Spokane attorney and former city councilman barely avoids disbarment.
By the margin of a single justice, the Washington Supreme Court today put aside the recommendation of a hearing officer and the Washington State Bar Association’s Disciplinary Board that Steve Eugster be disbarred. Instead, the Spokane lawyer was sanctioned with an 18-month suspension. He will also be forced to pay $13,500 to reimburse the estate of a former client for costs she incurred in opposing Eugster’s petition that a court appoint a guardian for her after she decided to replace him with another attorney.
Eugster has practiced law in Washington for 34 years but is best known as an outspoken civic figure in Spokane where he served on the City Council from 2000 to 2004. Among other things, Eugster is widely credited for initiating the citizen referendum that brought the strong mayor form of government to the city–a move he now says he’d like to undo. In April, he announced his candidacy for a council seat currently held by Mike Allen.
While the court majority’s decision was harshly critical of Eugster in upholding seven violations of ethics rules found by the WSBA hearing officer and disciplinary board, the 5-4 decision to suspend him, rather than disbar him, came down to two factors. The first is that the court majority was unconvinced that Eugster was motivated by financial self-interest in his dealings with his then-87 year old client, and secondly, it found that none of his offenses fell into four areas of misconduct where “disbarment has generally been applied.”
“There is no contention that Eugster committed a felony involving moral turpitude, or engaged in forgery, fraud, giving false testimony or knowingly making misrepresentations to a tribunal; nor is there any allegation that he misappropriated client funds; nor has Eugster been guilty of extreme lack of diligence,” Justice Tom Chambers wrote for the majority. “Again, Eugster’s misconduct involved a single client and a single legal action involving that client. The misconduct took place over a period of approximately two months after which time he took steps to correct or mitigate his conduct.”
Writing for the court minority, Justice Mary Fairhurst disputed the majority’s characterization of both the seriousness of the violations and the period of time over which they occurred. She also stressed that Eugster “has shown no remorse of the wrongful nature of his conduct.”
“Eugster committed multiple offenses through multiple independent acts,” Justice Fairhurst wrote. “At numerous points, Eugster had the opportunity to avoid committing misconduct, yet he did not. Given the number of opportunities and the number of offenses, a harsher sanction is warranted.”
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