In re Tun

• Decision Date: 18 August 2011
• Docket Number: No. 11–BG–777.,11–BG–777.
• Citation: 26 A.3d 313
• Parties: In re Harry TUN, Respondent.A Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

26 A.3d 313

In re Harry TUN, Respondent.A Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

No. 11–BG–777.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Decided Aug. 11, 2011.As Amended Aug. 18, 2011.

Before FISHER and OBERLY, Associate Judges, and KERN, Senior Judge.PER CURIAM:

Between 1999 and 2003, respondent Harry Tun, a member of the bar of this court, submitted vouchers to the Superior Court claiming payment for legal services rendered to indigent defendants. In each voucher, respondent wrote down the time he purported to have started and stopped working for a particular client for each day he claimed payment. A review of the vouchers revealed that respondent sought payment for the same time period for two or more clients (a practice known as “double billing”) on 162 occasions. These errors were the result of respondent's “abysmal” record-keeping. Respondent cooperated fully with Bar Counsel in its investigation and ultimately repaid to the Superior Court $16,034, which represented the “time that Respondent had double billed minus a reasonable estimate [of the time] that he could have but failed to bill for other court-appointed matters.” ¹

Respondent and Bar Counsel stipulated to the preceding facts in an amended petition for negotiated discipline and supporting amended affidavit, jointly filed on March 10, 2011.² The Board on Professional Responsibility referred the petition to Hearing Committee Number Six. A limited hearing was held, during which respondent reaffirmed his admission to all of the factual allegations in the petition; acknowledged that his actions violated the Rules of Professional Conduct; and stated that he understood the ramifications of the proposed sanction and had not been coerced, placed under duress, or promised anything that was not contained in the petition.³ Thereafter, the Committee issued the report now before this court that recommends the negotiated sanction be imposed.⁴

We addressed the filing of false vouchers in In re Cleaver–Bascombe, 986 A.2d 1191 (D.C.2010), disbarring a respondent who not only submitted a “patently false” voucher, but also “compounded ... her initial fraud by testifying falsely during the resulting disciplinary proceedings” and refusing to acknowledge that her voucher was fraudulent. Id. at 1199, 1200. In an earlier opinion on the matter, we were careful to distinguish such behavior from the type displayed by respondent here: “If the gravamen of Respondent's violation is that she was recklessly sloppy in her timekeeping practices, and if there has been no proof of intent to defraud or of subsequent perjury, a recommendation that a relatively short suspension be imposed ... may arguably be defensible.” In re Cleaver–Bascombe, 892 A.2d 396, 411–12 (D.C.2006).

Having reviewed the report in accordance with our procedures in uncontested discipline cases,⁵ we hereby accept the Committee's Report and Recommendation approving the petition for negotiated discipline. The Committee reviewed the circumstances of the disciplinary events, weighed the mitigating circumstances, and found that the negotiated discipline falls within the range of discipline imposed for similar actions. Accordingly, it is

ORDERED that Harry Tun is suspended from the practice of law in the District of...