The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday suspended a Pittsburgh attorney for five years for violating the rules of professional conduct, including failing to report to the disciplinary board a criminal conviction and failing to properly notify clients after he was suspended.
The suspension of Richard J. McCague, who was admitted to practice in Pennsylvania in 1990, is retroactive to 2021.
He is eligible to petition for reinstatement, which would trigger another full disciplinary proceeding, typically lasting at least a year.
A message left with McCague on Tuesday was not immediately returned.
According to the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, McCague, who had previously been censured and suspended, has “a record of escalating misconduct,” and his behavior “raises alarms as to his current fitness to practice law.”
“It is extremely troubling that yet again (McCague) is facing serious charges as a result of his misconduct involving another criminal conviction, failure to comply with disciplinary enforcement rules related to his temporary suspension, and client misconduct in two matters,” the board wrote.
The lengthy suspension, the board found, is required to protect the public.
McCague, 71, was previously censured by the court in 2005 for his conviction of disorderly conduct in connection with smuggling tobacco and marijuana into the Allegheny County Jail for a client.
The next year, McCague received a two-year suspension for ethical violations, the board said, for client neglect and failure to communicate.
He was reinstated in October 2012.
The case that landed McCague back before the disciplinary board began in September 2018, when he was appointed to represent a man in a criminal case before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Beth A. Lazzara.
In that case, the defendant’s girlfriend was the first witness called by the prosecution. After she provided her direct testimony, McCague told the court that he was currently representing the woman in another case.
Because he had failed to reveal the relationship — and the potential conflict of interest caused by representing a witness and the defendant — Lazzara declared a mistrial.
The next month, the judge found McCague in direct criminal contempt, a summary offense, for his actions in that case. She ordered him to pay $4,847 which represented the costs incurred by the court over the mistrial.
The conviction was later upheld by the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
However, according to the disciplinary board findings, McCague never reported his conviction to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel as required.
Because of that, the state Supreme Court issued a temporary suspension. The court noted, too, that McCague failed to pay all but $1,000 of his fine.
Once McCague had been suspended, the disciplinary board found, he failed to alert two of his clients.
In one case, he took a $6,000 payment from a man to represent him but never followed through, the board said.
When the client asked for a refund, McCague said he provided service to him and would not pay the money back.
The client, however, recouped his money through the Pennsylvania Lawyers Fund for Client Security, which reimburses victims of dishonest lawyers. McCague was supposed to pay that money back to the fund.
During the disciplinary proceedings, according to the board filing in the case, McCague testified, telling the board, “I am not saying that I operated perfectly here; I did not.”
“I agree that I should have acted better.”
In a written response, McCague admitted the crucial issues in the disciplinary case.
“To be quite honest, I failed abjectly,” he wrote. “I may argue about motivation or timing, but the violations are there.”
McCague said he had no intent to defraud his client.
McCague wrote the Superior Court erred in upholding his contempt conviction.
McCague also testified that, regarding his prior two-year suspension, he had forgotten the circumstances that led to it.
The disciplinary board found McCague violated several rules of professional conduct, including failing to keep his clients reasonably informed; failing to provide a written fee agreement; and failing to put legal fees into his trust account.
“On this record, we find significant aggravating factors and no countervailing mitigation,” the board wrote.
McCague, the board wrote, “is a recidivist with a substantial disciplinary history.”
McCague’s “lack of remorse and failure to accept full responsibility for his actions further establish that he fails to grasp the extent and consequences of his misbehavior.”