The State Bar Association of North Dakota Spring 2015 Gavel Magazine | Page 35

LAWYER DISCIPLINE NOTICE OF DISCIPLINE OF ATTORNEY Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of the State of North Dakota, v. Jennifer M. Stanley No. 20140420 The Supreme Court considered the amended findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendations by a hearing panel of the Disciplinary Board, recommending that Jennifer M. Stanley be reprimanded for violation of N.D.R. Prof. Conduct 3.4(a). Stanley represented a wife regarding property distribution following a divorce, and she rented the wife an apartment. A dispute arose as to whether the husband involved in the divorce signed the lease for the apartment. The husband remarried, and his current wife filed an informal disciplinary complaint against Stanley. After receiving the informal complaint, Stanley called the complainant’s husband at his workplace at the Minot Air Force Base (“MAFB”). The husband informed Stanley he could not speak to her while he was at work. She made multiple calls to MAFB in an attempt to speak to the husband or his “first shirt.” A first shirt acts as a liaison between the enlisted airmen and the command and is in charge of the welfare and morale of the enlisted airmen. During the calls, she became frustrated and short tempered after not being put in contact with the husband’s first shirt. When the first shirt called Stanley, Stanley’s statements implied she wanted the husband to be fired and asked the first shirt to require the husband to submit to a polygraph test. The hearing panel found Mх