Iowa Supreme Court Bd. of Professional Ethics and Conduct v. Sullins

• Decision Date: 18 December 1996
• Docket Number: No. 96-1471,96-1471
• Parties: . Ray SULLINS, Respondent. Supreme Court of Iowa
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 456

556 N.W.2d 456

IOWA SUPREME COURT BOARD OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND CONDUCT, Complainant, v. Ray SULLINS, Respondent.

No. 96-1471.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 18, 1996.

Norman G. Bastemeyer and David J. Grace, Des Moines, for complainant.

James Cook, West Des Moines, for respondent.

Considered by HARRIS, P.J., and CARTER, NEUMAN, SNELL, and ANDREASEN, JJ.

HARRIS, Justice.

This lawyer discipline case was originally brought in three counts. The grievance commission determined one of them to be unfounded and on our de novo review of the record we agree. We hence proceed as if only two counts had been brought. As to these counts, we agree with the commission that the attorney should be publicly reprimanded.

Respondent Ray Sullins was admitted to practice in 1971, concentrating in recent years on family law with some emphasis on juvenile court. In 1986 he received a public reprimand by the ethics committee (now the Iowa supreme court board of professional ethics and conduct) because of his failure to respond to an ethics investigation by a local bar association's ethics committee. In 1992 we admonished him for neglect of his appellate practice.

No neglect is implicated in the first of the two counts involved here. The charge is that, in his zeal and aggressiveness in representing his client, Sullins communicated with a child witness without consent of her attorney in violation of DR 7-104 (prohibiting a lawyer from communicating with a party "known to be represented" by a lawyer without first obtaining that lawyer's consent).

Sullins was approached by Richard H. who said he had been questioned by the police, was told he failed a polygraph test, and that criminal charges would be filed the following day. During his interview with Richard H., Sullins concluded the sex abuse charge was imminent, but that prosecutors would gather their case by filing a CINA proceeding (child in need of assistance) (see Iowa Code §§ 232.87-.104 (1993)). Sullins testified that he feels an extraordinary cynicism concerning the operations of the Iowa department of human services and apparently also concerning police officers with whom the department works. So he advised a vigorous resistance in the CINA proceeding as well as in the criminal prosecution.

Sullins' fees were discussed in detail. It was the client's choice to pay a flat fee for defending all proceedings. It was set at $3500, an amount the commission did not consider inappropriate. The fee agreement was initially an oral one; the client testified it was because of his repeated insistence that the agreement was placed in writing three weeks later.

Sullins acted quickly, keeping a wary, though certainly not a scrupulous, eye on the ethical prohibition from interviewing a represented client without permission. Richard H. told Sullins he was uninformed concerning the basis for the charges and suggested Sullins talk with his wife. Sullins then called Mrs. H. and asked her to visit with her daughter, to take notes, and to meet with him later. Stating she did not know how to phrase the questions, Mrs. H. invited Sullins to the house in...