Former GE In-House Lawyer Gets 60-Day Suspension in Ethics Case
The D.C. Court of Appeals issued the suspension Thursday for releasing confidential information.
February 08, 2018 at 03:42 PM
3 minute read
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals suspended a former General Electric Co. lawyer for 60 days for disclosing confidential information about her employer after she was fired.
The court suspended Adriana Koeck following a report and recommendation from the D.C. Bar's disciplinary panel, the Board on Professional Responsibility, last August. Koeck disclosed confidential GE documents to media outlets and federal regulators that she believed showed evidence of fraud, according to the board. The court's order said Koeck did not provide any defense of her disclosure.
“Moreover, the board's recommended sanction—a 60-day suspension with a fitness requirement—is reasonable in light of the facts supporting this single violation of Rule 1.6 (a),” the court's order said.
Koeck, now known as Adriana Sanford, currently works as a lecturer at Loyola Marymount University. She declined to comment via email. GE sued Koeck in 2008 over the disclosure, though the lawsuit ended with a settlement in 2009.
Koeck's ethics case was one in a trio brought in 2013 as a result to her actions after leaving GE. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel also brought the ethics charges against high-profile whistleblower attorney Lynne Bernabei of Bernabei & Kabat, and Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey. Bernabei and Blakey were charged with helping Koeck disclose the confidential information.
As part of its August recommendation, the board ordered OCD Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox to issue an informal admonition against Bernabei. The board's report found Bernabei violated the bar's rule against assisting or inducing another in misconduct, but not that she interfered with the administration of justice, as Fox alleged.
Fox told The National Law Journal he planned to officially issue Bernabei's admonition Thursday or Friday. Bernabei referred questions to her lawyer, Tom Mason of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis. Mason declined to comment.
Blakey's case closed in 2015 with an informal admonition.
The Government Accountability Project and National Employment Lawyers Association filed an amicus brief in March last year on behalf of Bernabei and Koeck, arguing Koeck's disclosure of the documents were protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act because she was acting as a whistleblower.
The board's adoption of the charges against Bernabei, the brief said, would “chill D.C. attorneys from advising attorney-whistleblowers.”
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