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Ajili Hodari (WSBA No. 37251, admitted 2006) of Seattle, WA, resigned in lieu of discipline, effective 09/27/2024. The lawyer agrees that they are aware of the alleged misconduct in disciplinary counsel’s Statement of Alleged Misconduct and rather than defend against the allegations, they wish to permanently resign from membership in the Association. Francisco Rodriguez acted as disciplinary counsel. Leland G. Ripley represented Respondent.
The Statement of Alleged Misconduct reflects the following violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct: 1.2 (Scope of Representation and Allocation of Authority Between Client and Lawyer), 1.7 (Conflict of Interest: Current Clients), 1.15A (Safeguarding Property), 1.15B (Required Trust Account Records), 4.1 (Truthfulness in Statements to Others), 4.3 (Dealing with Unrepresented Person), 8.1 (Bar Admission and Disciplinary Matters), 8.4(c) (Dishonesty, Fraud, Deceit or Misrepresentation), 8.4(d) (Prejudicial to the Admin of Justice).
Hodari’s alleged misconduct includes: 1) Concurrently representing two clients in the same transaction when there was a significant risk that the representation of one would be materially limited by Respondent’s responsibilities to the other, without having first obtained informed consent of each client in writing; 2) Failing to disclose Respondent’s concurrent representation of a client while stating and implying that Respondent was disinterested, and by failing to make reasonable efforts to clarify a contracting party’s misunderstanding regarding Respondent’s role in the transactions with one of his clients when the contracting party was not represented by counsel and when Respondent reasonably should have known that the contracting party misunderstood Respondent’s role; 3) By falsely stating that Respondent represented only one client and did not represent the other; 4) By making a false statement to ODC during a disciplinary investigation; 5) By failing to maintain a check register or equivalent for Respondent’s trust account; 6) By failing to maintain client ledgers; 7) By failing to properly reconcile the check register to the bank statements and failing to properly reconcile the check register to the combined total of all client ledgers; 8) By failing to maintain copies of deposit slips and cancelled checks for Respondent’s trust account.
Decision document: Resignation Form of Ajili Hodari ELC 9.3(b).
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