Lobbyist Cooke regains law license

Listen to this article

By a vote of 4-3, Maryland’s highest court has reinstated longtime Annapolis lobbyist Ira C. Cooke to the state bar.

Wednesday’s decision by the Court of Appeals caps Cooke’s six-year effort to rejoin the roster of Maryland lawyers. He consented to disbarment in 2005 following his conviction for commercial bribery, grand theft and conspiracy in California. That conviction, however, was overturned in 2006.

The Court of Appeals, in reinstating Cooke, noted that reversal as well as Cooke’s “new determination to adhere to the high standards of integrity and legal competence.”

“We conclude that, on balance, the petitioner should be reinstated to the practice of law,” Chief Judge Robert M. Bell wrote for the majority.

The three dissenting judges — Lynne A. Battaglia, Sally D. Adkins and Robert N. McDonald — said further investigation of Cooke’s conduct in the California case was needed before he could be reinstated.

Cooke declined, through his attorney and former law partner M. Albert Figinski, to comment on his reinstatement.

Figinski said he delivered the good news to Cooke, a groomsman at his wedding, as the reinstated attorney emerged from root-canal surgery Tuesday morning.

“He was elated with the result and he plans to open a small practice in Hagerstown to handle local matters up there,” said Figinski, of the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos PC in Baltimore.

Cooke’s conviction stemmed from his work for a publicly funded counseling clinic in Kern County, Calif.

Cooke had been hired by the owner to look into opening similar clinics in Maryland. However, Cooke was accused of funneling half the fees he received from the Desert Counseling Clinic to the wife of its owner, some $57,000 in all.

Cooke argued in vain that the payments to Bobbie Cumberworth were compensation for her consulting work on special education issues and not illegal kickbacks.

The California appellate court overturned the conviction, saying the trial judge’s many errors included admitting irrelevant and hearsay testimony and permitting the prosecutor to cite erroneously admitted evidence in his closing argument.

The state of California declined to retry Cooke.

In his 38-page opinion, Bell deemed “significant” the reversal of Cooke’s conviction and the decision by Bar Counsel Glenn M. Grossman — the state’s chief prosecutor of unethical attorneys — to support Cooke’s reinstatement.

Bell also noted Cooke continued to volunteer at The Wells House, an alcohol and drug treatment center in Hagerstown, even after he completed the 1,000 hours of community service ordered by the California trial court prior to his successful appeal.

“Additionally, there are letters that, by detailing [Cooke’s] myriad community service hours, volunteerism and commitment to public service, speak to his present moral character,” Bell wrote. “Further, there was no testimony and no letters that even suggest a contrary view.”

Dissents

But McDonald, in dissent, wrote that the reversal of Cooke’s conviction does not absolve him of the questionable conduct which precipitated the charges that were leveled against him. The California courts did not resolve whether Cooke’s payments to Cumberworth were disclosed to either the nonprofit corporation’s board or in its filings to the Internal Revenue Service, McDonald stated, adding that further investigation was warranted before reinstatement.

“An attorney with a sophisticated practice such as Mr. Cooke would surely understand the significance of such disclosure,” McDonald wrote in a dissent joined by Adkins and Battaglia. “The answers to these questions might be revealing of his capacity to carry out the fiduciary duties that attorneys must perform.”

Adkins, in a separate dissent, said the high court gave short shrift to questions such as those raised by McDonald, especially in light of Cooke having consented to disbarment.

“The majority breezes by these record gaps as mere potholes on the road to Cooke’s deserved reinstatement, but I am unpersuaded,” Adkins wrote in a dissent McDonald and Battaglia joined.

“I believe it incautious to allow the reversal of a conviction — in a separate proceeding — to conclusively silence a voluntary admission of misconduct, especially when other bad acts potentially bearing on a disbarred attorney’s overall character lurk in an undeveloped factual record,” she added. Grossman, the bar counsel, declined to comment on the court’s decision.

Cooke’s reinstatement followed two rounds of arguments before the court. The first, on Oct. 2, 2008, resulted in a 3-3 deadlock the court announced on Nov. 28, 2011 — more than three years after arguments and nearly two months after the retirement of Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr., who could have cast the tie-breaking vote had he remained on the bench.

In announcing the deadlock, the court explained neither the reason for the three-year delay nor how the sitting judges had voted.

The court, consisting of the same six judges and McDonald, who replaced Murphy, reheard arguments March 6.

Welcome news

Wednesday’s decision was also welcomed by Bruce C. Bereano, a fellow Annapolis lobbyist whom the Court of Appeals disbarred in 2000 following his conviction six years earlier for honest-services mail fraud. His conviction is on appeal, based on a Supreme Court decision in 2010 that limited the use of the honest-services statute.

Bereano said he, too, would like to have his law license back.

“I am going to have my attorneys review the [Cooke] opinion with me and see if that is helpful to my situation,” Bereano said. “I am very desirous and very hopeful to one day return to the practice of law in the state of Maryland.”

Though a successful lobbyist, Bereano said the law is the career he favors.

“I just cherish being a lawyer. That’s what I went to school for and what I would like to be known as,” he added. “It is the highest calling. I would like that opportunity some day, God willing.”

WHAT THE COURT HELD

Case:

In the matter of Ira C. Cooke for reinstatement to the bar of Maryland, CA Misc. Docket AG No. 82, Sept. Term 2007. Reported. Opinion by Bell, J. Dissents by Adkins, J., and McDonald, J. Argued Oct. 2, 2008. Reargued March 6, 2012. Filed April 25, 2012.

Issue:

Is reinstatement warranted when the conviction forming the basis for the consent to disbarment is overturned and the petitioner has exhibited strong “moral character”?

Holding:

Yes; the “balance” weighs in favor of reinstatement.

Counsel:

M. Albert Figinski for petitioner; Glenn M. Grossman for respondent.

RecordFax # 12-0425-20.