A former California State Bar deputy executive director ghost-wrote seven attorney discipline case reports that were supposed to be managed by independent outside counsel to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest, a legal investigation concluded.
A report prepared for the State Bar by the law firm Adams, Duerk & Kamerstein LLP (ADK) found that the former bar executive, Robert Hawley, undermined the intent of the State Bar’s Rule 2201, which provides procedures for carrying out attorney discipline investigations when there are potential conflicts of interest. When in-house bar personnel face such conflicts, the rule calls for the use of outside counsel, known as special deputy trial counsels (SDTCs), to review those cases, the report states.
“... It remains clear that the degree to which Hawley ‘assisted’ SDTCs on certain Rule 2201 cases undercut the independence that appointing an SDTC, a non-State Bar employee, was intended to create,” the law firm’s report says. “Accordingly, investigators find that Hawley’s authoring of Rule 2201 reports, if it did not violate the letter of Rule 2201, violated its spirit and undermined its purpose.”
The investigation of Hawley’s role in overseeing attorney discipline cases grew out of another report by a law firm retained by the State Bar. The latter report, by Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg LLP and released in February of last year, raised concerns about Hawley’s Rule 2201 activities and said the former deputy executive director and former acting executive director gave “confusing and inconsistent information” during an interview.
The Halpern May report focused on the State Bar’s failings in investigating complaints against the now disbarred trial attorney Thomas Girardi, who faces federal charges in California and Illinois for not paying out damages awards to clients. Hawley acknowledged writing one such discipline report related to Girardi, according to the State Bar.
“The fact that someone inside the State Bar handled this case is alone troubling; that it was the acting executive director of the State Bar is frankly shocking,” the Halpern May report says. “The executive director is not supposed to make recommendations in discipline cases, and especially not Rule 2201 cases. The effect of Hawley's intervention in the case .. had the effect of protecting Girardi. …”
Hawley did not respond to a request for comment. His current attorney’s license status became inactive as of June 9, 2023, about a month after the ADK firm was retained by the State Bar.
According to the ADK report, Hawley said he believed writing preliminary drafts of Rule 2201 investigation reports was appropriate since the outside counsel often had to work pro bono and, in any event, the outside counsel had the power to decide the outcome of the disciplinary cases.
The State Bar’s Board of Trustees chairman, Brandon Stallings, emphasized that Rule 2201 has been strengthened so that such ghostwriting incidents cannot reoccur.
“While it is troubling that the ADK report confirmed Hawley ghost-wrote Rule 2201 reports, the Rule 2201 Program is completely transformed from the one that existed during Hawley’s time at the State Bar,” Stallings said in a statement provided to the Southern California Record. “With an amended rule, dedicated Rule 2201 Program administrator and a panel of paid special deputy trial counsel, ghostwriting of Rule 2201 reports by State Bar staff could not and would not happen today.”
The law firm`s report on Hawley`s actions covered the time period 2010 to 2015, according to the State Bar. The ADK report was unable to determine whether any of the State Bar`s managers, other than a former general counsel, knew of Hawley`s ghostwriting in the Rule 2201 Program prior to 2021.