Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Bar finds probable cause that lawyer violated the rules

A formal complaint could be filed if he is found to have violated tenets of professional conduct .

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published November 15, 2006

TAMPA - Three years after they battled over disqualification from a civil case, there's more bad blood between Circuit Judge Gregory Holder and attorney Arnold Levine.

This go-round, Levine has tried three times without success to get Holder off a new case involving a dispute over a development agreement in which the attorney represents DeBartolo Development.

Holder complained about Levine's tactics to the Florida Bar, contending that the veteran attorney had attempted to "engineer" the judge's disqualification from the case.

On Tuesday, the judge's complaint gained ground. A Bar grievance committee in Pinellas County found probable cause that Levine violated several rules of professional conduct, a decision that likely will result in a formal complaint against Levine being forwarded to the state Supreme Court.

Bar officials would not discuss the specifics of the complaint until it is filed with the Supreme Court, but the lawsuit case file contains records that outline the nature of the dispute.

The sticking point is a letter Levine wrote in February to the federal judicial nominating commission suggesting that Holder's application for a federal judgeship be rejected because he was unqualified for the position.

Levine argued that Holder had erred in 2003 when he booted the attorney from a case involving the Tampa Bay Lightning. The judge made that decision after being told that Levine had peeked at the Lightning attorneys' confidential records. Levine tried to get Holder removed from that case as well, but failed.

Levine forwarded his letter to Holder, along with a motion asking that he disqualify himself from the latest case because of it.

The judge, who had ruled that Levine's client should pay the opposing party's legal fees and costs, denied the motion, then filed a complaint with the Bar.

"The law is abundantly clear that an attorney cannot orchestrate a ground for disqualification with the trial judge," said Holder's letter, which is included in the court file for the DeBartolo civil case. The 2nd District Court of Appeal denied Levine's motion as well. Levine appealed two more times after Holder denied his subsequent motions to disqualify himself based on the Bar complaint; each time, the appellate court upheld Holder's ruling.

Holder would not comment Tuesday. Levine did not respond to phone and e-mail messages.

In one of his motions for disqualification, the attorney referred to Holder's "vindictive action" and the "spurious" ethics complaint.

This is not the only Bar matter Levine has pending. Florida Bar spokeswoman Francine Walker confirmed that Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen also has filed a complaint against the attorney; she would not elaborate on its allegations.

[Last modified November 15, 2006, 01:45:46]