Stark Ligon, Executive Director, Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct, Appellant v. Frank David Rees…

Summary

The court affirmed a disciplinary panel’s order suspending Rees’s law license for thirty days after finding that he violated conflict-of-interest rules by representing two clients with adverse interests. It rejected challenges to the sanction and to the panel’s findings that Rees did not commit dishonesty, misrepresentation, or an improper failure to protect a client’s interests. The court deferred to the panel’s credibility determinations, declined to consider arguments and aggravating factors not preserved below, and held that the sanction was within the permissible range.