An Auburn attorney has been suspended from practicing law for nine months.
A single justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court found that Jeffrey P. White violated multiple ethics rules in the past five years. White, who has practiced for more than 37 years, focuses on bankruptcy cases.
The Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar had received four complaints about White’s conduct — two from clients, one from a federal bankruptcy judge and one from a U.S. bankruptcy trustee. In his sanction order, Justice Donald Alexander wrote that the complaints showed a trend.
“In each, a client retained Attorney White to provide legal services; the services were not provided; the client engaged in an extended effort to contact Attorney White, with limited success, to seek return of the funds paid for which no work had been done; and, in each case, Attorney White only responded and returned the funds after the client had filed a grievance complaint,” Alexander wrote.
The court ultimately found that White “had violated ethics rules relating to diligence, communication, fees, safekeeping of client property, termination of representation, candor toward a tribunal, fairness to opposing parties, truthfulness in statements to others, and misconduct,” the Board of Overseers of the Bar said in a statement.
White’s suspension will begin Nov. 19 and end Sept. 16.
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