Recent News

June 15, 2006

Task Force on Rules of Professional Conduct prepares report

The Ohio Task Force on the Rules of Professional Conduct completed its work of reviewing all written comments on its Model Rule proposal. A formal written report is being prepared for the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Court will meet later in June to give full consideration to the Task Force recommendations and the public comments.

Interested lawyers may wish to review the Task Force website and the minutes of March, April and May Task Force meetings for specific information on its treatment of comments as well as the shape of the specific proposals to be considered by the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court of Ohio case statistics for last year have recently been published in its 2005 Annual Report. The Court handed down 93 disciplinary sanctions including interim matters, reciprocal cases and resignations with discipline pending. The Court permanently disbarred six lawyers and nine lawyers resigned with disciplinary action pending.

The Supreme Court to date in 2006 has already announced 41 disciplinary decisions involving Ohio lawyers and judges. Ten of these cases involved lawyers with a prior disciplinary record and fifteen of the cases were default judgments before the Board. The Court has disagreed with the recommendation of the Board on sanction on twelve occasions, increasing the penalty eight times and decreasing it in four cases.