Newport Judge Handed Lightest Form Of Discipline Baechler Admonished For Failures In His Private Law Practice

Pend Oreille County District Court Judge Chuck Baechler will be admonished by the Washington State Bar Association for failing to represent two clients in his private law practice.

The action is the lightest form of discipline available to the bar association except for private letters of warning.

Baechler, who acknowledges a long history of failing to get things done, said he does not plan to challenge the two letters of admonition the bar association will place in his public file. The letters have not yet been composed.

“I’m glad to have those issues resolved,” Baechler said. “I think the interests of the clients have been protected, and that is what the bar association is for.”

The judge said he anticipates no further problems with the disciplinary organization.

“I’ve taken a number of steps to deal with the things that I think were underlying those issues,” he said. “Because of that, I didn’t contest the bar’s findings nor am I planning to appeal those findings.”

Baechler has said he was diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit syndrome, and now takes the prescription drug Ritalin to help him focus his attention.

But a bar investigator found Baechler “knowingly” failed to represent two clients and deceived them by claiming to have done work he didn’t do.

One client, Jeffrey Bailey, had to reconstruct documents for a new lawyer after Baechler failed to perform. Even though there was no evidence Baechler did any work for Bailey, Baechler refused to refund Bailey’s money, bar investigator Jonathan Burke reported.

In addition, Burke said, Baechler failed for months to turn over Bailey’s files - not only to Bailey’s new attorney, but to the bar association. Thirty minutes before a scheduled deposition on the grievance last November, Baechler called Burke to say he couldn’t come because “he was busy with his children that weekend.”

In the other case for which the judge will be admonished, Baechler acknowledged that one of the few actions he took on behalf of client Luana Burnett was without her permission. He undermined her desire to have a divorce case handled in Pend Oreille County by accepting legal documents her husband filed in Lincoln County.

Burke found Baechler’s explanation not credible.

The Burnett and Bailey grievances were bolstered by a similar 1994 grievance that the bar association dropped in exchange for Baechler’s promise of future cooperation.

Baechler recently reached a settlement with a Spokane couple who won a $43,654 malpractice judgment against him last year for failure to file a lawsuit for them until it was too late to do so.

That case was not considered by the threemember bar association committee that reviewed Burke’s findings.

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