People v. Romero

• Jurisdiction: Colorado,United States
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court
• Citation: People v. Romero, 536 P.3d 353 (Colo. 2023)
• Docket Number: Case Number: 22PDJ025 (consolidated with 22PDJ048)
• Decision Date: 05 September 2023
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Complainant, v. Douglas Leo ROMERO, Respondent.
• topic: Contracts,Immigration Law,Civil Procedure

536 P.3d 353

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Complainant,

v.Douglas Leo ROMERO, Respondent.

Case Number: 22PDJ025 (consolidated with 22PDJ048)

Office of Presiding Disciplinary Judge of the Supreme Court of Colorado.

September 5, 2023

OPINION IMPOSING SANCTIONS UNDER C.R.C.P. 242.31(a)

Douglas Leo Romero ("Respondent") charged an immigration client $3,500.00 to obtain a U visa, even though he knew that the client likely was not eligible for a U visa. During the nineteen-month-long representation, neither he nor his firm performed any work of value on the client's case. When the client demanded that Respondent refund her fee, Respondent's firm attempted to settle the matter by sending the client a check for $500.00, keeping $3,000.00 of the client's money. Later, Respondent informed disciplinary authorities on four separate occasions that a lawyer at his firm spent over 50 hours on the client's matter. He made this report even though his firm kept no contemporaneous records showing what work it had performed for the client and the firm's case file contained only two brief memoranda and an invoice, which was prepared after the representation ended and purported to show that 21.6 hours had been expended on the case. But the documents did not accurately show that any work had been undertaken on the client's behalf. In another matter, while Respondent was suspended from the practice of law, he advised his law firm's client that she needed a prenuptial agreement and drafted the agreement for the client without the supervision of a licensed lawyer. Finally, Respondent knowingly disobeyed an order to pay costs in a prior disciplinary case until months after the deadline elapsed. Respondent's misconduct warrants disbarment.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On May 19, 2022, Justin P. Moore of the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel ("the People") filed a complaint with the Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge ("the PDJ") in disciplinary case number 22PDJ025, alleging six violations of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct. Specifically, the People alleged that Respondent violated Colo. RPC 1.5(a) (Claim I), Colo. RPC 1.16(d) (Claim II), Colo. RPC 8.1(a) (Claim III), Colo. RPC 8.4(c) (Claim IV), Colo. RPC 3.4(c) (Claim V), and Colo. RPC 5.5(a)(2) (Claim VI). Respondent answered the complaint through his counsel, Gerald D. Pratt, on June 16, 2022. The PDJ set a three-day hearing to take place from November 14 through 16, 2022.

On August 12, 2022, the People filed an amended complaint against Respondent in disciplinary case number 22PDJ048,¹ alleging that in one matter Respondent violated Colo. RPC 3.4(c) (Claim I) and Colo. RPC 5.5(a)(2) (Claim II) and in a second matter violated Colo. RPC 3.4(c) (Claim III). On September 2, 2022, the PDJ consolidated case number 22PDJ048 with case number 22PDJ025. The PDJ then reset the three-day hearing for February 13-15, 2023.

On December 21, 2022, the PDJ granted the People's unopposed motion to dismiss Claims I and II of the amended complaint in case number 22PDJ048. On January 27, 2023, the PDJ sua sponte continued the hearing due to a scheduling conflict and reset the hearing for April 24-26, 2023. On February 2, 2023, the PDJ granted in part and denied in part the People's motion for summary judgment, entering judgment on Claim VI in case number 22PDJ025 and the remaining claim in case number 22PDJ048, Claim III.

From April 24-26, 2023, a Hearing Board comprising Presiding Disciplinary Judge Bryon M. Large ("the PDJ") and lawyers James L. Cox Jr. and Wendell B. Porterfield Jr. held a disciplinary hearing under C.R.C.P. 242.30. Moore and Jonathan P. White appeared on behalf of the People,² and Pratt represented Respondent. The Hearing Board received testimony from Respondent, Karla Garcia,³ Valeria Lujan, Jean Abrahamson Pirzadeh, Amanda Cisneros, Stephen J. Alexander, Donald Martin, and James Sudler. The Hearing Board also received remote testimony from Lorena Sanchez-Garcia and Marisela Mendoza via the Zoom videoconferencing platform. The PDJ accepted the parties’ stipulated exhibits S2-S12⁴ and the parties’ stipulated facts 1-19. The PDJ admitted the People's exhibits 3-4 and Respondent's exhibits A, G, H, and N.

II. KARLA GARCIA'S MATTER (CASE NUMBER 22PDJ025) Findings of Fact⁵

Respondent was admitted to the practice of law in Colorado on May 24, 2004, under attorney registration number 35464.⁶ He is thus subject to the jurisdiction of the Colorado Supreme Court and the Hearing Board in this disciplinary proceeding.⁷

In 2005, Respondent established the Law Office of Douglas L. Romero, which became Colorado Christian Defense Counsel ("CCDC") that year. According to Respondent, he managed CCDC until he was suspended from the practice of law in 2019.⁸

Garcia Retains CCDC to Obtain a U Visa

In November 2018, Karla Garcia,⁹ a Mexican national who has resided in the United States since at least the 1990s, contacted CCDC with the goal of finding a way to remain in the country legally and avoid deportation. Garcia and her parents, Manuel Garcia and Maria Flores Torres, had obtained work authorizations in the 1990s. Garcia said that her father sought for twenty years to change her family's immigration status and to obtain documentation for his family.

At the hearing, Respondent testified that the Garcia family went to CCDC for help with their immigration goals. According to Respondent, Manuel and Maria brought a bankers box full of documents to CCDC that contained a "morass of materials that needed collating" to piece together the family's history and options. Respondent confirmed that CCDC invoiced Manuel in April 2018 for a telephone conference with a lawyer at CCDC, who discussed an avenue potentially open to the Garcia family: U visas. Respondent explained that U visas are issued to victims of a crime who participate in the government's investigation of the crime. Respondent testified that his immigration department concluded that Manuel and Marie could be eligible for U visas based on letters they received from the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Services ("INS") identifying them as potential government witnesses.¹⁰ The firm, Respondent added, believed that Garcia could be eligible for a U visa as a derivative beneficiary if her parents qualified for a U visa.

Respondent acknowledged that his firm advised Manuel in April 2018 about the significant obstacles to obtaining a U visa in his case, as the investigation supporting the U visa had been terminated years before. CCDC staff also advised Manuel at the time that even if he qualified for a U visa, his family, as his derivative beneficiaries, would not receive a U visa for at least five years due to the limited annual quota. Despite the difficult path outlined by CCDC's lawyers, Manuel and Maria each paid $1,500.00 on November 19, 2018, to hire the firm to pursue a U visa in their case.¹¹

Garcia testified that CCDC's staff recommended that she join her parents’ matter and advised her that the firm could work on her case at a reduced fee if they bundled the representations together.¹² Garcia's case, Respondent explained at the hearing, was "intertwined inextricably" with her parents’ case because Garcia would be eligible for a U visa only if the government issued a U visa to her parents. The firm thus could fold any work on Garcia's application into her parents’ case, Respondent said, reducing or eliminating the fee for legal work performed on Garcia's behalf.

At the hearing, Garcia said that despite the firm's recommendation to consolidate the representations, she wanted CCDC to handle her case separately from her parents’ matter.¹³ Respondent testified that his firm agreed to handle Garcia's case separately for $3,500.00, which he said was the firm's standard fee for such matters. On November 20, 2018, one day after her parents paid their retainers, Garcia visited CCDC¹⁴ and paid $2,000.00 to hire the firm to handle her case.¹⁵ That day, Garcia signed a fee agreement with the firm, which read, in part:

I, Karla Garcia, the client signing this agreement, authorize the firm to represent me for the following immigration matter(s), in relation to the following services indicated: U-Visa.

...

I UNDERSTAND THE FOLLOWING: 1. The law office of Douglas L. Romero cannot guarantee that it will confer the benefit being sought from [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] or the Immigration Court, including after providing legal counsel and successfully submitting the necessary applications and documents.

1) The law office of Douglas L. Romero will pursue my case with all possible diligence, but cannot guarantee results. Thus, the legal counsel provided by Douglas Romero cannot be guaranteed to confer the benefit sought or to obtain desired results. ...¹⁶

The fee agreement also set forth rates for hourly work, as follows:

• $300.00 per hour for Doug Romero, Owner;

• $300.00 per hour for associate attorney work;

• $200.00 per hour for paralegal services;

• $125.00 per hour for legal assistant work.¹⁷

Garcia agreed to pay CCDC a flat fee of $3,500.00 for her case.¹⁸ She testified that when she signed the fee agreement neither Respondent nor any lawyer at CCDC explained the representation to her.¹⁹ She did not know what a U visa is, she said, and she understood only that she was seeking one as a derivative beneficiary of her parents. Garcia acknowledged that no one at CCDC promised her a U visa but neither did anyone explain to her why she might not qualify for one, she said.

Garcia ultimately paid CCDC a total of $3,900.00 in legal fees on the following schedule:

• $2,000.00 on November 20, 2018;

• $250.00 on December 11, 2018;

• $350.00 on January 29, 2019;

• $250.00 on March 1, 2019;

• $300.00 on April 6, 2019;

• $250.00 on May 3, 2019;

• $250.00 on June 6, 2019;

• $250.00 on July 8, 2019.²⁰

At the hearing, Garcia expressed frustration with the representation and complained that no one at the firm kept her informed about her case despite her attempts...