FDCPA Plaintiff Attorney Suspended from Practicing Law by State

The body that governs attorneys in Minnesota has suspended a lawyer known for being an active litigator of cases against accounts receivable management companies.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended Thomas R. Lyons, Jr. from practicing law in that state. He will not be eligible to petition for reinstatement for 12 months from the date of the ruling.

Lyons is well-known in Minnesota – and other places — for filing suits under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Lyons was cited by WebRecon as one of the most active consumer FDCPA litigators for April 16-30, representing 10 consumers in that time period (“FDCPA and Other Consumer Rights Lawsuit Statistics for April 16-30,” May 7).

According to court documents, the director of the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility charged that Lyons’ failure to disclose his client’s death during settlement negotiations, and false and misleading statements made to opposing counsel and to the director about the client’s death, constituted unprofessional conduct warranting public discipline. Lyons served and filed a general denial.

Susequently, a referee hearing was held, after which the referee filed findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a recommendation for discipline with the court. The referee recommended that Lyons be indefinitely suspended from the practice of law in the State of Minnesota with no right to petition for reinstatement for a minimum of 12 months. The Court adopted the referee’s recommended discipline.

According to the Minnesota Litigator, this is the eighth time that the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility has disciplined Lyons. In December of 1998, Lyons was both admonished and placed on private probation for separate incidents of misconduct; in 2001, he was publicly reprimanded and placed on probation for two years; in 2002, Lyons was admonished; and he was again admonished in 2005. In addition, Lyons received two separate amended admonitions in 2007. Lyons’ previous discipline resulted from material misrepresentations, prosecuting frivolous claims, and failure to follow appropriate procedure.

In the most recent case, according to court documents, Lyons allegedly did not disclose the timing of the death of his client in order to conclude the settlement agreement.

Lyons did not respond to a request for comment from insideARM.com.

Lyons is one of two attorneys with The Consumer Justice Center P.A. (“CJC”) of Vadnais Heights, Minn., which according to its Web site “is a consumer rights law firm dedicated to providing its clients with quality legal services in a timely manner consistent with high ethical standards. The CJC is dedicated to protecting the rights of all consumers and founded on the premise that each client deserves personalized attention.”

“I believe that most ‘consumer’ attorneys file cases to make money for themselves,” said Robert Markoff, past president of the National Association of Retail Collection Attorneys (NARCA). “They do not take a case unless they are able to earn a large fee for minimal or inflated work.

“That said, they do like to see their names in print as wonderful ‘consumer crusaders’ to attract more clients. Abuses by ‘extortion litigators’ masquerading as ‘consumer attorneys’ are not often reported by the media or referred to bar disciplinary committees.  Collection attorneys are hung out to dry for the slightest infractions but these attorneys escape notice.”

“Many Illinois attorneys have ‘aggressive’ methods for recruiting FDCPA, FCRA and other related claims,” noted Fred Blitt, current NARCA president. “Frankly, people like Lyons, who hold themselves out as ‘dedicated to the rights of consumers’ always seem to have the ‘sexy’ or winning story for the press and general public.  The real question is whether you are truly helping the consumer or simply creating another FDCPA lawsuit that mainly benefits the lawyer in the form of attorneys fees?”

Blitt added: “Let me be clear, I am not referring to matters of a clear disregard for a consumer’s rights under the FDCPA.  NARCA attorney members are licensed by their respective states and need to adhere to their respective codes of ethics and the FDCPA.  That being said, although I don’t have specific figures, many FDCPA claims are filed based on hypertechnical violations of the FDCPA.  I have over 20 years of collections experience, not to mention spending the majority of my young adult life working at my family’s furniture store.  In my experience, the vast majority of consumers simply want to pay their bills and resolve their credit problems.  Does filing an FDCPA suit for a hypertechnical violation truly benefit the consumer?  In the old days, I used to receive many calls from consumer lawyers who worked with me to resolve collection cases for consumers.  Today, while I recieve a few of those calls from consumer attorneys I have known for years, there are many more players in the potentially lucerative game of consumer law.  In most cases I receive an FDCPA lawsuit.  You tell me, is that consumer advocacy?”

Wendy Badger, attorney with Morrison Fenske & Sund, P.A., said that she’s had some cases in which she has faced Lyons. “Some of the cases had some merit, some were hypertechnical violations, and others didn’t have much merit at all.”

But to have an attorney violating standards of the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility multiple times sheds a negative light on all attorneys, Badger said. “You hear about these types of cases, not the 98.9 percent of instances in which we make clients happy, in which we help them out. This gives the entire profession a bad name.”

When an attorney runs afoul of the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility  as many times as Lyons has, Badger questions whether he should be reinstated at all. “What is the purpose of the discipline, to discourage others from doing the same thing or to punish Mr. Lyons. Depending on the answer, you have to ask when is enough enough?”