Minnesota attorney Thomas P. Lowe, 58, has been suspended indefinitely after he was found not only to have had an affair with a client in a divorce case but then charged her for time they spent having sex.
Lowe has practiced since 1985 and knew the woman for many years before her divorce. After he started to represent her, Lowe reportedly asked her about her sex life with her husband and started to make overtures to her. After a month, they began an affair. He would code time spent for sex as meetings or drafting sessions. (It is not clear if he used the standard program and rounds up to the next 15 minutes or simply, like many men, exaggerated the time).
Within days of breaking off the affair, Lowe also announced that he would withdraw as counsel. The same day, the woman tried to commit suicide. At the hospital, she discussed the affair.
Lowe did not help himself by reportedly denying the underlying facts in the investigation by the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility but later admitted the truth.
This is not the first time that Lowe crossed the line with a client. Lowe was placed on probation in 1997 for using cocaine and buying the drugs from a client.
Lowe can seek reinstatement after a year and three months.
Source: Twin Cities
Yes please. A link would be good.
One of the former officials from the Bar Counsel, now a professor of legal ethics at George Washington University, has written an expose article on this subject and the entire legal community completely ignored it.~Malisha
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do you have a link?
The various attorney disciplinary boards around the country try not to do anything really harsh to a lawyer who does not steal money from rich folks, or divulge information damaging to large powerful corporations, or represent individuals against government agencies that have good mafia protection. A guy like this will get a slap on the wrist because undoubtedly, the members of the state agency of the Bar that disciplines lawyers have all done just as bad, or worse, than he has. Some of them have done CONSIDERABLY worse and although he may not know exactly which of them, or what they did, their policy will always be to let someone skate who MAY have a way to find out the goods on them. In fact, the corruption in the Bar Disciplinary boards is worse than most other government agencies because the stakes are so high. In Washington DC, the Bar Counsel is a joke, except of course for the fact that it means that a lawyer from a large firm can get away with ANYTHING so long as the client is not more powerful than the firm. One of the former officials from the Bar Counsel, now a professor of legal ethics at George Washington University, has written an expose article on this subject and the entire legal community completely ignored it. The stench of the legal community will be one of the last bad smells still wafting when the US Empire falls and the ashes of this alleged democracy are still smoldering. I’ll be gone by then but I smelled it coming.