Matter of Park: Disbarment for the Mere Attempt to Suborn False Testimony and Related Acts of Dishonesty

1. Introduction

In Matter of Park (2025 NY Slip Op 03531), the Appellate Division, First Department, confronted an attorney disciplinary case that reached well beyond routine professional lapses. The respondent, Inho Andrew Park, faced numerous charges, including falsifying notarizations, threatening a client with baseless criminal prosecution, practicing under an unregistered name, and—most significantly—offering financial inducements to a subordinate attorney to make false statements to the Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC). After a multi-year adversarial process—petition, supplemental petition, evidentiary hearing before a referee, and cross-motions—the court imposed the profession’s ultimate sanction: disbarment.

The decision establishes a clear precedent that an unconsummated attempt to procure false testimony in a disciplinary investigation, standing alone, is sufficiently egregious to warrant disbarment. Ancillary misconduct—dishonest notarizations, threats to a client, and defiance of AGC guidance—reinforced the court’s conclusion but were not indispensable to it. The ruling thus tightens ethical expectations and sends an unequivocal warning to the bar: dishonesty directed at the disciplinary system itself strikes at the heart of attorney fitness and will trigger the harshest penalty even if the dishonest scheme is never completed.

2. Summary of the Judgment

The court confirmed the referee’s findings on all sustained charges (except a single dismissed charge) and rejected Park’s cross-motion in its entirety. Key points of the ruling include:

• Sustained Misconduct – Park (i) notarized a client’s affidavit outside the client’s presence, (ii) urged associate Steve Park to accept blame and offered a salary increase and continued “ghost” practice during suspension, (iii) threatened a former client with arrest for lawfully recording a call, and (iv) persisted in using the trade name “Andrew Park” after an explicit 2015 AGC warning.
• Aggressive Aggravation Analysis – The court emphasized Park’s three prior admonitions, failure to heed AGC guidance, and lack of remorse, finding a “complete disregard for legal and ethical responsibilities.”
• Disbarment Ordered – Citing the “formidable” evidence of attempted subornation and pattern of deceit, the court struck Park’s name from the roll of attorneys effective immediately.
• Narrow Caveat – The only relief given to Park was confirmation that one charge previously dismissed by the referee (charge two) remained dismissed; this had no effect on sanction.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

The First Department anchored its decision in three leading attorney-discipline authorities:

1. Matter of Toback, 199 AD3d 99 (1st Dept 2021) – Attorney disbarred for a sustained pattern of deceit and defalcation in client escrow accounts. The court relied on Toback to underscore that dishonesty directed toward fiduciary and disciplinary obligations warrants the ultimate sanction.
2. Matter of Boter, 46 AD3d 1 (1st Dept 2007) – Disbarment imposed where a lawyer filed false documents and lied to cover up the misconduct, demonstrating that false submissions to tribunals and disciplinary bodies are incompatible with continued licensure.
3. Matter of Brooks, 271 AD2d 127 (1st Dept 2000), appeal dismissed, 95 NY2d 955 (2000) – Disbarment affirmed for filing false records and obstructing an investigation; cited to reinforce the proposition that obstruction of disciplinary processes amplifies sanction severity.

These precedents share two core principles: (1) dishonesty towards courts or disciplinary agencies is sui generis misconduct that undercuts the judicial system itself, and (2) aggravating factors such as prior discipline, lack of remorse, and pattern conduct tip the balance toward disbarment. Park extends these principles by clarifying that a mere attempted subornation—without any false affidavit actually filed—triggers the same result.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning unfolds in five steps:

1. Credibility Findings – The referee’s factual determinations, especially credibility assessments, receive “great weight” unless unsupported by the record. The court found “formidable” evidence—audio recordings in which Park repeatedly admits the wrongdoing and negotiates a payoff—to support every sustained charge.
2. Character of the Misconduct – The court emphasized that Park’s misconduct struck at three pillars of professional integrity:
   • Truthfulness in sworn/legal documents (false notarization),
   • Integrity of the disciplinary process (attempted inducement of false testimony), and
   • Honesty with clients (baseless threats regarding recording).
   Each category individually implicates RPC 8.4(c) (conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation). Together they reveal a systemic ethical failure.
3. Aggravation vs. Mitigation – The court applied ABA Standards 9.22 (aggravation) and 9.32 (mitigation). Notable aggravators: prior admonitions (pattern), bad-faith obstruction, and absence of remorse. Mitigators (character letters, claimed cooperation) were discounted as “insufficient.”
4. Policy Concerns – By attempting to corrupt the disciplinary process, Park threatened the very mechanism that protects the public and maintains lawyer confidence. The court concluded that undermining the AGC’s fact-finding ability is akin to perjury before a tribunal.
5. Proportionality – The court compared the case to Toback, Boter, and Brooks, noting that all resulted in disbarment. The presence of multiple aggravating factors made any lesser sanction “incommensurate with the gravity of the offenses.”

3.3 Impact on Future Cases

The decision’s ramifications are immediate and far-reaching:

• Attempt Standard Confirmed – It is now explicit that attempting to induce false testimony or obstruct an investigation, even if unsuccessful, is disciplinary misconduct of the highest order.
• Enhanced Scrutiny of Notarization Practices – Practitioners who routinely notarize client signatures without contemporaneous presence—often rationalized as a convenience—face elevated risk of prosecution.
• Name-Registration Compliance – The First Department’s willingness to use name-misrepresentation as an aggravator (even if “not disconcerting” by itself) signals stricter enforcement of RPC 7.5(b).
• Client Threats and Communication Ethics – Lawyers who intimidate clients through misstatements of law can expect charges under RPC 8.4(h) (“conduct that adversely reflects on fitness”).
• Guidance to Referees and AGC – The ruling affirms that audio recordings and other “smoking gun” evidence can outweigh expert testimony or tangential handwriting disputes, thereby streamlining evidentiary evaluations in future hearings.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• RPC 8.4(a), (c), (d), (h) – Sub-rules of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct forbidding, respectively: violating or attempting to violate the RPC; conduct involving dishonesty/fraud/deceit; conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice; and conduct reflecting adversely on fitness.
• Subornation of Perjury vs. Attempted Subornation – “Subornation” refers to persuading someone to commit perjury. An attempt is any substantial step taken toward that goal, even if perjury never occurs.
• Referee in Discipline Proceedings – An experienced lawyer appointed to conduct fact-finding hearings, akin to a trial judge, whose report is then reviewed de novo by the Appellate Division.
• Aggravation and Mitigation (ABA Standards) – Uniform criteria used nationwide to evaluate factors that may increase or decrease the severity of sanction (e.g., prior discipline = aggravation; genuine remorse = mitigation).
• 22 NYCRR § 1240.8(a)(5) – The procedural rule allowing parties to seek “discipline by consent” (a negotiated disposition) which the court denied in this case, opting for full litigation.
• Practicing Under a Trade Name – RPC 7.5(b) requires a lawyer to practice only under their true legal name as registered with the Office of Court Administration; deviation can mislead the public.

5. Conclusion

Matter of Park crystallizes an exacting standard: any attorney who even attempts to corrupt the disciplinary process through bribery, coercion, or false statements risks immediate expulsion from the bar. By bundling this attempted subornation with a pattern of dishonesty—false notarizations, threats to clients, and disregard of prior admonitions—the First Department signaled the paramount importance of candor and integrity in the legal profession. Going forward, litigants, disciplinary authorities, and practitioners must internalize this message: the integrity of the regulatory system is non-negotiable, and any attack on it, no matter how incomplete, will be met with the harshest possible response.