Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Bd. v. Meyer

• Decision Date: 15 May 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-1862,19-1862
• Citation: 944 N.W.2d 61
• Parties: IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD, Complainant, v. Jennifer L. MEYER, Respondent.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

944 N.W.2d 61

IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD, Complainant,

v.Jennifer L. MEYER, Respondent.

No. 19-1862

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed May 15, 2020

Tara van Brederode and Wendell J. Harms, Des Moines, for complainant.

Leon Spies of Spies & Pavelich, Iowa City, for respondent.

WATERMAN, Justice.

Attorney Jennifer Meyer entered an Alford plea to third-degree theft and was ordered to pay $102,989.95 in restitution after a special investigation by the state auditor found she billed the state public defender (SPD) for services she did not provide and collected reimbursement for expenses she did not incur. The Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board brought a complaint against Meyer, alleging she violated three rules of professional conduct in connection with her Alford plea: Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct 32:1.5(a) (unreasonable fees or expenses), 32:8.4(b) (commission of a criminal act), and 32:8.4(c) (conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation). A division of the Iowa Supreme Court Grievance Commission found Meyer violated those rules and recommended a sixty-day suspension. On our de novo review, we find Meyer violated all three rules and suspend her from the practice of law for one year.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

We make the following findings based upon our de novo review of the record. Iowa Supreme Ct. Att'y Disciplinary Bd. v. Moran , 919 N.W.2d 754, 756 (Iowa 2018).

A. The SPD Contract and Audit. Meyer was hired as a contract attorney with the SPD in October 2002. The SPD periodically renewed her contract. The scope of Meyer's representation expanded to include court-appointed practice in seven Iowa counties and consisted primarily of indigent criminal defense. She described her practice as "busy," estimating that she opened approximately 2100 files during 2010–2012.

The SPD contract required that Meyer claim fees only for "actual time and expenses reasonably necessary to properly represent" her clients. She was also required to follow SPD rules for mileage reimbursement. The contract required that Meyer maintain records.

Contractor shall maintain books, records, documents, and other evidence of accounting procedures and practices which sufficiently and properly reflect the services performed and for which payment was requested or which relate to the work performed pursuant to this contract.... Contractor shall retain all books, records, documents and other relevant materials for five years after payment has been made under this contract.

For each claim Meyer submitted to the SPD, she certified she was entitled to the requested payment.

I, the undersigned attorney, certify that I have completed my services under the appointment; that I have not received nor have I entered into any agreement to receive compensation for these services, direct or indirect, from any source other than the State Public Defender; and that the above information summarizes the services and expenses for which I am entitled to payment. I further state that an itemized statement of services and expenses is attached hereto and a copy has been provided to my client.

SPD initially approved or disapproved Meyer's submitted billings on a case-by-case basis. During the autumn of 2013, however, the SPD reviewed Meyer's previously approved billings on a per-day basis rather than a per-case basis.

In a letter to Meyer dated September 24, 2013, the state public defender, Samuel Langholz, raised concerns about her billing practices and mileage expenses. Langholz noted Meyer billed SPD more than 2591 hours in fiscal year 2010 and at least 2089 hours in fiscal year 2011. When Langholz added up Meyer's hours charged per day in multiple cases, he noticed that Meyer had billed the SPD twenty-four hours or more in a single day on nineteen different dates. Langholz and Meyer met on October 9 to discuss his concerns.

Six days later, Meyer wrote Langholz to report she was unable to reconstruct her total billings by day. Meyer stated she dictated her billings prepared by her secretary and then would often make handwritten edits to the invoices, usually to correct time entries. Those changes were not reentered in the billing software.

As we discussed at our [October 9] meeting, I reviewed my billing on a case-by-case basis prior to submitting bills to your office .... Following our meeting, I continued to review the days in question, however, unfortunately because I dictated almost all entries, reconstructing each day is not a viable option. I take full responsibility for not tracking my billable time in a way that allow[s] me to review the amount of time billed for each day, not just the work done itself.... The dictation was deleted by my secretary upon entry of the time into the billing system.

Meyer stated that billing errors could occur when her secretary billed on the days "the letter or document was actually mailed out to the client," rather than the actual days Meyer worked on the case. "Time may have been entered from days or weeks prior, depending on when the information was entered...." According to Meyer, this explained how the hours worked on one day could be entered on another, creating the artificially high number of hours for a particular day. Meyer insisted all of the time billed was for work she actually performed, even if the dates were billed incorrectly.

The SPD renewed Meyer's contract on November 2013, which was set to expire on January 3, 2014. However, on December 30, 2013, Langholz notified Meyer that the SPD would not renew the contract. Langholz rejected Meyer's explanation for the high billing days.

Your time records do not always reflect that the days surrounding these highest-billing days were unusually low as would be expected if these high billing days were merely the result of secretarial date entry errors. And you did occasionally bill time on the weekends further undermining this explanation. Moreover, your total hours claimed during these time periods casts further doubt on the accuracy of the submissions. From July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 – the period for which we have the highest volume of claims data analyzed – you billed nearly 2,600 hours, which is a high number of billable hours for any attorney, particularly within Iowa. And in July 2009, you billed 353.8 hours – an amount that is highly improbable for an individual to bill in a single month, considering that it would require billing more than eleven hours a day for thirty-one days straight, and keeping in mind that such a monthly rate would result in annual billable hours totaling 4,245.6.

The SPD review also revealed discrepancies with Meyer's claims for mileage reimbursement. Specifically, Meyer at times billed multiple clients for the full mileage to the same location on the same day. Langholz determined at least 2853 miles of reimbursement were improperly claimed. Meyer paid the SPD $998.60 in an effort to resolve the contention that she overbilled mileage.

It became apparent that improprieties with the SPD billing fees and mileage expenses were not limited to Meyer. As a result, the state auditor conducted a special investigation of the SPD. Meyer and thirteen other attorneys were audited, leading to disciplinary charges. See Iowa Supreme Ct. Att'y Disciplinary Bd. v. Noel , 923 N.W.2d 575, 580, 591 (Iowa 2019) (suspending an attorney's license for one year in a disciplinary case that arose from this SPD audit); Iowa Supreme Ct. Att'y Disciplinary Bd. v. Mathahs , 918 N.W.2d 487, 491, 500 (Iowa 2018) (suspending an attorney's license for sixty days in a disciplinary case that arose from this SPD audit). The audit included an examination of Meyer's fees and expenses from August 2009 through August 2013. The auditor found thirty days on which Meyer billed SPD twenty-four hours or more. And on 317 days, Meyer billed SPD 12.1 hours or more for combined billings totaling $101,220. For the same period, the auditor identified 147 trips in which Meyer duplicated her mileage reimbursement, totaling $2768.55 for 7910 miles traveled.

B. The Criminal Proceedings. In June 2016, the Iowa attorney general filed a two-count trial information against Meyer. Count I charged Meyer with first-degree fraudulent practice, a class "C" felony, in violation of Iowa Code sections 714.8(3), 714.9, and 714.14 (2016). Count II charged Meyer with first-degree theft, a class "C" felony, in violation of Iowa Code sections 714.1(1), 714.1(3), 714.2(1), and 714.3. The state alleged Meyer "did knowingly tender false certificates given in support of claims for compensation, where the total amount of money exceeds $10,000" and "did take possession of property of the State of Iowa with the intent to deprive thereof, or did obtain a transfer of possession of the property ... by deception, where the amount of money involved exceeds $10,000" from 2009 to June 30, 2013.

Meyer entered a written Alford¹ plea to the lesser included offense of third-degree theft, an aggravated misdemeanor, in violation of Iowa Code sections 714.1(3) and 714.2(3). The statutory value of third-degree theft is capped at property not exceeding $1000. Iowa Code § 714.2(3). Meyer's Alford plea stated,

I have read the Minutes of Testimony filed with the Trial Information, and do not contest the accuracy of those minutes except for: I am pleading guilty because I understand that a reasonable jury could find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and enter this plea with the advice of counsel and to take advantage of the plea agreement.

The parties jointly recommended probation for two years and that Meyer pay restitution. The district court accepted the plea, finding there was "strong evidence of [Meyer]’s guilt which substantially negate[d] [her] claim of innocence." On April 26, 2018, the district court sentenced Meyer to two-years’ probation, a deferred judgment, and a $625 civil penalty. Meyer was ordered to pay restitution payments in an amount to be determined at a later date.

The...