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