September 10, 2007
Judge Orders Attorney to Take PR Course in Law School After Billing Client $5,700 for Brief Copied Verbatim from Article on Internet
Eugene Volokh flagged this fascinating recent case, In re Burghoff, No. 05-10947 (Bankr. Ct., S.D. Iowa 8/21/07):
The Court set a sanctions hearing concerning Mr. Cannon upon concluding that he may have filed two briefs which incorporated unattributed material from a scholarly article. ...
Mr. Peter Cannon, a West Des Moines, Iowa attorney, represented Defendant John Petit in an adversary proceeding initiated by Trustee to uncover assets of the Theodore Burghoff bankruptcy estate. ...
After reading both briefs filed by Mr. Cannon, and concluding that both contained an extraordinary amount of research, the Court directed Mr. Cannon to certify the author or authors of the two briefs. On December 22, 2006, Mr. Cannon certified that while he had prepared both briefs, he had "relied heavily" on an article written by others. The article upon which Mr. Cannon relied is Why Professionals Must Be Interested in "Disinterestedness" Under the Bankruptcy Code, May 2005, ("the Article") by William H. Schrag and Mark C. Haut, two attorneys of the New York office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. The Court located this article on the internet. Mr. Cannon fails to acknowledge or cite this article in either brief.
Seventeen of the nineteen total pages in the pre-hearing brief are verbatim excerpts from the Article. Mr. Cannon added some introductory material, a one-page section titled "Argument," and a conclusion. In between the introduction and argument, most of the first twenty pages of the Article are reproduced verbatim. The twenty pages Mr. Cannon reproduced appear as they did in the Article, with slight variations in formatting of the type that result when material is copied from one electronic document into another. ...
Mr. Cannon appeared before the Court for the hearing on sanctions on June 21, 2007. He informed the Court that he found the Schrag and Haut Article on the Internet, and planned to use it as the framework for his brief. He concedes he "stepped over the line" by copying the text into the pre-hearing brief without making greater modifications. ...
At the Court's request, Mr. Cannon has reported to the Court the total amount which he charged his client for the preparation of both briefs. Mr. Cannon billed his client a total of $5,737.50 for these services. ...
Mr. Cannon admits he committed plagiarism when he filed the pre-hearing brief, though he minimizes his mistake by characterizing it as a failure to make greater changes to the borrowed material. The circumstances are similar to Lane, where the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that an attorney who filed a brief containing eighteen pages "cherry-picked" from a legal treatise had committed plagiarism warranting disciplinary action. [Iowa Supreme Court Bd. of Prof'l Ethics & Conduct v. Lane, 642 N.W.2d 296, 300 (2002).] In filing the pre-hearing brief containing about twenty pages of unattributed material, Mr. Cannon committed an equivalent act of plagiarism. Mr. Cannon's statement that his modifications simply fell short misses the point. Mr. Cannon's ethical shortcoming was in misrepresenting Schrag and Haut's work as his own, and not in failing to adequately disguise their authorship. ...
Mr. Cannon's second violation of the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct was in charging his client $5,737.50 for 25.5 hours of work in preparing the two briefs. This amount is unreasonable given the actual labor Mr. Cannon invested in these projects. ... Mr. Cannon billed his client for 25.5 hours of work to prepare the two briefs. Because he could not have expended that number of hours in locating the Article, copying it into his word processing program, and adding what little material he did, his fees are far in excess of what other lawyers would charge for this amount and type of work. ...
Because Mr. Cannon does not appreciate the nature of plagiarism, a continuing education class will not cure his ethical shortcomings. Mr. Cannon's deficiency calls for the more-involved method of instruction offered in a law school course on professional responsibility. Mr. Cannon may complete the course at an accredited law school or arrange for private instruction from a professor of one of these institutions. Mr. Cannon's act of unreasonably billing his client for the plagiarized briefs justifies an additional sanction of disgorgement. ...
WHEREFORE, the Court finds Attorney Peter Cannon violated the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct and Local Rule 83.2(g) by plagiarism and unreasonable billing for plagiarized material.
FURTHER, Attorney Cannon shall complete a law school or equivalent course in professional responsibility on or before August 31, 2008.
FURTHER, Attorney Cannon shall disgorge fees charged to Defendant John Petit for this work. This is deemed completed unless it is determined that waiver of fees did not in fact occur.
FURTHER, Mr. Cannon shall formally notify the authors of the Article of these proceedings and provide this Court with a copy of said correspondence.
September 10, 2007 in New Cases, News
Judge Orders Attorney to Take PR Course in Law School After Billing Client $5,700 for Brief Copied Verbatim from Article on Internet
Eugene Volokh flagged this fascinating recent case, In re Burghoff, No. 05-10947 (Bankr. Ct., S.D. Iowa 8/21/07):
The Court set a sanctions hearing concerning Mr. Cannon upon concluding that he may have filed two briefs which incorporated unattributed material from a scholarly article. ...
Mr. Peter Cannon, a West Des Moines, Iowa attorney, represented Defendant John Petit in an adversary proceeding initiated by Trustee to uncover assets of the Theodore Burghoff bankruptcy estate. ...
After reading both briefs filed by Mr. Cannon, and concluding that both contained an extraordinary amount of research, the Court directed Mr. Cannon to certify the author or authors of the two briefs. On December 22, 2006, Mr. Cannon certified that while he had prepared both briefs, he had "relied heavily" on an article written by others. The article upon which Mr. Cannon relied is Why Professionals Must Be Interested in "Disinterestedness" Under the Bankruptcy Code, May 2005, ("the Article") by William H. Schrag and Mark C. Haut, two attorneys of the New York office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. The Court located this article on the internet. Mr. Cannon fails to acknowledge or cite this article in either brief.
Seventeen of the nineteen total pages in the pre-hearing brief are verbatim excerpts from the Article. Mr. Cannon added some introductory material, a one-page section titled "Argument," and a conclusion. In between the introduction and argument, most of the first twenty pages of the Article are reproduced verbatim. The twenty pages Mr. Cannon reproduced appear as they did in the Article, with slight variations in formatting of the type that result when material is copied from one electronic document into another. ...
Mr. Cannon appeared before the Court for the hearing on sanctions on June 21, 2007. He informed the Court that he found the Schrag and Haut Article on the Internet, and planned to use it as the framework for his brief. He concedes he "stepped over the line" by copying the text into the pre-hearing brief without making greater modifications. ...
At the Court's request, Mr. Cannon has reported to the Court the total amount which he charged his client for the preparation of both briefs. Mr. Cannon billed his client a total of $5,737.50 for these services. ...
Mr. Cannon admits he committed plagiarism when he filed the pre-hearing brief, though he minimizes his mistake by characterizing it as a failure to make greater changes to the borrowed material. The circumstances are similar to Lane, where the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that an attorney who filed a brief containing eighteen pages "cherry-picked" from a legal treatise had committed plagiarism warranting disciplinary action. [Iowa Supreme Court Bd. of Prof'l Ethics & Conduct v. Lane, 642 N.W.2d 296, 300 (2002).] In filing the pre-hearing brief containing about twenty pages of unattributed material, Mr. Cannon committed an equivalent act of plagiarism. Mr. Cannon's statement that his modifications simply fell short misses the point. Mr. Cannon's ethical shortcoming was in misrepresenting Schrag and Haut's work as his own, and not in failing to adequately disguise their authorship. ...
Mr. Cannon's second violation of the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct was in charging his client $5,737.50 for 25.5 hours of work in preparing the two briefs. This amount is unreasonable given the actual labor Mr. Cannon invested in these projects. ... Mr. Cannon billed his client for 25.5 hours of work to prepare the two briefs. Because he could not have expended that number of hours in locating the Article, copying it into his word processing program, and adding what little material he did, his fees are far in excess of what other lawyers would charge for this amount and type of work. ...
Because Mr. Cannon does not appreciate the nature of plagiarism, a continuing education class will not cure his ethical shortcomings. Mr. Cannon's deficiency calls for the more-involved method of instruction offered in a law school course on professional responsibility. Mr. Cannon may complete the course at an accredited law school or arrange for private instruction from a professor of one of these institutions. Mr. Cannon's act of unreasonably billing his client for the plagiarized briefs justifies an additional sanction of disgorgement. ...
WHEREFORE, the Court finds Attorney Peter Cannon violated the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct and Local Rule 83.2(g) by plagiarism and unreasonable billing for plagiarized material.
FURTHER, Attorney Cannon shall complete a law school or equivalent course in professional responsibility on or before August 31, 2008.
FURTHER, Attorney Cannon shall disgorge fees charged to Defendant John Petit for this work. This is deemed completed unless it is determined that waiver of fees did not in fact occur.
FURTHER, Mr. Cannon shall formally notify the authors of the Article of these proceedings and provide this Court with a copy of said correspondence.
September 10, 2007 in New Cases, News