Supreme Court Disbars Personal Injury Attorney for Fabricating Evidence in Disciplinary Probe
The Washington State Supreme Court handed down an en banc opinion on Thursday, unanimously disbarring an attorney who submitted fabricated evidence to the state bar to cover up unreasonable fee charges.
In a decision authored by Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud, the state’s high court affirmed the disbarment of Shakespear N. Feyissa, rejecting his claims that the disciplinary hearing was fundamentally unfair and tainted by racial bias.
The ruling concludes a protracted disciplinary process involving hundreds of exhibits, a 12-day hearing, and multiple amended complaints stemming from Feyissa’s handling of personal injury settlements.
The ‘Mahler’ Surcharge Controversy
The origins of the disciplinary action trace back to Feyissa’s handling of auto accident cases involving personal injury protection coverage.
According to the court’s opinion, Feyissa misunderstood a previous state supreme court ruling known as the Mahler decision, erroneously believing it entitled him to an extra cut of his clients’ PIP settlements.
Beginning in 2013, Feyissa inserted an ambiguous “Mahler provision” into his contingency fee agreements. The court found that across 16 client matters, Feyissa collected over $48,500 in excess fees.
With these additional markups, his total cut of some clients’ settlements reached 41 to 59 percent. In some cases, he applied the charge to clients whose contracts did not even contain the provision.
The court also found that Feyissa’s final accountings intentionally obscured the fact that he was keeping the extra money, and that he frequently misrepresented settlement amounts to insurers and medical providers to induce them to lower their outstanding bills.
Fabricated Evidence and Obstruction
The investigation into Feyissa intensified in August 2019 after his former paralegal filed a grievance, alleging that he had stolen from clients and directed her to lie to insurers.
The court’s opinion also detailed a separate grievance filed by a massage provider who treated one of Feyissa’s clients.
When the provider refused to reduce her $999 bill, Feyissa subjected her to verbal abuse, mailing a check for the exact amount alongside a note calling her “one horrible useless incompetent and stupid waste of a human.”
After the Office of Disciplinary Counsel began investigating the first grievance, Feyissa contacted three clients whose original fee agreements did not contain the controversial Mahler provision.
According to court findings, Feyissa drafted false declarations for the clients to sign. The declarations stated that the clients had lost their original fee agreements but were certain they had signed an agreement containing the Mahler provision.
Feyissa then inserted the Mahler provision into an old electronic file to create fabricated, backdated fee agreements. He attached these falsified documents to the declarations and gave them to his attorney, who submitted them to the ODC.
During the disciplinary hearing, Feyissa conceded that the declarations were false.
The Supreme Court rejected his argument that he was not responsible for his attorney submitting them, noting that a lawyer’s actions on behalf of a client are legally binding and that Feyissa intentionally created the false evidence for use in the proceeding.
Claims of Racial Bias Rejected
Feyissa, who immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia as a teenager, appealed the hearing officer’s initial recommendation of disbarment, arguing that the proceedings were impacted by racial bias.
He claimed that the hearing officer and ODC counsel relied on cultural stereotypes, ignored testimony from Black witnesses, and mischaracterized his behavior using coded language.
The Supreme Court flatly rejected these arguments after reviewing the entire record.
Addressing Feyissa’s claims, Justice Gordon McCloud wrote that the hearing officer properly admitted relevant testimony regarding cultural differences and that descriptions of Feyissa’s communications were based on extensive documentary evidence of his actual behavior, not stereotypes.
The court concluded that Feyissa “has not overcome the presumption that the [hearing officer] was unbiased.”
The court also dismissed Feyissa’s argument that his documented struggles with clinical depression should mitigate his sanction.
While the court acknowledged his genuine emotional difficulties during a stressful custody battle, it ruled that his depression did not explain his intentional decisions to falsify documents and obstruct the disciplinary process.
Upholding the disbarment, the Supreme Court emphasized that falsifying information during an attorney discipline proceeding is “one of the most egregious charges that can be leveled against an attorney.”
In addition to disbarment, the court affirmed an order assessing $33,984.88 in court reporter costs against Feyissa.