NEW ORLEANS (Louisiana Record) — New Orleans attorney Jennifer Elaine Gaubert faces possible suspension following a recommendation issued July 9 by a Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board (LADB) hearing committee over her criminal conviction stemming from a sexual encounter with a cab driver in 2012.
The hearing committee recommended Gaubert be suspended for six months and required to pay all costs, according to the nine-page recommendation issued by LADB Hearing Committee No. 54. The hearing committee handed down the recommendation after finding Gaubert in violation of Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(b), alleging she committed a crime "especially one that reflects badly on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects," the recommendation said.
"[Gaubert]'s criminal convictions for simply battery and criminal mischief involving an incident with a New Orleans cab driver wherein [Gaubert] and the cab driver had a sexual encounter is a clear violation or Rule 8.4(b)," the recommendation continued. "[Gaubert] appealed her criminal conviction to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal; however, her conviction was affirmed."
The recommendation was signed July 9 by committee chairman Thomas Louis Colletta Jr. Attorney committee member Lori Allen Waters and public member Richard Allen Hinton concurred in the recommendation.
Gaubert, 37, was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on Oct. 13, 2006, according to her profile at the Louisiana State Bar Association's website.
Gaubert has been ineligible to practice law in Louisiana because of noncompliance with continuing legal education requirements and unpaid disciplinary and bar dues, according to information on her state bar profile. She, otherwise, had no prior discipline in Louisiana, according to the hearing committee's recommendation.
Formal charges against Gaubert arise solely from conviction in in April 2014 in Orleans Municipal Court on a charge of simple battery over her alleged encounter with the cab driver, who later filed a civil suit against her, according to information in the background portion of the hearing committee's recommendation. Her motion for a new trial and was denied, and Gaubert received a suspended sentence of a one day in parish prison and a day of inactive conditional probation.
The office of disciplinary counsel filed formal charges against Gaubert in July 2017. Gaubert failed to answer the charges against her and the allegations were later deemed admitted.