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In re Ward

Attorney with mental impairment is indefinitely suspended based on his admitted false statement under oath that he filed a notice of appeal of his client's murder conviction.

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Subsequent to the State Bar’s issuance of a Formal Complaint, Respondent Richard O. Ward filed a Petition for Voluntary Discipline, pursuant to Bar Rule 4-227 c, in which he admitted engaging in conduct that violated Standards 44 a lawyer shall not without just cause to the detriment of his client in effect wilfully abandon or wilfully disregard a legal matter entrusted to him and 45 b in his representation of a client, a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of law or fact of Bar Rule 4-102 d, and requested an indefinite suspension, as defined in Bar Rule 4-102 b 2, with conditions. Although a violation of either standard is punishable by disbarment, the State Bar and special master recommend that this Court accept Ward’s petition. We agree that an indefinite suspension with conditions is an appropriate sanction in this matter and hereby accept Ward’s petition.

In his petition, Ward admits that he represented a client between September 1994 and July 1996 in the client’s appeal of a criminal conviction for murder; he filed a motion for new trial for the client, which was denied on July 3, 1996; and, after July 1996, he performed no work on the client’s case until the client filed a grievance with the State Bar in December 1998. On February 10, 1999, Ward filed a motion for out-of-time appeal in the case, which was granted on February 23, 1999. Although Ward stated under oath on April 1, 1999, in response to the client’s grievance, that he had disregarded the client’s case between July 1996 and early 1999 but that, subsequent to the grant of the out-of-time appeal, he had properly and timely filed a notice of appeal for the client in this Court, Ward did not file a notice of appeal with this Court and, in his petition, admitted that he knowingly made a false statement regarding the filing.

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