However, he questioned some of ODC’s witnesses.
Neuhardt had no comment about the proceedings but said he has “other opportunities.”
Ward E. “Mick” Taleff, commission chairman and a Great Falls attorney, said the commission will take the cases under advisement and make its recommendations soon to the Supreme Court. Nine members of the commission heard the evidence against Neuhardt. The Supreme Court ultimately makes the decision on whether to discipline a lawyer.
In the case involving Todd’s complaint, Neuhardt tried unsuccessfully to get the criminal charges dismissed. Todd denied the dismissal “with a vociferous challenge to the nonexistent factual and legal basis,” the complaint said.
Neuhardt’s motion to dismiss and supporting briefs were “without merit and frivolous” and were trying to use civil remedies in a criminal case, the complaint alleged. Neuhardt’s conduct also wasted court and prosecution resources, the ODC said.
Jon Moog, ODC’s deputy counsel, asked Todd if he would be surprised to learn Neuhardt’s client had paid $6,500 for representation.
“Wow, that’s a lot. Yes, it would surprise me,” Todd responded.
Todd, when questioned by Neuhardt, said he had “no idea” what the going rate was for a felony criminal endangerment and a DUI case.
But, the judge continued, if Neuhardt had investigated the case he “would have known or should have known” that his arguments were not going to succeed.
“Virtually all of your arguments were not based in law or fact,” Todd told Neuhardt.
In the second case, Thompson called several witnesses and presented financial records in a case alleging that Neuhardt mishandled money he received from insurance companies on behalf of two clients injured in motor vehicle accidents and that he failed to keep his clients informed about their cases.
In another earlier case, Neuhardt is facing public censure on April 29 in Helena before the Supreme Court and a 90-day suspension from practice beginning on June 2. The court ordered the disciplinary action after finding Neuhardt engaged in a conflict of interest by representing a couple during a drug investigation in 2007.
Public censure is one step below disbarment.
Next week’s censure will be the fourth time Neuhardt has been disciplined for complaints. He was suspended in 2007, publicly censured in 2011 and publicly admonished by the commission in 2013.
In 2011, Neuhardt told The Gazette he was “leaving the law and never coming back.”
Neuhardt said Thursday he left the state in 2011 for about six months and went to South Carolina where he managed a financial company. He said he decided to return to Billings two or three years ago and “did well.” Neuhardt has been a member of the State Bar of Montana since 2001.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Illinois judges seeking assistance at faster pace

June 16, 2013 12:30 am • Kurt Erickson Times Bureau

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SPRINGFIELD — The cocaine-induced death of a downstate Illinois judge in March and the arrest last month of a colleague on drug-related charges comes at a time when more attorneys than ever are seeking help for mental health issues and addiction problems.
According to the most recent annual report of the Illinois Lawyers Assistance Program, which helps find treatment for attorneys, 299 new cases were opened during the most recent fiscal year, the most of any time in the agency's 32-year history.
Janet Piper Voss, executive director of the assistance program, attributes the increase to a rise in awareness of the program and an acceptance that treatment is a better option than hiding problems.
But, she said, judges often are a different breed.
"They are very concerned about letting anyone know there is a problem," Voss said. "And they tend to be more isolated in their work setting."
Joe Christ, 49, had been an associate judge in St. Clair County for less than a month before he died of a cocaine overdose in March. The Illinois State University graduate was a county prosecutor for nearly two decades before his elevation to the bench.
Christ's body was recovered at a hunting lodge in Pike County owned by the parents of St. Clair County Circuit Judge Michael Cook, 45, who has since been charged with possessing a weapon while using a controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of heroin.
According to a review of disciplinary action against judges at the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, the behavior of the two men would be considered among the most egregious when compared to cases going back for decades.
Since 1973, there have been 82 cases filed against wayward judges by the inquiry board.
Of them, only one other judge was connected to a drug-related crime.
In October 1996, Cook County Associate Judge Frank Edwards was nabbed for transporting marijuana at an airport in Belize.
A review of inquiry board documents shows 12 judges have been penalized over the past 40 years for allegations of alcohol abuse. Of those, cases against five judges were filed in the past decade.
Other inquiry board findings center on issues ranging from the attempted use of judicial clout to the mistreatment of people in their courtrooms.
In 2006, for example, the board opened an inquiry into Logan County Associate Judge Donald Behle, who was accused of having dated a woman while presiding over her divorce and child custody case. He also faced an allegation that he contacted a witness in a case in which he was the presiding judge.
The case was closed in 2007 after Behle resigned from office.
Among the highest-profile cases of the inquiry board was the 1997 censure of James Heiple, the chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Heiple was accused of trying to use his position to keep from being charged with a traffic violation.
But those cases affected judges who remained in office after they were investigated.
Once a judge leaves office, the inquiry board loses jurisdiction over the case. That means a judge accused of a drug-related crime might not be investigated by board.
"There could be others because they left (the job,)" said Kathy Twine, executive director of the Judicial Inquiry Board.
Former Sangamon County Associate Judge Philip Schickendanz serves as an example. He resigned in 1990 after being convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and cocaine possession.
He eventually was stripped of his law license by a separate agency, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
In 2012, the ARDC reported that it rendered discipline against 23 attorneys for drug-related problems or mental health issues. None of them was a judge.
The Illinois Lawyers Assistance Program reported that of the nearly 300 cases opened last year, only nine were judges.
Although it is not known why they sought treatment, the program notes that alcohol-related cases account for 83 percent of the referrals. Cocaine represented just 6 percent of the cases.
Former Illinois Appellate Court Justice Warren Wolfson, who now teaches at the DePaul University College of Law, said it can be difficult for judges to seek help.
"A lot of them are very reluctant to come forward voluntarily. But we don't have to have them come voluntarily if somebody would come forward who knows about it," said Wolfson, who sits on the board of directors of the lawyers assistance program.
"Usually, it's going to take some intervention for them to seek treatment," Wolfson said. "Most of them have been successful."
Nationally, the number of judges removed from office remains relatively low.
The American Judicature Society's Center for Judicial Ethics said 13 judges were removed from office in 2012 as a result of state disciplinary proceedings.
The center also found 24 judges resigned or retired in lieu of discipline and agreed not to serve in judicial office again.

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