It's Been Said Before, But It Bares Repeating: Attorneys Shouldn't Prioritize Cases Based On Sexual Favors

You think the court system is messed up now? What if we lived in a world where attorneys were using their meetings with clients to set up sexual favors in order to move their cases to the top of the priority list?

It would be a revolving door of courtrooms and sexual favors. And what about those poor public defenders? As much as it would potentially cut down on frivolous court matters, we can't have a system like that.

An Ohio lawyer has been suspended for trying to receive sexual favors from one of his clients. (Image Credit: Getty)

The Supreme Court of Ohio gets it. That's why they suspended one of the attorneys in their state for a year (six months stayed) for "repeatedly pressing a client to perform sexual favors in exchange for making her case a priority," reports Court News Ohio.

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The court rejected a proposal by the Board of Professional Conduct that Bruce Wallace receive a full-stayed six-month suspension because he only admitted that he was trying to coerce sex out of his client when he heard the conversations his client had recorded.

Wallace had also implied to his client, identified only as J.W. in court records, that he could influence the judge in her case because the judge used to work as an attorney at Wallace's law firm.

Back in August 2022, the client had asked Wallace to represent her in a dispute with the father of her 3-year-old daughter. She wanted the filing for a court-ordered visitation schedule to take place quickly.

During the first meeting in Wallace's office, he is said to have asked several questions along the lines of "How serious are you about getting what you want for your daughter?" and "How far would you be willing to go to get what you want?"

This Is Not How The Legal System Is Supposed To Work

The client wasn’t exactly sure what the attorney meant by the line of questioning, but wanted to do whatever she had to do in order to get the situation with her daughter's father taken care of.

Wallace reached back out the next day, brought up the connections he had and told J.W. that he had favors he could call in, but wanted to be sure that she was someone he should use one of his favors for.

They arranged to meet at his office again, but an uneasy feeling caused J.W. to use her phone to record the meeting. They talked about the case in a conference room for about 20 minutes, according to the court. 

That's when the conversation took a turn. Wallace wanted to know what his client was willing to do in order to demonstrate how serious she was about her case. They walked down to his personal office.

When she saw the desk and couch, she told investigators she became highly uncomfortable. She had good reason to be. Wallace wanted her to "show" him how serious she was.

Leaving It Vague Didn’t Make It Better

When asked what he wanted, Wallace replied, "In my position, I am not in a place where I can do that. I have to leave that to you." If she showed him how serious she was about the case, he said, "Your case gets priority."

If not, he would still take care of the case. He's a sleazy attorney, not one to leave her out in the cold, but it may not be a priority. She declined and left. As she was leaving, he asked her to inventory her tattoos and text him pictures of them. She did not.

Wallace paid the juvenile court the filing fee and filed the motion the following week. The matter was later dismissed at the client's request, and she wasn’t charged for any of the work done by Wallace.

A grievance against him was then submitted by his client to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and here we are with our reminder that attorneys shouldn't be prioritizing their cases based on sexual favors performed or, in this case, not performed.

I'm sure someone learned something from this, and it's not that you have to leave it up to the client to come up with the specifics of the favor.