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Thompson Hine LLP, a full-service business law firm with approximately 400 lawyers in 11 offices, was ranked number 1 in the category “Most innovative North American law firms: New working models” by The Financial Times and was 1 of 7 firms shortlisted for The American Lawyer’s inaugural Legal Services Innovation Award. The firm has been recognized by the National Law Journal as a Legal Technology Trailblazer and featured by Bloomberg for its innovative service delivery models, which drive accuracy and predictability. The firm’s commitment to innovation is embodied in Thompson Hine SmartPaTHTM – a smarter way to work – predictable, efficient and aligned with client goals. For more information, please visit ThompsonHine.com and ThompsonHine.com/SmartPaTH.

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<img style="max-width: 100%;height: auto;max-width: 100%;height: auto" loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5337" src="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2020/12/On-line-review-danger-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225">An Oklahoma lawyer was suspended last month for two years based on misconduct involving an unlawful response to a bad on-line review of the lawyer&rsquo;s services.&nbsp; The disciplinary case is a lesson in being careful about who you&rsquo;re dealing with when you hire a consultant, and also about not doubling down when confronted with a potential problem.
Social media consultant goes rogue
According to the Oklahoma Supreme Court&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/deliverdocument.asp?id=487367&amp;hits=">opinion</a>, after the contentious breakup of his prior firm, the lawyer started his own firm and needed a new website.&nbsp; He hired a tech consultant to advise him on the website and &ldquo;online reputation management.&rdquo;&nbsp; The consultant advised the lawyer to search for his own name online to see what results appeared.&nbsp; After finding an article on RipoffReport.com that described the lawyer as &ldquo;a criminal,&rdquo; he asked the consultant &ldquo;how we can get rid of it.&rdquo;&nbsp; The consultant replied that such negative articles could be &ldquo;de-indexed.&rdquo;&nbsp; The lawyer exchanged another email with the consultant, asking for the IP address of the &ldquo;Ripoff page.&rdquo;&nbsp; According to the court&rsquo;s opinion, Ripoff Report publishes online consumer reviews of businesses.
Six days later, the consultant emailed extortionate threats and initiated a flood of emails to the computer servers of Ripoff Report and its Arizona counsel.&nbsp; The inundation impaired the servers of the company and its lawyers so badly that their data became inaccessible.&nbsp; The consultant threatened that if the page criticizing the lawyer was not removed within four hours, &ldquo;we will begin targeting your advertisers&rdquo; to get them to &ldquo;pull their ads.&rdquo;
Faced with the imminent crash of the servers, Ripoff Report&rsquo;s lawyers reached out to the lawyer and in a tape-recorded call asked him if he knew who was responsible for the threats regarding the negative content about him.&nbsp; The lawyer denied all knowledge, even when Ripoff&nbsp; Report&rsquo;s lawyers suggested exactly what happened &mdash; that he had hired someone innocently to help him, not knowing that their way of &ldquo;helping&rdquo; would be unlawful.&nbsp; As the court wrote, instead of taking the opportunity to confirm the truth, the lawyer &ldquo;doubled down.&rdquo;
The lawyer paid the consultant even after the consultant described his methods and touted the success of the extortion, the court said.
Months later &mdash; spoiler alert &mdash; the lawyer learned who had placed the derogatory review on Ripoff Report:&nbsp; the consultant himself.&nbsp; The lawyer went to the FBI and reported the consultant, but portrayed himself as a victim, and failed to provide the FBI with two incriminating emails.&nbsp; The court said that the lawyer &ldquo;accepted and helped conceal the fraud when he believed it was carried out to his benefit and then reported it only after learning the scheme was against him as well.&rdquo;
Following the FBI investigation, the lawyer eventually pled guilty to three federal criminal misdemeanor charges, paying more than $425,000 in fines and restitution but avoiding jail time.
Protection of interests &ldquo;to the detriment of others&rdquo;
<a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_8_4_misconduct/">Model Rule 8.4(b)</a> as adopted in the Sooner State makes it professional misconduct to commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer&rsquo;s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_8_4_misconduct/">Model Rule 8.4(c)</a> bars engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.&nbsp; The panel hearing the disciplinary complaint against the lawyer for these violations recommended a one-year suspension, but the supreme court imposed a two-year-and-a-day suspension with no automatic reinstatement, finding that the lawyer paid the consultant after &ldquo;fully appreciating the criminal nature of his conduct&rdquo; and that his misrepresentations were made to protect his own interests &ldquo;to the detriment of others.&rdquo;
Take-aways
Responding to unfavorable on-line reviews continues to be a source of grief to unwary lawyers.&nbsp; Here, an innocent situation &mdash; trying to manage his on-line image &mdash; spun out of control for a lawyer who was taken in by a consultant who essentially conned him.&nbsp; But like Mom always said, things only get worse when you don&rsquo;t face them, and here, the lawyer made things worse when he doubled-down and lied when initially confronted with the havoc the consultant had wrecked.&nbsp; Good lessons for us all.

core/freeform

Ethics

Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility and the Business of Law

On-line review response by rogue consultant leads to suspension for OK lawyer