California Bar Journal Discipline Summaries
Summaries from the California Bar Journal are based on discipline orders but are not the official records. Not all discipline actions have associated CBJ summaries. Copies of official attorney discipline records are available upon request.
June 12, 2014
GENE EDWIN O’BRIEN [#99524], 63, of Palm Desert, was suspended for one year, stayed, placed on two years’ probation with an actual 30-day suspension and ordered to take the MPRE. The order took effect June 12, 2014.
The State Bar Court found O’Brien culpable of four counts of misconduct in a single client matter: failing to perform legal services with competence, communicate, return unearned fees or to account. In August 2010, a woman hired O’Brien to file a lawsuit against her lender for predatory lending. The following month, she hired him to file another action against her niece in a real estate fraud matter. She paid O’Brien $10,000 to handle both matters.
In March 2011, the client emailed O’Brien asking for an update on the matters, but got no response. Over the next few months, she called him 33 times seeking an update on the lawsuits and left several voicemail messages. In August 2011, she met with O’Brien, who told her he would file the lawsuits the following month. He never did.
O’Brien made several other promises to file the lawsuits and even brought in a second attorney who is an expert in predatory lending practices, but did not file anything on her behalf in 2012.
In 2013, after the State Bar filed a notice of disciplinary charges against him, O’Brien filed an action in San Bernardino County Superior Court. On June 22, 2013, he refunded the $5,000 his client paid for the legal action against her niece.
