Burlington attorney suspended for 6 months

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A Burlington attorney has been suspended by the state Supreme Court for six months for 20 ethics violations, including lying about being sick and missing a hearing for a criminal case.

Suzanne Smith, who was admitted to the State Bar in 1995, missed filing dates and court appearances for clients she represented in a divorce case and as a contract attorney for the State Public Defender, according to an opinion released Thursday.

In one case, when Smith was representing a man who was in danger of having his extended supervision revoked, she told the man’s wife that she was too ill to file motions in the case. However, the opinion states, that Smith “appeared in court on behalf of numerous other clients during this time period, thereby disproving her representation that she was too ill to file pleadings.”

Smith – who was publicly reprimanded in 2009 in a separate case – appealed referee Hannah Dugan’s decision to impose a six-month suspension. She claimed that Dugan didn’t consider the serious health issues she and her husband had during this period, as well as the level of remorse she has shown throughout the case.

But the Supreme Court said it felt the level of discipline was adequate, and said Smith’s six-month suspension should begin on Jan. 14. It also ordered Smith to pay $13,959.26 for the cost of the discipline proceeding, as well as $112 in restitution to the State Public Defender.

“Attorney Smith also has displayed a pattern of excuse-making, blame-shifting, and obfuscation which suggests that these types of transgressions could happen again,” the opinion reads.

The opinion also states that Smith no longer takes cases for the SPD.

Smith, reached by phone on Thursday, said she had not yet read the decision, but expressed disappointment once she was told that the court upheld Dugan’s decision.

She said the illness described in the opinion was diabetes and an imbalance of medication, which is since under control. But during that time, she said, it was a struggle to manage her own illness, her clients, and an illness contracted by her then-husband, who worked as her office manager.

That period of time, she said, “was the worst … I possibly could have had.

“I was putting my own health in jeopardy for my own clients,” Smith said, later adding that “to say because I must have appeared in court I must not have been sick is just a fallacy.”