A lawyer accused of neglecting legal matters and accepting unearned fees should be suspended for six months and have to repay the fees, a lawyer-discipline review panel urged.
The Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission Review Board’s report filed earlier this month affirms a Hearing Board report that recommended Forest Park attorney Joseph P. Harris receive a half-year suspension and remain suspended until he repays a client $2,000 in unearned legal fees from a mortgage modification that never happened.
Harris, 80, a lawyer since 1965 who was previously disciplined after committing perjury in 1999, did not challenge the alleged misconduct during his hearing in August 2014.
He was represented by Mary T. Robinson, a partner at Robinson Law Group, and James A. Doppke Jr., who is of counsel at the Robinson firm.
Robinson noted that Harris acknowledged during his hearing that he owed money to some of his clients. And although the ARDC recommends he be suspended until he repays his client, she said, such action has always been her client’s intention.
“It’s a financial issue,” she said. “It’s not that he doesn’t want to.”
In July 2007, Angela Williams retained Harris, owner of Joseph P. Harris & Associates, to represent her in an employment-discrimination lawsuit after she was discharged from her job.
Harris filed a hard-copy version of the complaint with the Cook County circuit clerk’s office but did not follow the rules that require electronic filing because he was unfamiliar with the process and hadn’t taken the court’s training course.
Over the next two years, Harris missed several status hearings on Williams’ case, failed to fully comply with discovery deadlines and failed to answer her calls or provide case status updates.
He also missed hearings on at least two defense motions to dismiss Williams’ case, received a discovery deadline extension, missed that deadline and continued to miss status hearings.
Based on Harris’ action, the judge dismissed the case for want of prosecution in April 2009.
The judge ordered $2,700 in sanctions against Williams and Harris, and Harris told Williams she would have to pay the money because he could not.
The defendant had not taken steps to collect the sanctions by the time of Harris’ hearing board review in August 2014.
In a 2011 case, Patricia Banks retained Harris to modify her mortgages on a home and two investment properties she and her husband owned. Upon receiving forensic audits from Banks to identify whether any errors existed in the mortgages, Harris suggested the reports provided a basis to seek modifications.
Banks paid Harris $3,000 to perform the suggested work. However, Harris failed to take any “meaningful action” on Banks’ behalf, the hearing board found, and failed to take or return any of her phone calls.
Harris later testified that he learned Banks’ investment properties weren’t eligible for modification because they were commercial. He also conceded he owed Banks a $2,000 refund but had not made any payments as of his hearing date.
In yet another case, in February 2012, Harris agreed to represent Carolyn Whitehurst in a foreclosure action but failed to file an appearance or answer in the matter until September 2012.
During that time gap, a notice of sale was issued, the court granted a motion approving the sale and entered an order for possession of Whitehurst’s property.
Whitehurst learned Harris failed to make appearances in her case when she came to court in mid-September 2012, when she received a notice that the sheriff’s office sought to enforce the possession order.
She tried to reach Harris about the matter but failed. He filed a motion about a week later to stay the court’s orders, but the court denied the motion.
In another case, this in December 2007, Marcella Rubio retained Harris to represent her in a personal-injury suit after a taxicab collided with a vehicle she was driving. Harris filed a lawsuit in December 2009 against the cab company and driver — and appeared at several status hearings — but he failed to serve the cab driver.
Harris missed a status hearing on the matter in August 2010, and the court dismissed Rubio’s case for want of prosecution. The court vacated the dismissal that September and set a status hearing for the following month, but Rubio’s case was stricken from the call during that hearing.
Harris did not inform Rubio about her case’s status during this time, and Rubio testified during Harris’ disciplinary hearing that she still did not know her case’s status.
The ARDC administrator filed an exception to the hearing board’s report, issued in June, asking for a longer suspension. However, the review board found that the hearing board carefully considered the evidence against Harris and a six-month suspension “will serve the purposes of discipline.”
“We recognize that a six-month suspension will trigger the reporting requirements of Supreme Court Rule 756 and believe that the reporting requirements will serve to better protect the public,” the review board found.
ARDC hearing boards act as trial courts in the attorney disciplinary process, while the review board functions as an appellate tribunal. The Illinois Supreme Court has the final say in most disciplinary cases.
Both sides have until Jan. 22 to file exceptions on the matter, In re Joseph Preston Harris, 2013 PR 00114.
ARDC Deputy Administrator and Chief Counsel James J. Grogan said the administrator has not yet decided whether it will file any exceptions.
Robinson said she and Doppke do not intend to file any exceptions.