Attorney To Appeal Bar Report Examiner Recommended Spokane Lawyer Be Disbarred

Fri., March 21, 1997

By Tom Sowa toms@spokesman.com (509) 459-5492

A Spokane attorney faces possible disbarment for alleged unethical practices, including billing clients for work he didn’t perform.

Last week, a hearing examiner recommended that Stephen C. Haskell, 44, be disbarred.

Haskell said Thursday he and his attorney, Kurt Bulmer of Seattle, will appeal the findings.

“There are lots of conclusions he made that we’ll dispute. Beyond that, I shouldn’t comment,” Haskell said.

The recommendation by hearing examiner Diehl Rettig of Pasco followed an eight-day hearing in January.

Haskell had been a partner in the law firm of Chase, Haskell, Hayes and Kalamon. The questionable practices allegedly happened between 1990 and 1993, when he quit the firm.

The allegations were turned over to the state bar association in late 1994. Haskell’s former partners listed numerous instances in which they said he deceived clients.

They said he repeatedly billed insurance companies for legal work actually done by other members of the law firm.

And they claimed Haskell frequently flew first-class on business trips, then had the travel agency list the flights as coach fares - the fare rate the insurance company specifically authorized for business.

The hearing examiner concluded Haskell had acted incorrectly in those cases. Rettig also concluded Haskell wrongly billed clients for phone calls and copying blueprints for the construction of his North Idaho vacation house.

In other findings, Rettig said, “Haskell did not feel remorse (over the false billings) until sometime after a December 1996 deposition.”

Haskell has never faced disciplinary action by the state bar before.

His next step is to file a rebuttal to Rettig’s findings. After that, the bar association’s 12-member disciplinary board decides if he should lose his license to practice law.

Bulmer said he hopes the disciplinary board renders a decision on Haskell by July.

If the board votes to disbar Haskell, the recommendation goes before the Washington Supreme Court.

If disbarred, Haskell could not practice law for five years. He is currently a partner with attorney Steve Eugster. , DataTimes

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