STATEWIDE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE

Paul S. Varszegi, Complainant vs. Laurence T. Muri, Respondent :

Grievance Complaint #94-0446

PROPOSED DECISION

Pursuant to Practice Book '27J, the undersigned, duly-appointed reviewing committee of the Statewide Grievance Committee, conducted a hearing at the Superior Court, 235 Church Street, New Haven, Connecticut on January 8, 1997. The hearing addressed the record of the complaint filed on November 10, 1994, and the probable cause determination filed by the Stamford-Norwalk Judicial District Grievance Panel on February 15, 1995, finding that there existed probable cause that the Respondent violated Rules 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Notice of the hearing was mailed to the Complainant and to the Respondent on November 27, 1996. The Complainant and the Respondent appeared and testified before this reviewing committee. An exhibit was admitted into evidence.

This reviewing committee finds the following facts by clear and convincing evidence:

The Complainant retained the Respondent sometime in 1988 to represent him regarding a breach of contract action against an entity known as Gabriel Construction. The Complainant also retained the Respondent's services regarding a breach of lease action against Abigail Platt, one of the Complainant's tenants. The Respondent performed a substantial amount of work on the Gabriel Construction matter, including bringing a lawsuit against Gabriel Construction. The Respondent performed some negotiation with respect to the Platt matter, but did not commence a lawsuit.

Sometime in October of 1991, the Complainant was incarcerated. After his incarceration, the Complainant attempted to contact the Respondent from prison to find out about the status of his civil matters. The Complainant sent the Respondent two letters in 1992 requesting information about his cases, and requesting the Respondent to forward his files in the matters. The Respondent did not answer these letters. From the time that the Respondent has been incarcerated, to the date of this hearing, the Respondent had not communicated with the Complainant.

This reviewing committee also considered the following evidence:

The Respondent testified that he appropriately pursued the Complainant's matters. He testified that he did have contact with the Complainant, but that he lost contact with the Complainant around 1990-1991, when the Complainant's criminal legal problems began. However, the Respondent did testify that he was aware during the latter part of 1992 that the Complainant was incarcerated.

While this reviewing committee does not find clear and convincing evidence in the record that the Respondent failed to properly and diligently attend to the Complainant's legal matters, we do find clear and convincing evidence that he failed to adequately communicate with his client, in violation of Rule 1.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct. Although the Complainant was apparently difficult to locate during 1990 and 1991, the Respondent was aware in 1992 that the Complainant was incarcerated. It would have taken a minimal amount of effort to locate the Complainant within the corrections system in order to provide the Complainant with information about the status of his matters. The record does not reflect any effort on the part of the Respondent to contact the Complainant. Furthermore, the Complainant sent the Respondent correspondence requesting his files in October and December of 1992, to which the Respondent failed to reply. In light of these facts, there is clear and convincing evidence in the record of this complaint that the Respondent violated Rule 1.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct by failing to keep his client reasonably informed about the status of a matter, and by failing to comply with his reasonable requests for information. We recommend that the Statewide Grievance Committee reprimand the Respondent.

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Attorney Kerry A. Tarpey

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Mr. Marcus R. McCraven