Board recommends Ohio Supreme Court suspend Sheffield attorney's law license for 6 months

A state disciplinary board has recommended that the Ohio Supreme Court suspend a Lorain County attorney's license for six months for making false statements in court and "engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" in a criminal case nearly two years ago. A three-member panel of the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct recommended 2-1 that attorney Anthony Baker of Sheffield have his law license suspended for six months and that he pay the board's approximate $2,190 in costs in the case. One member of the disciplinary board recommended dismissing the complaint against Baker, who said Monday that he intends to appeal the finding. The board found that Baker signed his client's name on paperwork in a criminal case in 2024 without permission, then lied to Common Pleas Judge Melissa Kobasher and her staff about it. The case was brought to the board by the Lorain County Bar Association. The Ohio Supreme Court has the final say on any discipline. In an email, Baker pointed a Chronicle-Telegram reporter to documents he filed in the case. He wrote that he has 21 days to file an appeal and plans to do that. "My quick review of the panel's decision is that it's odd that (two out of three) panelist commented on my lack of evidence in supporting my claims when the (Lorain County) Bar Association had the burden of proof and did not present much evidence beyond testimony," he wrote. "My appeal will focus on this." According to the Board of Professional Conduct, the incident happened on April 26, 2024, when Baker's client, Willis Hamilton, left Kobasher's court without signing a necessary form. Hamilton was gone but Baker was called back into court, took the form into an empty conference room alone, printed Hamilton's name on it, gave it to the bailiff and left without telling anyone he had signed on Hamilton's behalf, according to the disciplinary board. At a hearing a week later, Hamilton told Kobasher he never gave Baker permission to sign for him, even though Baker said he had permission — something Baker still maintains. Though at one point he said he had called his client to get permission to sign the form for him, Baker later admitted to the Board of Professional Conduct "that he did not call his client in the conference room to obtain the authority as he had represented to the judge," according to the panel's findings. Noting that there were other questions Baker couldn't answer — such as why he provided no evidence in support of his claim that his client gave him permission to sign on — the disciplinary board called Baker's testimony in the case "inconsistent and not credible." Baker "caused harm to his client," who had his case extended into the following year and was forced to hire a new attorney, "unnecessarily prolonging the court case," the disciplinary board found. Hamilton later pleaded guilty to felonious assault, felony intimidation and a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. He was sentenced to two to three years in prison. The dissenting board member found that Baker didn't intend to lie when printing his client's name, that he was unaware of Kobasher's policy of requiring an actual signature on the form and that the signature policy wasn't written or posted in the courtroom. In his email to the Chronicle, Baker admitted he made "a misstatement" to Kobasher about the phone call. That tracks with what he told the disciplinary board, which wrote that Baker "contends that he did not intend to represent the signature on the form as that of his client and mistakenly represented to the court that he called his client from the conference room to obtain authority to sign the form." Baker wrote Monday that he "obviously" had Hamilton's authority to put his name on the form after he left the April 26, 2024, pretrial hearing. "Too, I provided 2 examples of previously signing for my client AND the judge provided no proof that I received her permission (because I didn't)," Baker wrote. "Or evidence of an actual rule." "As I maintained & the judge confirmed — when my client appears for a pretrial there is no reason to consult the court," Baker wrote. Baker was publicly reprimanded in 2021 by the Ohio Supreme Court for his behavior at a trial in Cuyahoga County the year before.Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.