ERIN M. JOYCE

Erin M. Joyce was a State Bar prosecutor for 18 years before opening her defense firm in 2017, so she has a deep and detailed understanding of how discipline cases against California lawyers begin, develop and conclude.

“I actually bring value-added for attorneys because I level the playing field for respondent attorneys,” she said. “No one wants to be learning State Bar proceedings and practices on the fly when it’s their own case. Dangerous, very dangerous.”

Lawyers who try to respond on their own when they receive a demand for information from a State Bar discipline investigator often do so in ways that make unnecessary work for the investigator, she said.

Some lawyers may feel attacked, so they become aggressive and withhold information the investigator needs. “That’s not going to close the case,” Joyce said. “That’s going to require more work by the investigator.”

Or if the person who filed the complaint is a longtime client, the lawyer may send the investigator too much information. “They go into things that have nothing to do with what’s in that letter … so they create areas of additional inquiry.”

What Joyce and her three colleagues — also all former bar prosecutors — do instead is gather the facts to give the investigator a full and complete response that is just enough to close the case, she said.

Another type of matter Joyce handles often is conviction referrals. Every time a California lawyer is convicted of a crime, the State Bar Court reviews the case. Those who have been convicted of felonies or certain misdemeanors are disbarred.

“Every case I’ve had as a conviction referral since I opened my practice we have resolved,” she said. Many were dismissed outright. In others, she assembled a mitigation package that led to a settlement with the lowest level of discipline possible.

More than half her practice these days involves either discipline investigations or moral character investigations for people seeking to be admitted to the State Bar.

Currently, Joyce has three discipline cases set to be tried this year. One involves five separate complaints against an immigration attorney, each of which is weak.

“Since 2015, [bar prosecutors have] lost more cases, meaning total dismissal of all counts, than they did in probably the previous 20 to 30 years,” she said. “It’s like a change in the prosecutorial philosophy of the office.”

Another busy side of her work is advising lawyers with ethical questions. Lately, most of those are from lawyers who are struggling to figure out and get into compliance with the State Bar’s new Client Trust Account Protection Program.

“That is the main concern that I’ve been consulted with since the end of last year,” she said. The problem is that the explanatory materials from the bar are vague. “There’s disagreement even among ethics attorneys as to what is meant by some of the statements.”

– Don DeBenedictis