Letter to Oregon State Bar by Oregon Lawyer
citing unethical conduct of
Social Security attorney David Lowry
Ms. P. is in extremely poor health and her condition is life threatening.
Ms. P applied for disability benefits (at the Field Office) and was denied. She filed an appeal (before the Social Security Court) and engaged the services of David Lowry. She met with David Lowry once and he charged her $40.00 for this consultation. Mr. P subsequently attempted to contact David Lowry several times. When she did not hear back from David Lowry, she fired David Lowry by letter a few weeks before the hearing.
David Lowry notified the Social Security Administration that he intended to appear on behalf of Ms. P. David Lowry did this despite having been fired by her. David Lowry personally telephoned Ms. P more than a dozen times in the weekend before her hearing. My client believes that David Lowry telephoned her after he had been expressly instructed not to do so.
Ms. P felt that these messages from David Lowry were threatening.
Ms. P was sufficiently frightened that she notified the SSA and requested
security precautions to be taken.
Ms. P specifically reported being afraid
of Mr. David Lowry David Lowry arrived at the Portland SSA office
approximately one hour before the Ms. P hearing (David Lowry had no other
hearing that day).
Judge asked Ms P if she wanted David Lowry to represent her. She said she did not. Judge had David Lowry brought in and Ms. P fired him on the record. David Lowry asked to speak to Ms. P out in the hall. Judge said, "No, you may not. Do you have anything else?" Mr. David Lowry replied, "Maybe I do, but you'll never know."
Then David Lowry stormed out of the room, slamming the (Courtroom) door behind himself. Afterwards, Judge personally escorted Ms. P and her mother out.
Mr. David Lowry was unwilling to lose the contingency fees on a clearly winning case.
David Lowry's conduct may have violated several provisions of the Code of
Professional Responsibility; specifically
David Lowry represented to the SSA that he
represented Ms P after she fired him. If David
Lowry telephoned her after she had
told him not to, David Lowry committed the crime of telephonic harassment.
David Lowry's
conduct essentially is harassment of a grievously ill person, threatened to
prejudice justice in that he could have frightened Ms. P out of appearing (at her
hearing),
forfeiting her ultimately successful appeal.
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Daniel Bernath
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