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In re Reynolds12/14/2000
uilty of two counts of driving while intoxicated, a hit and run and eluding [apprehension]. In the context of four prior DWI's, these convictions clearly show a pattern of criminal acts that reflect adversely on Respondent's fitness as a lawyer. An attorney may violate Rule 8.4 (b) outside the context of an attorney-client relationship. In re Gil, 656 A.2d 303 (D.C. 1995). In this case, moreover, the crimes were not completely divorced, as Respondent has suggested, from his duties to the Courts. The October 1996 DWI was committed in violation of the terms of court- ordered probation: Respondent failed to complete a mandated alcohol program; he appears to have evaded the requirement that he only drive to and from work (unless we are to assume that he drove to perform his work as an attorney while intoxicated, or became intoxicated while at work as an attorney); and he rented a car, presumably while sober, in order to evade the requirement that he only drive a car with an interlock ignition device. Respondent's false statements to probation officers and his continuing insistence to the Hearing Committee that he was sober when arrested in September 1997 in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary also bespeak a lack of fitness to practice law until his addiction is under control.
We agree with that conclusion. As was pointed out in In re Reynolds, 649 A.2d 818 (D.C. 1994), Rule 8.4 (b) omits the former qualifier
"moral turpitude" on illegal conduct that adversely affects a lawyer's fitness to practice law and thus subjects him to discipline. The focus now, as the Comment to the rule explains, is on whether the offense "indicate lack of those characteristics relevant to law practice," and " pattern of repeated offenses, even ones of minor significance when considered separately, can indicate indifference to legal obligation." Id. at 819 (concurring opinion of Farrell, J., joined by Terry, J.).
Accordingly, respondent is suspended from the practice of law in the District of Columbia for six months, nunc pro tunc to June 28, 1999, and will be required to show fitness as a condition of reinstatement. The accompanying reciprocal matter (Bar Docket No. 238- 99), initiated after the Hearing Committee had conducted its independent analysis in this case, is dismissed. See In re Perrin, 663 A.2d 517, 523 (D.C. 1995).
So ordered.
Page 1 2 District of Columbia DUI Attorneys
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