Bar Association Takes Years To Investigate Lawyers No Lawyer Has Been Disciplined For Bad Billing In Last Five Years

It takes an average of 3-1/2 years before a grievance against a lawyer can result in formal discipline from the Washington State Bar Association, a newspaper report says.

Moreover, a review of Bar Association records indicates the state bar has not publicly disciplined any lawyers for billing abuses in the past five years, according to an article Sunday in The Seattle Times.

Bar officials blame the delay on a lack of resources and on staff turnover. They also point out that complaints about billing practices are among the most complex to investigate.

The Times said Neal Bonrud, a former associate in the law firm of Dann Greenberg Radder, in 1992 turned over to the bar what he believed was evidence that two of his former bosses had dishonest billing practices.

But almost four years later, Bonrud is still waiting to see them disciplined. Although the firm no longer exists, Wade Dann and John Radder still practice law within the state and neither has been reprimanded, the Times said.

It all started when Bonrud found a copy of an electronic-mail message to Dann on Radder’s desk. In the message Radder warned Dann that they would be “in big trouble” if anyone found out they were switching employees’ initials on bills to clients. That meant that clients were being charged the higher hourly rate of partners for work actually done by less-experienced, lower-paid associates and non-lawyers, the newspaper said.

Bonrud said that confirmed his doubts about the hundreds of work hours Dann had claimed as his own while rarely showing up at work.

A few days later, another young lawyer at the firm found the accounting office unlocked at night. He called Bonrud, who went to the office in the Bank of California building in downtown Seattle and made copies of suspect billing records.

Two weeks later, Bonrud resigned and took his case to the Bar Association.

His complaint was one of the last of 2,324 cases that had come in 1992. The disciplinary staff - then six investigators plus support staff - did not have the resources to address it immediately.

It took more than 16 months for bar officials to amass a case.

Bar disciplinary counsel David Cluxton - the third lawyer to work on the case in 39 months - wrote in a letter in 1995 that he was certain the bar could prove the two partners violated five different rules in the Rules of Professional Conduct and Rules for Lawyer Discipline.

Last September, a three-member bar review agreed. It voted to bring Dann and Radder before a public hearing.

That has yet to take place.

Dann says he did nothing wrong. In separate depositions to the bar in October 1993 and April 1994, he admitted changing initials on bills and charging higher hourly rates. But he said he meant no harm.

Dann said he wasn’t trying to take credit for Bonrud’s work, but that he substituted his own initials because he contributed the most value to the case.

Both he and Radder say they “wrote off” lots of hours, giving their clients thousands of dollars worth of free legal time.

Kurt Bulmer, a Seattle attorney who is representing Dann in the bar proceedings, says other attorneys weren’t with Dann 24 hours a day and could not accurately judge his workload.

Bulmer, speaking on behalf of Dann and Radder, says evidence of ethical misconduct is “small potatoes” and that the amount of money clients paid in higher hourly fees was insignificant.

The bar seems inclined to shelve disciplinary proceedings against Dann until a separate lawsuit filed against him by a construction company is resolved. Speaking generally, Barry Althoff, the bar’s chief disciplinary counsel, said the bar prefers to let separate civil and criminal proceedings take their course if a complaint against a lawyer involves similar allegations.

As for Radder, the bar’s disciplinary board is expected in the next few weeks to consider a deal in which he would be suspended for 30 days for switching initials on legal bills.

During the past year, the state bar has increased from six to 16 its number of disciplinary counsels. And it is moving aggressively to resolve old complaints.

“It is not our goal to have antiquarian cases,” Althoff said. “Sometimes, they develop a life of their own.”