Steven Smith, Esquire | SUSPENDED err Sorta

Cal­i­for­nia.  Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

On this date in the Golden State (was but they’re almost out of cash) the State “Bar” of Cal­i­for­nia found that Steven Ran­dall Smith (CA-160549), 47, of Sacra­mento, failed to com­pe­tently per­form legal ser­vices, when he filed a suit on behalf of a client in a per­sonal injury mat­ter, did not serve the defen­dant timely, and aban­doned the case with­out inform­ing his client or the court.  The client hired a new lawyer but could not rein­state the case, appar­ently leav­ing the client with­out remedies.

This wasn’t the first instance of Mr. Smith fail­ing to per­form legal ser­vices com­pe­tently.  He was pub­licly reproved in 2004.  So, the State Bar of Cal­i­for­nia sus­pended him on May 15, 2008 for two years, stayed the sen­tence and placed him on pro­ba­tion for three years with an actual 30-day sus­pen­sion.  The rea­son?  The Bar cited the fact that “he coop­er­ated with the bar’s inves­ti­ga­tion and had some emo­tional prob­lems at the time.”  

This is non­sense.  Mr. Smith’s client is screwed because he can’t assert his per­sonal injury claims.  Yet the lawyer who appar­ently has “emo­tional prob­lems” can con­tinue to prac­tice law.  Who will be his next vic­tim?  This is how the Cal­i­for­nia sys­tem works: become injured, vic­tim­ized by a criminal(s), etc. then take your case to a lawyer and become vic­tim­ized again then take that case to the State Bar of Cal­i­for­nia and the clowns there do noth­ing or next to noth­ing to help you, the vic­tim obtain reme­dies or pro­tect the pub­lic from fur­ther mis­con­duct by the lawyer in question.

There’s noth­ing to indi­cate the impact on the “client.”  If any­one knows any­thing about this case, please con­tact us or if you are the vic­tim, post an impact state­ment in the com­ments hereto.