So, if any of you are still around these parts after I’ve gone some 12 days without writing any content, then you are in for me dredging someone up that I previously wrote about on June 30, 2015. An attorney named Rodger Moore.
Rodger Moore. And he was suspended for the practice of law for conduct that involved stealing adult beverages (wine) and also stealing the oil of olives. You know… olives… the garnish that goes in a martini.
I guess back in the halcyon days of this venture I considered myself above making a James Bond reference? Well, I’m four years older now and don’t consider myself above much of anything I guess. So…here goes.
Rodger Moore is no longer licensed to bill.
Also, Roger Moore was not the best Bond, but this Rodger Moore was not the best lawyer.
The need for just a bit of “dry” humor for today’s post is in order because nothing else about the story is humorous. And, in fact, while not doing so in a fashion that is at all effective for his case, Mr. Moore raises a topic in the press that is not deserving of being milked for humor of any sort — the problem of depression in our profession.
You (like me) may have seen the story in The ABA Journal about the fact that after previously being suspended for failure to disclose certain pieces of his criminal past, Mr. Moore has now been disbarred for trying to charge over $10,000 to a client he had promised to represent for free. If you’d care to read the full Ohio opinion disbarring him from practice, you can get it here.
In short-form version, a woman who qualified for legal aid representation going through a divorce agreed to switch lawyers to Moore, after Moore sent an email saying he would represent her for free. Shortly thereafter, he sent her an invoice for $9,500 but then told her she didn’t have to pay that but that he was going to seek to have the court award his fee against her husband. He never did that but did send her an $11,000 promissory note and seek to have her sign that. Eventually, he had to bow out of her case because of his suspension from practice (but not until first trying to appear in court for her the day after he was suspended). He then got an attorney he shared office space with to take over the representation. That lawyer confirmed to her that he was providing the services for free but, ultimately, filed a lawsuit against her, representing Mr. Moore’s firm, seeking to force her to pay pursuant to the promissory note.
Based on his past history, his failure to appear on his own behalf in the disciplinary case, and the fact that he tried at the eleventh-hour to proffer up his license to retire or resign from practice rather than being disciplined, the Ohio Supreme Court decided to permanently disbar him.
In a real plot twist, Mr. Moore has communicated extensively with The ABA Journal as their article reveals and shared with them a draft letter that he was thinking about sending to the Ohio Supreme Court to complain about how he was treated.
Now, I’m fortunate enough that I do not suffer from depression. As I’ve revealed before anxiety is my issue. There is no question that problems with depression are rampant in our profession and little doubt that mental health issues continue to be stigmatized, hidden, and not treated effectively when it comes to lawyers.
I don’t have the necessary clinical training to know the first thing about whether Mr. Moore’s narrative could be explained by depression but I do know that the opinion reveals that he continued to practice while suspended for a pretty significant period of time, represented himself, and that both of those facts likely played a role in his ultimate disbarment. Both of those facts are the kind of things that are also not inconsistent with side effects of depression.
Mr. Moore may not be a very good messenger for the underlying message of the continued need to preach about the awareness of mental health issues, and his claimed beef that the disciplinary process should take depression into account as a mitigating factor misses the mark because nearly all states do – through application of the ABA Standards for Lawyer Misconduct – take mental health issues into account.
But he is, albeit maybe just inadvertently, a good messenger for making an important, and hard, point. Those kinds of proceedings can only take such things into account if the lawyer is able to disclose them so that they can be considered. Mr. Moore pretty clearly didn’t disclose any issues with depression at the time of the proceedings themselves but, because of the nature of such things and, if he was representing himself, if he really was suffering from untreated depression he might not have been able to bring himself to do so.
Any lawyer interested in reading up on issues of attorney wellness can now find a variety of good resources online. Perhaps the most recent report issued by a state bar comes out of Virginia and you can read that one here if you are so inclined.