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As reported in previous blogs, a former paralegal, Bonnie Sweeten, who worked for a Philadelphia law firm was jailed and convicted for identity theft and filing a false police report. The longtime paralegal and office manager for a suburban Philadelphia law firm is now facing 23 new criminal charges after being indicted today by a federal grand jury.
Jailed last year after being convicted of identity theft and filing a false police report in another case, Bonnie Sweeten now is facing the consequences for allegedly stealing some $700,000 from the law firm, its clients and her colleagues, according to the Trentonian.
She made national headlines prior to her earlier case when she disappeared and claimed to have been abducted but actually was determined to have been on vacation at Disney World with her daughter.
Sweeten is accused of misusing her position at the Bucks County firm, posing as her boss as well as assuming other identities to perpetrate a variety of thefts. In the process, she allegedly fabricated a court order, a power of attorney, a bail assignment, driver’s licenses, a U.S. passport and other documents, the newspaper reports.
“As the indictment alleges, this defendant went to great lengths to defraud people who trusted her,” said U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger. “She betrayed family members, her employer, her friends, and the general public.”
Still in jail at the tail end of the prison term imposed on her last year, the 38-year-old Sweeten now faces a sentence of as much as 375 years if she is convicted of all 23 of the new federal counts. The charges against her include wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, misuse of a passport, lying to federal official and money laundering.
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In Ontario, Canada, paralegals are licensed by the Law Society of Upper Canada, giving paralegals an independent status in this jurisdiction and are licensed and regulated the same way that lawyers are. The Province of Ontario, Canada, recently became the first jurisdiction in North America to provide for the licensing of independent paralegals. This change now allows paralegals to act as legal agents who have the ability to represent on many matters, including all Provincial Offences, work for Provincial Tribunals and Boards, as well as Summary Criminal Cases. They are not “law clerks” in the province of Ontario, Canada but rather are considered officers of the court, a formal part of the legal system.
In researching this, I found that paralegals can represent clients in the Ontario Small Claims Court, Landlord and Tenant Board, Worker’s Safety and Insurance Board and for Summary Criminal Cases. There is of course, a licensing procedure before a paralegal can represent a client. To read more about paralegal licensing and regulations, click here.
In California, paralegals can represent clients in Workers Compensation (California Bar Committee on Professional Responsibility formal opinion 1988-103) but only a law firm can allow its paralegals to represent clients at workers compensation hearings if there is supervision and the client consents to nonlawyer representation.
Part of the opinion states that a lawyer or law firm contemplating entering into such an arrangement should remember that an attorney stands in a fiduciary relationship with the client. (Krusesky v. Baugh (1982) 138 Cal.App.3d 562, 567.) When acting as a fiduciary, the law imposes upon a member the strictest duty of prudent conduct as well as an obligation to perform his or her duties to the best of the attorney’s ability. (Clark v. State Bar (1952) 39 Cal.2d 161, 167; and cf. Bus. & Prof. Code, sec. 6067; Rule of Professional Conduct 6-101(A).) However, an attorney does not have to bear the entire burden of attending to every detail of the practice, but may be justified in relying to some extent on non-attorney employees. (Moore v. State Bar (1964) 62 Cal.2d 74, 80; Vaughn v. State Bar (1972) 6 Cal.3d 847, 857.)
The attorney who delegates responsibilities to his or her employees must keep in mind that he or she, as the attorney, has the duty to adequately supervise the employee. In fact, the attorney will be subject to discipline if the lawyer fails to adequately supervise the employee. (Chefsky v. State Bar (1984) 36 Cal.3d 116, 123; Palomo v. State Bar (1984) 36 Cal.3d 785, 795; Gassman v. State Bar (1976) 18 Cal.3d 125.)
Paralegals may represent clients before the Labor Board (California Labor Code, sections 5501, 5700) California Labor Code section 5501 states that nonlawyer representation is allowed but the appeals board must be notified in writing that the representative is not an attorney licensed by the State Bar of California.
Paralegals can also represent clients before California Unemployment Appeals Board (California Unemployment Insurance Code § 1957 (1956) The codes states that a nonlawyer may represent any individual claiming benefits in any proceedings before the Appeals Board. No agent or counsel shall charge or receive for such services more than an amount approved by the appeals board. Violations for this provision shall be fined no less than $50 and no more than $1,000 or be imprisoned not more than six months or both.
As a paralegal looking to branch out, I am considering the options above. I would love to hear from other paralegals, in California and elsewhere, on the types of representations they have done and why they loved it or would never do again. I would also love to hear from paralegals who are also considering branching out into representing clients in some way.
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Earlier this week the Guinness Book of World Records reported that there is a new U.S. tallest man who is 7 feet 8.33 inches in height. Igor Vovkovinskiy is currently the tallest man in the United States but is not the tallest man in the world. At the present time the tallest man in the world comes in at 8 foot 1 inch and lives in Turkey.
The tallest man in the United States is currently attending the Minnesota School of Business and is seeking a degree in paralegal studies. Mr. Vovkovinskiy takes the title of the tallest man in the United States by just 1/3 of an inch. The tallest man to ever live was 8 foot 11 inches
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Igor came to the United States in 1989 at the age of 7 and he is also known as the world’s biggest Obama supporter. Welcome to the Paralegal world, Igor!
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Image via Wikipedia
I found this fascinating quote today:
If a “malcontent” manages to take the “hard drive” out of your copy machine, can you imagine the goldmine of information it would yield? Even in the most typical solo family law office, for example, the copy machine’s “hard drive” would likely contain page after page of bank accounts, investment records, diaries, correspondence, emails, the list could go and on. All for the taking – in plain ‘ole text. No codes, no encryption, na da.cyberesq.wordpress.com, Cyber-Esq., May 2010
You should read the whole article.
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If you haven’t caught the First Lady’s Mother’s Day Tea video, you can check it out here. It is funny and moving as most of Mrs. Obama’s speeches are. To all of the wonderful Mothers out there, and all of the wonderful Mother figures, Happy Mother’s Day!
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San Francisco Superior Court is accepting comments until May 3, 2010 on the proposed changes to their local rules. Comments must be in writing and directed to Claire Williams, Court Executive Officer, San Francisco Superior Court, 400 McAllister Street, Room 205, San Francisco, CA 94102. The following rules that are affected by these changes are:
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I had to share this will you, I would love to hear what your thoughts on this letter written by a departing paralegal. Thanks goes to Elie Mystal at Above the Law for this article.
I received an email today from OneSource regarding California Court news and would like to pass some of it along to you, my paralegal friends.
Steve Vann, the Director of California Fulfillment with OneLegal, LLC, sent this information on to Mark Schwartz of OneLegal, in which Mark thought highlights very well how the unfortunate trend in the California courts reduction of personnel is affecting OneLegal, we in the legal profession as well as the courts.
Oakland [Superior] is telling OneLegal they will be holding on to orders longer and will be requiring that they drop off more orders in the coming days. Oakland is not the only court as this is also what was heard from Nicole yesterday about LA [Superior]. Sonoma [Superior] is also another court where we are seeing caption pages [a.k.a. filed-endorsed copies] delayed.
This is a trend that he feels will continue into the foreseeable future. With the increased lay-offs and growing order volume the court clerks are simply not able to keep up with the volume.
These orders are all being stamped as accepted the same day they drop them off, but it is taking longer to get the caption pages back. This also means that OneLegal and we paralegals, will be delayed in getting news of rejected documents.
This is concerning to all of us especially when we all just learned as reported by the Daily News, the Los Angeles Superior Court is laying off 329 of their staff and closing 17 Los Angeles area court rooms. Troy Anderson, Staff Writer for the Daily News, wrote, “Presiding Judge Charles W. “Tim: McCoy, Jr., said another 1800 layoffs are possible, 34 percent of the court work force, and 180 courtrooms and nine courthouses could be shuttered by 2013 if the system doesn’t get more state funding.”
To read more, click here. You can also click here to read the court’s news release.
Chief Justice Ronald George recently said that CA court closures must not continue into the next fiscal year. Click here to read his comments.
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I love my friends, don’t get me wrong and my best friend, well there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Ok, maybe there are a couple things I wouldn’t do, like give legal advice or put out a hit, but other than that, I can’t think of too much I wouldn’t do when she asks for my help. No matter how many times I tell my friends I can’t give legal advice, they will call with a question asking “what would you do!”
Take last week, my friend called telling me about a co-worker she has whose new boyfriend was having problems with his old girlfriend. Seems she was following him around town and was even going to his teenage daughter’s workplace causing scenes. One in particular involved screaming at him when he walked in and accusing him of “giving her a disease!” So, my friend wanted to know what her co-worker’s boyfriend could do about it. Sighhhh. My response was, “I can’t give legal advice.” As much as I wanted to say something and common sense tells you what a person might be able to do to stop this woman from doing what she is doing, I couldn’t give legal advice.
So, what to do, what to do, ughh. Don’t you hate when this happens? You want to just tell them, don’t you? But you know you can’t and this is where it gets many paralegals in trouble. I have heard many new paralegals and even seasoned paralegals tell their friends or even clients what they should do, thinking they are only giving them common sense advice in a given situation. Wrong! When you are a paralegal, giving advice, even common sense advice, is giving legal advice and it is not allowed at any time, unless your supervising attorney has authorized you to pass on their advice to the client and you must tell them the advice is coming from the attorney, not you.
What I did was tell my friend who the “new boyfriend” could call for advice, like an attorney or the police and ask their advice. So, I wasn’t giving legal advice, just pointing them in the direction of where to get the legal advice needed. After all, this is who I would contact if I wasn’t a paralegal. My friend later called me to tell me when the co-worker’s “new boyfriend” contacted the police they immediately issued an EPO (Emergency Protective Order) which immediately stopped the problem, hopefully it will work for the 3 days the EPO is in effect. We will see what happens when the 3 days are up, but I will not, I repeat, will not, give any legal advice when the EPO runs its course and my friend calls telling me the next saga to this story. I am sure there will be more to this story, there always is.
So, all of you veteran paralegals, how do you handle this situation when friends or family ask for your “advice.” I would love to hear and share with our newer paralegals as this is one of the problems we paralegals continually run into on an almost daily basis.
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