ADVICE TO COMPLAINANTS
Your complaint will be better handled if you will first read this booklet. It will explain:
I. WHO WE ARE
II. WHERE WE WORK
IV. WHAT WE CAN DO
VI. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP US
VII. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF
We are the Grievance Committee for the Ninth Judicial District, which consists of a Chairperson and 19 members. The Chairperson and 15 members are attorneys. The four remaining members, called lay people, are not attorneys. We are appointed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York for a term of up to four years. Each attorney is experienced in a different area of law (criminal, divorce, landlord-tenant, taxation, estates, etc.), and each lay person has a varied background in areas other than the law. We come from the communities which we serve, namely - Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, and Rockland Counties. We are not paid for our work but do this as a service to the public and to maintain the honor and high standards of the legal profession.
However, we do have a paid staff of attorneys who work full time to investigate and process our complaints and report the results of their investigation to our committee. The work of this staff is under the supervision of this committee.
Our committee investigates complaints against attorneys with offices in Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, and Rockland Counties. In certain cases, we will investigate other complaints if the conduct occurred in our area or if the attorney lives in our area, but usually such complaints will have to be referred to other grievance committees.
Making a complaint is a very serious matter. However, you need not have any special legal knowledge to file one. If you believe your attorney has operated unethically, tell us the facts by either filling out one of the complaint forms available at our office or by writing us a letter which fully explains your problem. Remember that it takes evidence of unethical conduct to justify disciplinary action against a lawyer. You should, therefore, give us copies of all letters and papers which explain your complaint. We know that you may not understand how to put your complaint into language that will say what we need to know. For this reason, after reviewing your complaint, one of our attorneys may send a letter to you asking for any additional information that is needed to process your matter. After you give us your complaint, we will examine it. Certain complaints may be transferred to one of the local bar association grievance committees in Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, or Putnam Counties. At the conclusion of their investigation we will be notified of the final determination. If the complaint has only to do with size of the fee, it may be sent to a special service of the local bar association that specializes in fee disputes. It is also possible that your complaint, even if true, does not describe anything which would be considered improper conduct by an attorney, and we would then have to reject it for that reason. If you do have a valid complaint, we will then ask the attorney to answer it, and after we receive his answer—and he must answer—we will give you a chance to reply to it. Our staff will also investigate the complaint by looking at any papers or court records which may help, speaking to witnesses, and speaking further, if necessary, to you and to the attorney.
Our main purpose is to protect you, the public. It is our function and our duty to enforce The Lawyer's Code of Professional Responsibility which is a standard of conduct for attorneys in the performance of their work. If we determine that the attorney about whom you complained has violated the Code, we will take action in keeping with the guidelines set forth in Section III (WHAT OUR PROCEDURES ARE). However, that action may not solve your own personal problem as you will learn when you read the next section.
We cannot take money or property from the attorney to return to you. We cannot sue an attorney because of his careless handling of your problem. We cannot do the work your attorney failed to do for you. We cannot change the fee the attorney has charged you, even if it is too high. However, if you read further in this booklet, you will learn how to help yourself or obtain help, if necessary. By bringing your complaint to us, you help us learn of attorneys who need to be corrected, and you help us keep the legal profession honorable and competent. In that way, you help yourself, your friends, and your community. We cannot do this work without your help. When the investigation is completed, the results are reported to the full committee at its monthly meeting where it is reviewed and
discussed. Then any one of several things may happen:
(1) Your complaint may be dismissed. This does not mean we did not believe you, only that we decided that what you said the attorney did was not improper conduct.
(2) We may "take appropriate action" by sending a Letter of Caution or a Letter of Admonition to the lawyer. These are confidential letters telling the attorney his conduct was improper and warning him not to repeat his conduct. By law we are not permitted to show you a copy of that letter These letters are employed when some degree of improper conduct has been found, but the matter is not serious enough to require more severe disciplinary action.
(3) We may hold a hearing and listen to testimony under oath from you, the attorney, and witnesses so that we can decide what action to take.
(4) We may start a trial in order to prove the attorney committed serious misconduct. If we prove this misconduct, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court may take disciplinary action against the attorney. This trial is not open to the public, but you will be requested to give testimony, and if the Appellate Division decides to take disciplinary action against the attorney, that decision may be made public.
VI. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP US
If you have read everything up to this point, you probably know what you must do to help us. You must tell us everything you know. You must bring us all letters and papers about your case or which your lawyer gave you. You must give us names of witnesses who can help. You should try to persuade those witnesses to cooperate with us. You must be ready to testify at a hearing or at a trial. If you move, you should give us your new address. We cannot do very much without your help.
VII. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF BEFORE AND AFTER BRINGING THE COMPLAINT TO US
When you bring your complaint to us, you help to preserve the honor of our profession, and you render a public service. To help yourself you should:
(1) Try again to work out a solution with your attorney before you file a complaint with us. If the problem is that he does not speak to you, write him a letter and keep a copy to show to us.
(2) If you cannot solve your problem that way, you may need to get another attorney to finish the work which your first attorney had been doing and to give you any further advice you may need.
We are not permitted to act as your attorney and we cannot give you legal advice or legal opinions. However, this advice we can give you: Do something immediately. Many rights are lost when people act too late, and by the time you come to us, much time may have already passed.
Finally, if somebody accuses you of a crime, the law sees you as innocent until you are proven guilty. We give the same right to the attorney against whom you complain. We will present your complaint against the attorney, but until proven, he is still innocent. In addition, an attorney cannot do good work for his client if he does not have a good reputation, and a good reputation is easily destoyed and very hard to repair. For that reason, your complaint and our investigation are kept secret. If this system is to work, we need your cooperation to help us get all the evidence there is and to keep this complaint secret until the Court takes public action against the attorney, if that action is required.