1. PATRICK J. WOOD
2. KARL BLOOMFIELD
3. RICARDO CORTEZ SARIA

PATRICK J. WOOD [#191403], 37, of San Francisco was disbarred Oct. 28, 2009, and was ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court.

Wood failed to comply with a rule 9.20 requirement as ordered in a 2008 disciplinary ruling. He did not submit a compliance affidavit to the State Bar Court. Failure to comply with the rule is grounds for disbarment.

In the underlying matter, the State Bar Court found in a default proceeding that Wood failed to keep his client reasonably informed of significant developments, take steps to avoid prejudice to his client, update his address with the State Bar or properly administer his client trust account and he commingled funds in his client trust account.

KARL BLOOMFIELD [#79790], 62, of San Diego was disbarred Oct. 28, 2009, and was ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court.

The State Bar Court found that Bloomfield committed seven acts of misconduct, including misappropriation and moral turpitude, in three matters.

After reaching a settlement agreement for his client in a personal injury case, Bloomfield received a check for $65,000 from Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. that he deposited in his client trust account. Liberty Mutual sent a replacement check after realizing a payee had been omitted. It also was deposited in Bloomfield’s trust account.

Bloomfield asked Liberty Mutual’s lawyer to advise him if the first check cleared or if payment had been stopped. He did not receive an immediate response and after disbursing the money, $65,000 remained in his trust account because the stop payment order was not timely. Three years later, Liberty Mutual asked about the remaining $65,000, which Bloomfield acknowledged he spent. He agreed to repay that amount and sent two checks, totaling $21,000, to Liberty Mutual. Neither was negotiated.

When he heard from the insurance company two years later, Bloomfield offered to pay half of the $65,000 but couldn’t estimate when he could pay the remainder. After the offer was accepted, he sent a check for $32,500 to Liberty Mutual, but it bounced. He sent a cashier’s check about a month later.

Liberty Mutual sued Bloomfield when he did not pay the balance. He paid another $11,000-$12,000 and reached a compromise settlement with the insurance company.

The bar court found that he committed an act of moral turpitude by spending the proceeds of the second check.

In a personal injury matter Bloomfield took on a contingency basis, he represented a client who claimed to have been raped by her therapist. The woman’s testimony was not always credible given her apparent difficulty to recall as a result of a previous trauma.

When Bloomfield filed a claim against San Diego County, it was partially denied because it was not filed within six months. Bloomfield was advised he could apply for permission to file a late claim, but he never did so. The remainder of the claim was denied outright. He filed suit after a six-month deadline elapsed, but the case was dismissed.

The therapist was not named in the complaint but Bloomfield served him when he located an address. The therapist did not respond and default was entered, but Bloomfield did not pursue the matter for about a year. When he contacted his client, she refused to testify because of her emotional state.

A short time later, Bloomfield appealed the dismissal, filed various documents and asked the client for money for costs. He did not file his brief on time, even with an extension, and the appeal was dismissed.

Bloomfield did not notify the client, provide her with an account or return her file after the client fired him. He also did not reply to a State Bar investigator’s inquiries.

The court found he failed to perform legal services competently, return a client file or cooperate with the bar’s investigation.

He also did not return a file or cooperate with the bar when it investigated his actions in a medical malpractice lawsuit. However the bar court dismissed charges that Bloomfield abandoned the case and did not perform competent legal services.

Nonetheless, Judge Richard Honn recommended Bloomfield’s disbarment, saying his misconduct was extensive and long-lasting. His “failure to return the Liberty Mutual Funds, followed by actually spending them, substantially weakened the reputation of the profession in the eyes of the public,” Honn wrote. “His actions were not a mistake. After he realized that payment of the first check had not been stopped … he began treating the funds as if they were his to keep and did so for an extended period of time.”

Honn acknowledged Bloomfield’s 22-year discipline-free career, family health and emotional problems as well as his participation in the Lawyer Assistance Program. But his actions “go to the fundamental foundation of the role of an attorney — honesty,” Honn wrote.

RICARDO CORTEZ SARIA [#74999], 61, of Highland was disbarred Nov. 5, 2009, and was ordered to comply with rule 9.20.

The disbarment order was imposed after five previous disciplinary orders for similar misconduct that “apparently had no effect on (Saria’s) conduct, wrote State Bar Court Judge Pat McElroy. He “continues to violate the rules for which he has previously been disciplined.”

In the most recent matter, Saria participated in the beginning of a trial but his sister-in-law later informed the court that he was resigning from practice. The court entered his default and found that he committed 10 acts of misconduct.

He represented a friend who was a web designer for RCMI Associates, a web-based headhunter service. The client believed RCMI owed him $6,000, but it refused to pay, claiming the database program was broken. Saria had a social relationship with his client and RCMI’s owner, whom he had previously represented. Despite recommendations that the client walk away from the dispute, Saria urged him to turn off RCMI’s website and e-mail system. He demanded payment from RCMI and refused to return any of its computer database.

RCMI sued Saria’s client for, in effect, hijacking its website. At the same time, Saria’s client sued RCMI’s lawyer personally, based on Saria's advice that the suit would force the lawyer to withdraw and RCMI to settle.

In the first suit, Saria and his client were ordered to pay $3,000 in fees and costs resulting from opposing counsel obtaining a default when Saria did not respond to the complaint. Saria told the client allowing the matter to go into default was a “legitimate legal strategy.” Saria said the sanctions were ordered against him. However, after the client hired a new lawyer, the client paid the sanctions.

In the second suit, the attorney-defendant notified Saria his complaint was deficient on procedural and substantive grounds. Saria did not respond, nor did he respond to a motion for change of venue, in which the lawyer asked that Saria be sanctioned. The court ordered the case transferred to another county and imposed sanctions of $3,647.80 against Saria, but he neither transferred the case nor paid the sanctions.

When the opposing counsel sought additional sanctions, Saria transferred the case. Additional sanctions — totaling $8,485.30 — were imposed. The bar court found that Saria’s causes of action were baseless and without merit and that he pursued the case in order to force the other lawyer to withdraw or to gain an unjust advantage in the litigation. The client eventually paid the additional sanctions as well.

The bar court found that Saria did not report the sanctions to the bar, disobeyed court orders, pursued a case to gain an advantage, failed to communicate with his client or perform legal services competently, and he had a conflict of interest because he had previously represented the owner of RCMI but did not tell his client.

Saria has been disciplined five times previously beginning in 1983 with criminal convictions for violating the state insurance code. In the other matters, among other things he practiced law while suspended, failed to account for client funds, report a judicial sanction or comply with a court order, and he willfully misappropriated $17,000.

McElroy also ordered Saria to pay restitution to his former client.

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