Lawyers and judges know the law, but that doesn't mean they always follow it. In 2017, legal leaders in California broke the rules and faced some serious consequences.

Here are some of the most memorable lowlights, with lessons for legal leaders:

 

When it comes to fancy office supplies, it's better to buy than to steal

Having a nice desk can be important. It's a place most lawyers spend a lot of time, and decorations can make an office more fun.

But when looking for office supplies, it's better to buy than steal—a lesson former Superior Court Judge Michael Williams learned too late. This year, the Napa County judge resigned after stealing two expensive business card holders from a San Francisco social club.

Williams stole the art-deco style card holders—valued between $30 to $50 each—after an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers dinner. He was caught on tape and contacted by the club, after which he returned the holders with an apology note.

“I have no excuse, but I had a couple of glasses of wine and was not thinking of what I was doing,” he wrote, according to the Commission on Judicial Performance.

He informed the commission of his actions two days after sending the letter. The commission censured him and initiated formal proceedings against him in June.

 

The internet is forever

It's 2017 and, by now, it's pretty clear that what someone puts on the internet never really disappears.

Which is bad news for Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeff Ferguson. California's judicial disciplinary agency publicly admonished the judge in October 2017, after he alleged on Facebook that a local prosecutor was sleeping with a defense attorney whose case she was overseeing. He had no evidence.

Ferguson had written the post in April 2016, in the North Orange County Bar Association's Facebook group. The slandered prosecutor, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Karen Schatzle, was running for office at the time. Her then-opponent, Orange County Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner, was backed by Ferguson. He won the election in June 2016.

Ferguson told the Commission on Judicial Performance that his comment was based on common knowledge. When pressed for evidence, he submitted the declaration of an attorney.

His attorney, Paul Meyer of Costa Mesa, wrote Ferguson “admitted having no evidence that Ms. Schatzle and the defense attorney were working on opposite sides of cases while involved in an intimate relationship.”

 

Charity funds are only for charity

Law school's getting expensive. That could be why one lawyer misappropriated charity funds to help pay for her children's law school this year, a move that led to calls for her disbarment.

Rita Mahdessian, a lawyer in Glendale, CA, was found culpable of misappropriating funds from the Center for Armenian Remembrance, or CAR, in October. She transferred $30,000 into an account in her daughter's name, then used some of the money to pay two of her children's tuition at Loyola Law School. Her daughter was unaware of the account.

Mahdessian and her husband, Vartkes Boghos Yeghiayan, helped administer CAR, which shared their Glendale law firm's address. CAR was one of the nonprofits that received settlement money in a series of cases led by Yeghiayan against life insurers who didn't pay out on policies for those killed in the Armenian genocide.

Judge Donald Miles, who oversaw her case, recommended Mahdessian be disbarred, citing her previous three disciplinary actions. The California Supreme Court will have the final say.

 

Planting evidence is never a good idea

A (now former) California lawyer was disbarred this October for planting drugs in the car of a volunteer at his child's school.

Kent Easter had a successful career as a partner at Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth before he was convicted on a felony charge of false imprisonment. Easter and his now-ex wife, Jill Easter, planted a cocktail of drugs in the car of PTA parent Kelli Peters because they believed she had purposefully and maliciously locked their son out of the school building while working as a volunteer. He then called the police using an Indian accent to say he'd seen a woman acting erratically near the school. The two apparently wanted to teach Peters a lesson — by sending her to prison.

Instead, both ended up caught and disbarred. Jill Easter, who has since changed her name to Ava Everheart, was also lawyer. The Boalt Hall graduate was disbarred in 2014.