Attorney Grievance Com'n of Maryland v. Harris-Smith
| Decision Date | 21 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | Misc. AG, No. 8 |
| Citation | 737 A.2d 567,356 Md. 72 |
| Parties | ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION OF MARYLAND v. Bridgette HARRIS-SMITH. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Melvin Hirshman, Bar Counsel and Delores O. Ridgell, Asst. Bar Counsel, for Attorney Grievance Com'n of Maryland, Petitioner.
Thomas D. Murphy, Rockville, for Respondent.
Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL and ROBERT L. KARWACKI (retired, specially assigned), JJ.
This professional discipline matter involves, among other charges, the unauthorized practice of law. The respondent maintained a principal office for the practice of law for approximately three years in Landover, Maryland without ever having been admitted in Maryland. The defense rests on the respondent's admission to practice during that time before the United States District Court for the District of Maryland (the Maryland District) and on our decision in Kennedy v. Bar Association of Montgomery County, 316 Md. 646, 561 A.2d 200 (1989).
The respondent is Bridgette Harris-Smith (Smith).1 She was admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania in 1986, in the District of Columbia in 1988, and in Virginia in 1991. Throughout the period relevant to this matter she also has been admitted to the bar of the Maryland District. She has never been admitted to the bar of this Court. Throughout her professional career Smith has limited the matters that she undertook to handle to conclusion exclusively to bankruptcy law. From approximately 1987 to September 1993 she was employed by a Maryland attorney, Benny Brooks, at an office in Suite 260, 8201 Corporate Drive, Landover, Maryland.2 In the fall of 1993 Smith and three other attorneys, two of whom were admitted in Maryland, formed the firm of Craig, Harris, Henderson & Johnson, LLC (the Law Firm).3 The Law Firm had offices in Suite 770 of the building at 8201 Corporate Drive, Landover. When Bar Counsel's investigation of the complaints in this matter began in 1995, the Law Firm dissolved, and Smith moved her office to Washington, D.C. where her practice thereafter has had its primary focus.
The charges in the instant matter are based upon the complaints of four clients who were represented by Smith during the Law Firm period of her career and on the complaint of Bar Counsel who alleges unauthorized practice. When the complaints went to charges, this Court referred them for hearing to Judge Nelson W. Rupp, Jr. of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. Judge Rupp found, with respect to each of the complaints, that Smith had violated some, but not all, of the Maryland Lawyers' Rules of Professional Conduct that had been charged.4 Both Smith and Bar Counsel have filed exceptions. We shall first address exceptions concerning the charge of unauthorized practice of law and then consider the individual client complaints. In each instance we shall state additional facts necessary to present the issues.
To attract bankruptcy and other work, the Law Firm adopted a marketing strategy involving radio and newspaper advertising. Audio tapes of the text of two of the radio ads were preserved. There is no record of how frequently the ads were broadcasted.5 Judge Rupp found:
(Citations omitted).
The classified telephone directory, under the heading "lawyers," also carried Smith's name (as Bridgette Harris) in bold type from 1993 to 1996. Beneath her name the ad said, "Specializing in Bankruptcy-Real Estate & Personal Injury." 8201 Corporate Drive, Landover was given as the address, but the telephone number was not that of the Law Firm. Smith testified, without contradiction, that the ad had been placed by Brooks and that she had asked him to remove it. She said that she did not consider herself authorized to require the telephone company to modify the ad.
The letterhead of the Law Firm listed only the Landover address, telephone number, and fax number. It indicated that there are offices in Baltimore, Washington, and Alexandria, but addresses for those offices were not shown. By symbols appearing behind the names of the respective attorneys one is advised that Craig and Henderson are admitted in Maryland and D.C., Smith is admitted in D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and Johnson is admitted in D.C. and Pennsylvania. Smith also used a professional card which is reproduced (not to scale) below.
Smith described the procedures in the Law Firm with respect to clients or prospective clients with whom she had contact. When a prospective client telephoned Smith she questioned the client concerning the client's problem. If the client presented a bankruptcy matter, Smith would have the client arrange for an appointment. If the client presented, for example, a divorce matter, Smith would refer the client to Craig or to Henderson. For the most part neither of the Maryland admitted attorneys in the Law Firm initially interviewed prospective clients who responded to the marketing campaign; Smith initially interviewed them by telephone. Smith labels her telephone interviews of prospective clients as "prescreening." Once Smith had identified a client's matter as a bankruptcy case, she proceeded with the representation without supervision by either of the Maryland attorneys. If the bankruptcy matter required an appearance in a court of the State of Maryland, for example, to oppose a mortgage foreclosure, Smith arranged for the client to be represented there by an attorney admitted in Maryland.
Smith's routine while with the Law Firm was to see clients in the Landover office approximately three days per week and to work at home on paper work approximately two days per week. She estimated that on average she saw five clients per day, or about fifteen per week.
Judge Rupp found that Smith had violated Rule 5.5(a) () and had violated Maryland Code , § 10-601(a) of the Business Occupations and Professions Article (BOP) ("Except as otherwise provided by law, a person may not practice, attempt to practice, or offer to practice law in the State unless admitted to the Bar."). Referring, inter alia, to the radio ads and to Smith's professional card, Judge Rupp found that Smith "held herself out as a Maryland attorney and failed to disclose that her practice was limited to bankruptcy law and to the [Maryland District]." Smith excepts to this finding, contending in essence that her practice in Maryland was not unauthorized because the legal representations that she undertook were limited to bankruptcy matters in the Maryland District, and legal services incident thereto.
Conceptually this argument rests on federalism. As the federal system has evolved with respect to the regulation of the practice of law, the license to practice that is issued by a state is territorially oriented and authorizes the practice of law by the licensee at any place within the territorial jurisdiction of the state granting the license. See Leis v. Flynt, 439 U.S. 438, 442, 99 S.Ct. 698, 700-01, 58 L.Ed.2d 717, 721-22 (1979) (per curiam)
. Federal courts, on the other hand, had limited their regulation of attorneys to the grant, withholding, or withdrawal of permission to appear in a matter in the particular federal court. Thus, the broad considerations involved in determining if conduct constitutes the unauthorized practice of law can be overlapping within the same territory. Within that framework, we emphasize as a preliminary matter that this case does not involve an attorney whose principal office for the practice of law is in a jurisdiction where that attorney is admitted, and where the nature of the transaction or litigation in which the attorney is representing a client takes the attorney into a jurisdiction where the attorney is not admitted. Here, Smith does not seek to defend against the charge of unauthorized practice by contending that her principal office for the practice of law was located in Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, or Virginia, and that Maryland clients, attracted to her at one of those locations, had problems for which she concluded that bankruptcy in the Maryland District was the appropriate remedy. Nor does Smith argue that her client contact was subject to the supervision of a Maryland admitted attorney. See Attorney Grievance Comm'n v. Hallmon, 343 Md. 390, 681 A.2d 510 (1996); In re Application of R.G.S., 312 Md. 626, 541 A.2d 977 (1988).
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