He was suing a former client — but, as far as I know, (a) no, he never revealed any privileged communications in doing so; and, no, (b) his lawsuit didn’t reveal anything he’d done wrong before he filed the suit.
No, if he’d been doing this on behalf of a client who *wasn’t * him, same result.
(And, again: before any and all fun is wrung out of this in attempts to hypothesize procedural stuff, let me stress that, if my first post had mentioned everyone’s name while otherwise being word-for-word the same, I figure it would’ve been solved in less time than it takes to read it.)
Did he have reason to know that, despite his having gotten a signed receipt according to proper procedure, the party who was thereby required to answer in court either hadn’t gotten the papers or would be prevented from appearing?
Should he have anticipated getting disbarred for whatever the reason was?
Or was the disbarment just some weird-ass thing that, reasonably, could be characterized as coming out of nowhere?
Or…did he understand that he was running the risk of being disbarred?
Quite.
I’d have to say yes.
Were any of the parties involved of dubious reality? Fictional characters, say?
Nope.
Did he lie to the court?
Did he steal something?
As far as I can tell, no, he didn’t.
I don’t believe that, in this case, anything in fact wound up getting stolen; I mentioned that he got a judgment recorded in his favor as a result of all of this, but, AFAICT, a motion was later made (and granted) to get that judgment put aside before any money actually changed hands.
Aha!
– that’s as much as I’ve got, though.
So, if I’m understanding correctly, the lawyer is intending to sue a corporation (that is also a former client) in such a way that the corporation doesn’t show up in court to defend itself?
Is the grievance against the corporation legitimate?
Is he hoping for an easy victory because the appropriate representatives of the corporation don’t realize they need to appear in court?
Is he hoping the corporation will settle out of court due to difficulty in appearing?
As far as I can tell . . . yes, yes, and no.
OK, so about that “signed acknowledgment of receipt of the summons and complaint.”
Did he take advantage of his status of being the corporation’s former lawyer?
For example, he hands the receptionist an envelope, and she files it away without paying much attention. Maybe he even tells her “don’t worry about this; it’s just a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo that y’all need to keep in the file room in case some auditor asks.” She recognizes him, and believes he’s there representing the company. But in reality, he’s suing the company for a 5 or 6 figure sum.
The person who signed the acknowledgment of receipt was paying full attention, and was in no way misled by the lawyer as to the contents and ramifications.
Hmmm…
Are “the person who signed the acknowledgement” and “the lawyer” two separate people?
If so, are they in cahoots to keep the info from the appropriate company representatives?
The “listed agent” is the lawyer himself, right?
You beat me to this guess,