Minnesota Lawyer Pimped Himself to a Client
There's one way for a lawyer to cross the line from officer of the law to officer of pleasure: when he bills a client for time they spent having sex. A Minnesota lawyer logged time he spent getting intimate with a lady he was representing in a divorce case in his billable hours.
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Minnesota's The Star Tribune reports there's a sharp rise in disciplinary action against regional lawyers. Some are doing trivial things like missing court dates or filing deadlines. Trivial stuff that don't matter in the grand scheme of things. But then there are lawyers doing unfathomably stupid things like screwing a client and trying to charge her for it:
Two months before that, attorney Thomas P. Lowe of Eagan was suspended for a minimum of 15 months for having a sexual relationship with a client he was representing in a divorce case, and including the time spent during their trysts in his billable hours.
So Lowe was, in effect, his own pimp. He sold and brokered his own sexual services to a client and got a 15 month suspension for it. At least he wasn't paying hookers to lie about having sex with politicians? The bar for lawyers is so low these days.
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It turns out this story got picked up in a few different places back in January. The law blog Opposing Views has some more details. The two started their affair in August 2011 when the woman approached Lowe to represent her in her divorce. It lasted for almost a year before arguments about Lowe's marriage caused him to end the affair and their business arrangement. The woman ended up attempting suicide and confessing to everything once she was admitted to the hospital. When Lowe submitted his paperwork, prior to the suicide attempt, he described their time spent together as "drafting memos" and engaging in "meetings."
