Kitsis v. State Bar

Rule of Law:

The First Amendment does not protect an attorney's in-person solicitation of clients for pecuniary gain, and such conduct, particularly when pervasive and combined with deceptive practices, constitutes moral turpitude warranting disbarment.

Facts:

• David Kitsis was admitted to practice law in 1963.
• From mid-1971 to mid-1974, Kitsis employed three laypersons to solicit clients for him and offered to pay three others for referrals of personal injury claimants.
• April Turner, one of Kitsis's employees, regularly used a police radio to go to accident scenes and recommended Kitsis’s services to accident victims, resulting in approximately 150 clients.
• Turner informed an auto body repair shop owner and manager that Kitsis would pay $50 for each client referral, an offer Kitsis personally repeated, and he subsequently paid $50 to the manager for a referral.
• Turner, sometimes accompanied by interpreter Esther Gonzalez, also approached patients in hospital rooms to offer Kitsis’s services.
• When Turner asked Kitsis if her solicitations at the hospital and accident scenes were illegal, Kitsis responded that they were 'merely unethical—not illegal.'
• Kitsis employed Larry Young, a former medical center employee, to contact hospitals, auto body repair shops, and an insurance company to obtain names of accident victims for solicitation.
• Kitsis and Young approached Charles McClinton, a security guard at Martin Luther King Hospital, and offered to pay him for referrals of auto accident victims, which McClinton reported to authorities.

Procedural Posture:

• In 1972, Petitioner David Kitsis was privately reproved for violating former rule 3a (payment of medical or other personal expenses incurred by a client).
• An investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney led to a misdemeanor charge against Kitsis for solicitation contrary to Business and Professions Code section 6152 (unlawful to solicit attorney business in hospitals).
• Kitsis pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge, and the judgment of conviction became final, with the United States Supreme Court denying certiorari on June 5, 1978.
• In 1974, three local administrative committees of the State Bar commenced proceedings by issuing notices to show cause, alleging seven counts of employment solicitation.
• On March 3, 1976, a local administrative committee found Kitsis culpable on six counts of solicitation and recommended a five-year suspension, stayed on condition of one year actual suspension.
• The Examiner for the State Bar supported the committee’s findings but recommended a longer actual suspension of two and a half years.
• On July 29, 1976, Kitsis filed a statement opposing the report, seeking a new hearing or augmentation of the record with an affidavit that contradicted his earlier stipulated admissions, leading the examiner to recommend disbarment based on a finding of a false declaration.
• Kitsis subsequently attempted to withdraw his July 29 filings.
• On October 8, 1976, the Disciplinary Board, after oral argument by Kitsis, adopted the committee’s findings and added a finding that Kitsis had willfully filed a false declaration, unanimously recommending disbarment.
• On February 23, 1977, the Supreme Court of California issued a writ of review, but on June 9, 1977, granted the Disciplinary Board's request for remand.
• On remand, the Disciplinary Board set aside its independent finding regarding the false declaration (due to lack of notice/opportunity to be heard).
• On July 22, 1977, the Disciplinary Board recommended disbarment based on the committee findings it had adopted, which is the recommendation now before the California Supreme Court.