Good Idea - Bad Idea: Destroying Evidence and Destroying Law Firm Documents

Posted by wlansden | Filed under
Good Idea: keeping careful records of your billable time and detailed information about your clients.

Bad Idea: destroying those same records in a bathroom of the courthouse during a civil suit brought by your former law firm employer, when those same records might have probative and evidentiary value.

This is one of those good idea/bad idea posts I feel is too obvious to write about. Regardless, it seems that some attorney out there could have used this information a while ago.

A lawyer in Ohio was recently suspended for one year for, among other things, destroying law firm documents in a courthouse bathroom while court was in recess from a civil suit claiming a violation of his employment agreement with the law firm.

The lawyer was apparently thinking about jumping ship from his law firm. He was in job talks with two other law firms. The lawyer supposedly removed boxes of documents from his law firm containing information about his firm's clients and the clients' billings.

The ABA Journal has the story and the opinion issued by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Some of the justices wanted to impose a stiffer penalty. 

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