Attorney Grievance Comm'n of Md. v. Milton

• Citation: 225 A.3d 415,467 Md. 433
• Decision Date: 03 March 2020
• Docket Number: Misc. Docket AG No. 44, Sept. Term, 2018
• Parties: ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION of Maryland v. Gregory J. MILTON
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

467 Md. 433

225 A.3d 415

ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION of Maryland

v.Gregory J. MILTON

Misc. Docket AG No. 44, Sept. Term, 2018

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 3, 2020

Argued by Lydia E. Lawless, Bar Counsel (Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland), for Petitioner.

Argued by Gregory J. Milton (Largo, MD), for Respondent.

Argued before: Barbera, C.J., McDonald, Watts, Hotten, Getty, Booth, Glenn T. Harrell, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned) JJ.

Harrell, J. Petitioner, the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland ("Commission" or "AGC"), by its Bar Counsel, Lydia E. Lawless, Esq., and Assistant Bar Counsel, Jennifer L. Thompson, Esq., filed charges against Respondent, Gregory M. Milton ("Milton"), pursuant to Md. Rule 19-271. The charging petition was assigned by us to the Honorable Judge Judy L. Woodall of the Circuit Court for Prince George's County to conduct the baseline proceedings in this matter.

Milton was served with the Petition for Disciplinary or Remedial Action on 5 March 2019 through the Client Protection Fund of the Bar of Maryland, pursuant to Md. Rule 19-723(b).¹ Milton failed to answer timely by the stated deadline of 21 March 2019. In lieu, he filed on 8 April 2019 a belated Motion to Extend Time to Respond, requesting an extension until 16 April 2019. His motion was granted. Yet, he failed to answer timely the petition by that date as well. The Commission filed a motion for order of default, which was granted. Thereafter, Milton requested another extension of time to respond to the petition, which was denied. On 10 June 2019, Milton filed a motion to dismiss the Commission's petition and vacate the order of default.²

An evidentiary hearing before Judge Woodall was scheduled for 8 July 2019. At its inception, the court found that Milton's failure to answer timely the petition was unjustified and denied his motion to vacate the order of default. Bar Counsel entered into evidence first a notice the AGC received from Capital One Bank (the "Bank") alerting it to the possibility of an overdraft from Milton's attorney trust account. Bar Counsel followed that with copies of the numerous letters and emails sent to Milton requesting financial information and documents to facilitate investigation into the handling of his trust account during the relevant period. A written response by Milton to Bar Counsel's initial request for information was entered also, in which Milton stated there had been no overdraft because it was the Bank's error that resulted in the notice being sent. Accompanying his letter were bank statements from Capital One Bank that brought to Bar Counsel's attention possible other violations in the form of "customer withdrawals" from the account ("Petitioner's Exhibit 4"). Other than his initial response, the only other evidence of "compliance" with his duty to cooperate with the inquiry and subsequent investigation was a single email from Milton, Petitioner's Exhibit 9, in which he stated again that he did not need to produce further documents as the Bank's error was to blame for the overdraft notice. Petitioner's Exhibits 13-19 and 24 were an amalgam of two petitions filed by Milton to quash Bar Counsel's records subpoena of Capital One Bank regarding his trust account records, Bar Counsel's opposition to the petitions, and the orders of the circuit court denying both of Milton's petitions. Finally, Bar Counsel entered, in addition to its correspondence to Milton, a spreadsheet prepared by the Office of Bar Counsel analyzing the "customer withdrawals" on the bank records (part of Petitioner's Exhibit 4) as "cash withdrawals."

Judge Woodall issued her written Findings and Conclusions on 8 August 2019. She concluded that Milton violated the following Maryland Attorneys' Rules of Professional Conduct ("MARPC"): (1) Rule 19-301.15; (2) Rule 19-303.1; (3) Rule 19-308.1(b); (4) Rule 19-308.4(a) & (d); (5) Rule 19-407; and (6) Rule 19-410.

The Commission filed with us no exceptions to Judge Woodall's Findings and Conclusions and recommended that this Court suspend indefinitely Milton from the practice of law, noting that, because he is a repeat violator of the MARPC, "[r]espondent does not or will not grasp that his misconduct is inconsistent with his professional obligations." See Attorney Grievance Comm'n v. Marcalus , 442 Md. 197, 211, 112 A.3d 375 (2015) (holding that the respondent "demonstrated that he is extremely likely to repeat his misconduct, no matter how many times this Court suspends him from the practice of law in Maryland"). Milton filed timely written exceptions to Judge Woodall's Findings and Conclusions. For the following reasons we overrule Milton's exceptions and hold that his violations of the MARPC warrant indefinite suspension.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Satisfied that the Office of Bar Counsel met the clear and convincing standard of evidence required of it in attorney disciplinary cases, the hearing judge marshaled the following facts, which we rephrase and summarize.

Milton was admitted to the Maryland Bar on 13 December 2006. He maintained his law office in Prince George's County. On 21 July 2017, Capital One Bank contacted Milton, notifying him that his attorney trust account maintained with the Bank had become overdrawn on 30 June 2017. Upon receiving the Bank's concurrent notice to it of the supposed overdraft, the Office of Bar Counsel, by letter dated 1 August 2017, requested of Milton that he produce (within 10 days) copies of his client ledgers, deposit slips, cancelled checks, and monthly bank statements for May 2017 through July 2017. Bar Counsel called to Milton's attention in its letter that Rule 19-308.1 required Milton to comply with lawful demands of Bar Counsel. Milton received the letter on 7 August 2017.

In his August 18 reply, Milton, referring to claimed irregularities by Capital One Bank that resulted in the overdraft, disclaimed any personal responsibility for the episode. Attached to his response were copies of certain bank statements relative to his trust account. Rather than provide any of the other information requested by Bar Counsel, Milton claimed the production of the breadth of further documents sought by Bar Counsel was unnecessary, stating that "given the Bank's additional documentation evidencing the irregularity with their own ledger, and records ... the issue is clearly an irregularity with a Bank Teller, which I clearly cannot control."³ Unfortunately for Milton, the bank statements he provided reflected that he made seven "customer withdrawals" from the trust account over the three month period totaling $4,050.00, in amounts varying from $200.00 to $1,000.00.

Bar Counsel sent Milton a follow-up letter, dated 21 September 2017, renewing its request for copies of his client ledgers, deposit slips, cancelled checks, and, additionally, an electronic transfer log for the previously stated period. Milton did not respond to this request. Bar Counsel informed Milton on 24 October 2017 that the matter had been docketed for investigation, requesting anew the earlier requested documents be provided within 15 days. Once again, Milton observed a vow of silence.

Following Bar Counsel's fourth attempt (13 November 2017) requesting Milton's cooperation and reminding him of his obligation to respond, Milton sent a letter, dated 22 November 2017, claiming to have "lost track" of the earlier correspondence from Bar Counsel and again claiming that the production of further documents was unnecessary as the overdraft was a result of the Bank's ineptitude. Consequently, he produced none of the additional documents sought. He renewed his view that further investigation was unwarranted.

On 7 December 2017, Bar Counsel informed Milton that, as a result of his refusal to provide the requested documentation, it planned to subpoena the requested records from Capital One Bank (or as much of the requested records as may be in the Bank's possession). Bar Counsel noted also that Milton's cash/customer withdrawals from the attorney trust account (noted on the bank statements supplied by Milton with his 18 August 2017 letter) were prohibited by Rule 19-410 and expanded its request for copies of his client ledgers to the period from January 2017 through November 2017. Milton failed again to provide the requested documents, although he accepted service on 18 December 2017 of his copy of the investigative subpoena to the Bank.

In its last-ditch efforts to elicit information, Bar Counsel contacted Milton regarding his incomplete and absent responses, once by email on 30 December 2017 and another by letter dated 8 January 2018. The letter set a deadline of 19 January 2018 for Milton to respond and provide the requested documentation. If for no apparent reason other than consistency, Milton failed to respond directly. He took a different tact however.

On 9 January 2018, Milton filed a Petition to Quash. In his petition, Milton claimed he had not committed misconduct and that there was no good faith basis on which to seek the requested bank records through the subpoena. Further, he maintained that the financial documents requested by Bar Counsel had been denied in a prior, unrelated, proceeding in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. There was no challenge in the petition to Bar Counsel's legal authority to issue the subpoena. Bar Counsel filed an Opposition to the Petition to Quash and a Motion to Enforce Subpoena⁴ on 24 January 2018, arguing that Milton's refusal, coupled with evidence of the impermissible cash withdrawals, demonstrated that the subpoena was necessary to further its investigation.

The petition to quash was denied on 26 February 2018. The court found that Milton's argument "strain[ed] credulity and logic" and stated that "there is every possibility [that] the documents and records sought by the Commission's subpoena will produce evidence relevan[t] to the general subject matter of the Commission's investigation in this matter."

Milton filed an amended...