DC Lawyer Gets Suspended in New York for Forging Signatures

A Washington lawyer who was suspended for 60 days by a Virginia court for forging three signatures was given the same sanction by a New York State appeals court, retroactive to the date of the 2018 Virginia suspension.

Based on the Virginia Bar disciplinary board’s finding and “our deference in reciprocal discipline cases to the discipline imposed by the first jurisdiction,” a 60-day suspension is warranted, the Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, First Department said in its Thursday opinion.

It joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia in imposing reciprocal discipline on Martin Frances McMahon.

McMahon, who heads a law office in Washington and is also barred in New York, isn’t barred in Virginia, the N.Y. court said.

But the Virginia disciplinary board found that by attempting to provide legal services in Virginia and by holding himself out as providing legal services there , he subjected himself to Virginia’s disciplinary authority, the N.Y. court said.

McMahon signed the names of three different Virginia attorneys to pleadings filed in a court in that state without their permission, it said.

The Virginia disciplinary board determined that by signing those names “without indicating that the attorneys themselves were not signing the pleadings, and by presenting the purported signatures of the other attorneys in such a way that he deliberately attempted to deceive the reader that the other attorneys had signed the pleadings,” McMahon violated ethics rules prohibiting fraud and making a false statement to a tribunal.

An aggravating factor was an informal admonition from the DC Bar. As a mitigating factor, McMahon testified that he represented clients who have limited financial resources for whom he endeavored to provide access to the judicial system, the court said.

It noted that his misconduct in Virginia would have violated New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct. However, since McMahon didn’t practice law in New York during his suspension in Virginia, it imposed a retroactive suspension, effective to the date of the Virginia discipline, Oct. 26, 2018.

The case is Matter of McMahon, 2020 BL 112160, N.Y. App. Div., No. M-8310, 3/26/20.