In re Demetriades
| Decision Date | 18 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | 20-2559,August Term 2022 |
| Parties | IN RE: Tara A. DEMETRIADES, an Attorney and Counselor-at-Law. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Randall W. Jackson, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, NY, for Amicus-Appellee Committee on Grievances.
Derrick Storms, Solomos & Storms, PLLC, Astoria, NY, for Respondent-Appellant Tara A. Demetriades.
Before: Sack, Sullivan, and Park, Circuit Judges.
Tara A. Demetriades appeals from orders of the Committee on Grievances of the Board of Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (the "Committee") finding her liable for violating various provisions of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct and imposing sanctions for these violations, including a six-month suspension from practicing law in the Eastern District. On appeal, Demetriades argues that the Committee (1) deprived her of due process by "failing to afford her with reasonable notice of the charges and an adequate opportunity to defend against the charges," (2) "failed to substantiate each and every element of the charges by clear and convincing evidence," and (3) imposed a "punishment [that] was excessive in light of the fact there was no harm to the public." Demetriades Br. at 1. She has also requested that we maintain her appeal under seal, arguing that public disclosure of her identity would cause her reputational harm. For the reasons explained below, we reject each of these arguments. Accordingly, we affirm the orders of the Committee and order that the docket in this appeal, and all its contents, be unsealed.
Demetriades is a solo practitioner whose firm, ADA Accessibility Associates, focuses primarily on litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. (the "ADA") – specifically, under its provisions requiring places of public accommodation to take readily achievable steps to make their premises and facilities accessible to individuals with disabilities, see id. §§ 12181–12183. As relevant here, she is admitted to practice in New York and in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (the "Eastern District").
After receiving a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1999, Demetriades spent roughly ten years working as an associate in the general commercial litigation, tobacco law, and general torts practices of various national and regional law firms in Florida and Georgia. In 2000, the Florida bar suspended her from the practice of law for ninety days after she was arrested in a criminal matter. In 2009, she opened a small practice of her own in Florida, focusing on immigration law.
In 2013, Demetriades decided to transition the focus of her practice to disability law after meeting Cemal Jay Egilmez, a self-described "ADA inspector," at a charity poker tournament.1 Although she had no prior experience working on ADA cases, Demetriades wanted "to increase [her] income" and thought that ADA litigation "sounded like something that might provide [her] with an opportunity to generate additional legal work and revenue." App'x at 857. She also saw it as "something that was sort of feel-good work with clients that [sic] were very appreciative." Id. at 516. Shortly after meeting, Demetriades and Egilmez began working together, with Egilmez introducing Demetriades to potential plaintiffs for ADA lawsuits and conducting "undercover" investigations of small businesses and documenting ostensible ADA violations on their premises. Id. at 561.
Around the same time, Demetriades also "decided to transition [her] practice [from Florida] to New York" and was admitted to practice in the Eastern District in 2014. Id. at 513. Over the next three years, she filed approximately 168 ADA cases against small businesses in the Eastern District, each on behalf of one of the same eight plaintiffs.
Before commencing these actions, Demetriades would not "examin[e] the propert[ies]" of potential defendants "[her]self" – which she deemed "[ir]relevant" because she is "not an expert or an architect" and is largely "ignorant" of the "technical" requirements of the ADA – and instead relied on "violations list[s]" or "inspection reports" provided by Egilmez for a fee. Id. at 569, 673, 880. In preparing such reports, Egilmez – acting on Demetriades's instruction "not to communicate with anybody ... because they could be represented by counsel," id. at 561 – would "not inquire as to any accommodations that may not be readily visible, such as a portable ramp, or assistance that might be available upon request," Sp. App'x at 7. Likewise, his reports would omit "things ... that [he and Demetriades] d[id]n't necessarily want to disclose to defendant's counsel." App'x at 555. As a result, many of the reports that Egilmez prepared for Demetriades contained factual inaccuracies and unsubstantiated legal theories of ADA violations. Demetriades did not "know the procedure by which [Egilmez] conduct[ed] his inspections" and had "never been with him on an inspection." Id. at 862.
On the client-facing side of her business model, Demetriades's standard "retainer agreement" provided that her "client[s] waive[d] the right to pursue monetary damages," "agree[ed] to seek only injunctive relief," and agreed that "any and all money ... that's awarded to the plaintiff as a result of the lawsuit goes to [Demetriades]." Id. at 632–33. Demetriades "built [her] business [as] a mass" or "volume practice," and of the roughly 168 ADA cases that she filed in the Eastern District, she took none to trial and pursued none to a favorable judgment on the merits. App'x at 619.
As a result of this "mass" or "volume" approach to her practice – evidently compounded by "personal issue[s]" that arose "during [a] period of time when [her] dog was sick" – Demetriades found herself "way over-burdened in terms of [her] case load." Id. And as a result of her unmanageable caseload, Demetriades "repeatedly" "allowed [her clients’] case[s] to languish," "face[d] dismissal [of those cases] for failure to prosecute," "failed ... to abide by [c]ourt-ordered deadlines," and "failed to appear at ... hearings" and "[c]ourt conferences," for which she was sanctioned and/or reprimanded by several different judges of the Eastern District. Sp. App'x at 9–10.
Hoping to "get some additional assistance" with her "over-burdened" caseload while she "deal[t] with [her] animal," Demetriades decided to "look[ ] for somebody to cover all of [her] New York cases ... for [a] few months." App'x at 609, 611, 619. To that end, she made an "arrangement" for a lawyer named W. Marilyn Pierre "to attend [Demetriades's] hearing[s] and for [Demetriades] to pay [Pierre] for attending the hearing[s]" on a flat-fee, per-hearing basis. Id. at 611.
At a November 2016 settlement conference (to which she had arrived forty-five minutes late, citing the fact that she had "a very sick [dog] at home"), Demetriades was questioned by a magistrate judge about her "pattern in the Eastern District" of being "unable to comply with [her] obligations in [her] cases"; Demetriades responded by assuring the magistrate judge that she "ha[d] Marilyn Pierre[ ] working with [her] ... out of [her] Long Island office" as "an associate." Id. at 779–81. When specifically asked to clarify whether Pierre was in fact a "contract attorney[ ]," Demetriades doubled down, stating, Id. at 781–82. Demetriades would later admit that Pierre actually was "a contract attorney," that she understood that a contract attorney is "a separate animal" from an associate, that she had "never hired [Pierre] as [her] employee," and that Pierre did not "actually work at" her "Long Island office." Id. at 613, 734, 783, 854.
Just a month later, Demetriades was ordered to attend a show-cause hearing to address her repeated failures to comply with court deadlines, orders, and rules in another one of her Eastern District cases. Despite the court's issuance of two separate orders expressly stating that Demetriades, as "counsel of record," was required to appear personally and that her last-minute filing of a stipulation of dismissal did not "excuse [her] appearance[ ]," Demetriades declined to appear and instead sent Pierre on her behalf. Sp. App'x at 18 (). When the magistrate judge reached her via speakerphone in open court, Demetriades spent several minutes insisting that she did not "need to participate." App'x at 79. She then started "shouting," Sp. App'x at 19, at the magistrate judge:
I am on vacation at the moment .... I mean I can't always be available every single second of every single day .... I don't even know exactly what the [c]ourt is looking for from me. ... I'm not understanding exactly what we're doing or what the [c]ourt's goal is here. ... I'm not sure why it is the [c]ourt consistently forgets that there are actually clients here. Every one of my clients that I brought to the [c]ourt pursuant to [c]ourt orders, they've been treated in a very nasty way. They've gotten nothing but disdain from the [c]ourt and anger. ... [T]hey've literally been badgered by the [c]ourt.
App'x at 90–92. As to the merits of the district court's show-cause order, Demetriades refused to accept responsibility for her failures to comply with prior court orders, instead asserting that they were "obviously [the] fault of the [court-ordered mediation] program." Id. at 84. Demetriades would later concede that her conduct during this hearing was "awful" and "terrible." Id. at 583.
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Valvetech, Inc. v. Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc.
...be very seldom exercised, and even then only with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very clear and apparent reasons.” Id. (internal ellipsis “The First Amendment right of access is always qualified,” however. N.Y.C. Liberties Union v. N.Y.C. Transit Auth., 684 F.3d 2......