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LOUISIANA RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

LADB hearing panel recommends suspended Deridder attorney refund fee to client

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NEW ORLEANS (Louisiana Record) — Deridder attorney Mitchel M. Evans II awaits the outcome of a recommendation issued by a Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board (LADB) hearing committee in February after he allegedly failed to comply with his clients instructions in a 2015 case.

Deridder currently is under a suspension handed down in late 2016 and LADB Hearing Committee No. 31 recommended no additional suspension in this latest case against him. 

"The committee does not recommend any additional suspensions or supervise probation, other than what [Evans] is currently subject to," the hearing committee's report said. "The committee does specifically recommend, with regard to the instant charges, that as an additional condition of [Evans'] supervised probation, that he be ordered to refund to [his former clients] in this matter his complete fee of $1,200 as an unearned fee do to the fact that [Evans] failed to comply with the specific instructions given to him by his clients."

The hearing committee's recommendation stems from formal charges filed by the office of disciplinary counsel. Evans was alleged to have provided incompetent representation, took action on behalf of his clients without authority to do so, failing to act with reasonable diligence, failing to keep his clients reasonably informed and failing to return the unearned portion of fixed fees.

The report was signed Jan. 8 by committee chairman V. Ed McGuire III and was issued Feb. 5.

No additional updates in the matter, LADB recommendations or a decision by the state Supreme Court, have been posted the LADB website.

Evans was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on April 28, 1989, according to his profile at the Louisiana State Bar Association's website.

Charges against Evans stemmed from a stipulation he entered with a state court in late summer 2015, despite concerns voiced by his clients, that "resulted in a stipulated judgment inconsistent with the wishes of the clients," the hearing committee's report said.

Evans is subject to a three-year suspension, with two years deferred, that the state Supreme Court handed down against Evans in December 2016, following an LADB recommendation the previous June, over allegations detailed in three sets of formal charges filed by the office of disciplinary counsel.

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