Florida Supreme Court suspends lawyer for bad-mouthing client

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The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday drove home the point that a lawyer must keep personal feelings in check when terminating a relationship with a client.

Petia Dimitrova Knowles should understand that now after receiving a one-year suspension from the practice of law for saying what should have been left unsaid when she withdrew her representation of a client in an immigration matter.

In 2007, the Cooper City lawyer took on the case of a Romanian woman seeking political asylum in the U.S. Two years later, Knowles was regretting it. A few days before a January 2009 hearing, Knowles filed a motion in the immigration court to withdraw as attorney of record.

In justifying her request, Knowles laid it on thick. Too thick, as it turned out.

According to court records, in her motion to withdraw, Knowles claimed that the client had written her a bad check for $1,000. Moreover, the attorney wrongly implied that the bad check related to the immigration matter, when it actually related to an automobile accident case.

To top it off, Knowles proclaimed to the immigration court that she regretted helping her client in the first place. In her motion, Knowles said that her client had been convicted of grand theft – and deserved it.  The lawyer also reported she had heard complaints from certain members of the Romanian community that her client had robbed them.

While such a filing would normally burn all bridges, it turns out that this client wanted to keep Knowles as her attorney. Knowles agreed to cancel her motion to withdraw when the client agreed to cough up another $3,000.

But a few months later, the client was the one to experience a change of heart and she hired a new attorney. So Knowles filed a second motion to withdraw.

But in her motion, instead of simply noting the change of counsel, Knowles claimed that the client had left a trail of broken promises and failed to pay for completed work.

That wasn’t the end of the tale.

In May 2009, the state attorney assigned to the client’s criminal case sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security. In the letter, the state attorney said that Knowles had informed her that she had reason to believe her former client would actually lie to the immigration court at an upcoming hearing.

Further, the state attorney reported that she had received confidential paperwork pertaining to the client’s political asylum case. The confidential materials were purportedly from an unidentified source, but the finger of blame clearly pointed in Knowles’ direction.

The Florida Bar got wind of the matter and Knowles found herself in hot water. A referee decided that Knowles’ disparaging motions to withdraw violated the professional rule prohibiting conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

However, the referee also decided that Knowles had not violated the rule pertaining to preserving the confidentiality of client information. The referee recommended a 90-day suspension for the one violation.

On Jan. 17, 2012, the Florida Supreme Court entered an interim order of suspension based on the referee’s recommendation. In yesterday’s decision, the court not only explained why suspension was appropriate, but further decided that Knowles’ transgressions warranted a full one-year suspension.

First, the court concluded that Knowles had violated client confidentiality, by tipping off the state attorney that her client intended to lie in the immigration case.

“Here, the referee stated in his report that [Knowles] had testified that her client had been through numerous attorneys to avoid deportation and had mentioned to her attorney that she would do anything, including lying in court, to avoid deportation,” the court explained. “Contrary to the referee’s conclusion, this testimony did not establish that there was a sufficient basis for [Knowles] to reasonably believe that her client was going to commit a crime by lying to the court at the upcoming hearing. Thus, any communication with any person regarding this confidential information would have been inappropriate.”

In addition, the court concluded that it was clear that there was a breach of confidentiality when records concerning the client’s immigration case mysteriously showed up in the state attorney’s mail.

“The referee stated in his report that ‘political asylum files are confidential in nature and not available to the public, and the only person known to be in possession of such paperwork was [Knowles],’” the court explained. “This factual finding by the referee indicates that the only person who could have sent the confidential paperwork was [Knowles].”

Having established a violation of client confidentiality, the court turned to the catty comments in Knowles’ two motions to withdraw:

Such disparaging language is needless and has no place in a public court pleading, especially when the statements are made by an attorney and are directed at the attorney’s own client. Unbridled language of this sort harms the client and causes the public to lose faith in the legal profession. Respondent’s conduct was highly prejudicial to the administration of justice and cannot be tolerated.

Finally, the court explained why it was necessary to impose a one-year suspension.

“A lawyer who is upset with her client is not permitted to turn on her client and begin disparaging and betraying her,” the court said.

(Florida Bar v. Knowles)