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101 Ill. 2d 535

463 N.E.2d 715

79 Ill.Dec. 161

In Re Levin

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided April 4, 1984

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1984-04-04

Relies on 85 Ill. 2d 318 - In Re Hopper · 71 Ill. 2d 263 - In Re Saladino · 89 Ill. 2d 7 - In Re Feldman

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1984-04-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 154 later decisions — most recently March 2008 · most notably 105 Ill. 2d 79 - People v. Gaines (1984), 138 Ill. App. 3d 481 - People v. Kimbrough (1985)

1 federal appellate · 152 state decisions

1390198419902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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JUSTICE UNDERWOOD,

¶1dissenting:

¶2In my judgment, disbarment is the only appropriate discipline for attorneys who repeatedly engage in dishonest or deceitful behavior. This court has frequently stated that disbarment is warranted when the intentional misrepresentation which occurred here is established. (In re Schneider (1983), 98 Ill. 2d 215, 224; In re Hopper (1981), 85 Ill. 2d 318, 324; In re Saladino (1978), 71 Ill. 2d 263, 276.) This is especially true when, as here, the misrepresentations are directed towards the attorney’s clients and accompanied by other acts of misconduct. (In re Feldman (1982), 89 Ill. 2d 7, 9-13; In re Smith (1979), 75 Ill. 2d 134, 136-42; In re Frey (1976), 65 Ill. 2d 130, 131-32.) The majority’s suggestion that respondent’s conduct was not fraudulent is clearly indefensible in light of our recent statement that fraud includes “ ' anything calculated to deceive whether it be by direct falsehood or by innuendo, by speech or by silence, by word of mouth or by look or gesture.’ ” (In re Armentrout (1983), 99 Ill. 2d 242, 251.) Too, the court has always considered an attorney’s prior discipline for similar conduct a critical factor in its decisions to disbar. In re Nesselson (1969), 43 Ill. 2d 262; In re Broverman (1968), 40 Ill. 2d 302.

¶3As the majority observes, this is not a case like In re Chapman (1983), 95 Ill. 2d 484, where an attorney was guilty of a single instance of neglect, and where alcoholism and illness were important mitigating factors. We deal here with an attorney who was undeterred by his prior discipline, who admits to serious and repeated neglect in the handling of his clients’ cases, and who has irreparably prejudiced his clients’ legal rights through misrepresentations and nondisclosures. Under these circumstances I do not believe any sanction short of disbarment will adequately protect the public or maintain the integrity of the legal profession.

¶4JUSTICE MORAN joins in this dissent.

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