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State Supreme Court Orders Disbarment of San Francisco Lawyer for Self-Dealing
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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DREXEL ANDREW BRADSHAW |
The California Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, on Thursday ordered that San Francisco attorney Drexel Andrew Bradshaw be disbarred from the practice of law for engaging in a scheme to defraud by repeatedly hiring and paying a contracting company he controlled—without disclosing his financial ties to the business—to perform repair work on the home of an elderly client for whom he was appointed conservator, as well as trustee over her estate.
Five charges were brought against the lawyer in 2017 relating to his conduct after he was retained by Ora Gosey in 2006. Gosey, who was 78 years old at the time, hired his firm, Bradshaw & Associates PC, to prepare an estate plan.
As part of that plan, the Gosey Revocable Living Trust was established to provide for her care during her lifetime. The trust’s estate consisted primarily of Gosey’s home in San Francisco and its accompanying rental unit.
Gosey expressed a strong preference to remain in her home if she became incapacitated, a status she achieved in 2013 following a hospital stay and a dementia diagnosis. After potential trustees declined to serve, Bradshaw successfully petitioned the probate court to be appointed and to serve as her conservator.
Following his appointment, he helped a handyman, Juan Gonzalez, to incorporate a construction company named Bay Construction Inc. Bradshaw was the sole authorized signatory on the construction firm’s bank account and designated himself as the corporate president on financial documents; the business also employed Bradshaw’s son.
After Gonzalez was unsuccessful at obtaining licensure as a contractor, Bradshaw hired a licensee who lived most of the time in Idaho to serve as the managing officer. Bay Construction then successfully obtained a contracting license.
The Gosey Revocable Living Trust paid over $150,000 to Bay Construction for various home improvement projects in 2015, including remediation efforts following a burst pipe and repairs to a back staircase and the rear foundation of the home. In documents filed with the probate court in 2015, Bradshaw said he shared “no relationship or affiliation” with any entity he hired as trustee and later declared that he had no financial interest in Bay Construction.
He also charged $2,675.29 to one of Bay Construction’s credit cards for various personal purchases such as snowboarding expenses and fees associated with the Presidio Social Club. In August 2018, State Bar Court Judge Yvette D. Roland recommended disbarment following a 22-day trial on the disciplinary charges. Roland found Bradshaw culpable on three counts—creating a scheme to defraud, breaching fiduciary duties, and making misrepresentations to the probate court.
In 2019, the Review Department disagreed, ordering the case dismissed after finding that the lawyer’s culpability was not established by clear and convincing evidence. The three-judge panel was persuaded by the fact that it was undisputed that the work performed by the firm was of a professional quality and priced fairly, and that the trust expressly allowed for the hiring of a “business in which the Trustee has an interest.”
After the State Bar’s Office of the Chief Trial Counsel appealed, the Supreme Court ordered that the Review Department reconsider its decision in light of a 2022 decision by the First District Court of Appeal affirming the removal of Bradshaw as trustee after concluding that the superior court’s findings that he had breached his fiduciary duties were supported by substantial evidence.
On remand, State Bar Court Judges W. Kearse McGill and Richard A. Honn noted that the evidentiary threshold applicable to disciplinary charges is higher than the preponderance of the evidence standard applied in the probate matter, and affirmed the dismissal of all but one count of misconduct.
The judges said that “[a]fter consideration of the superior court decision, we find that Bradshaw should have been more careful in his statements before the court” and recommended that he be “suspended from the practice of law for one year, that execution of that suspension be stayed, and that he be placed on probation for two years.”
Tamara M. Ribas dissented, saying she agreed with Roland’s culpability findings and arguing that “disbarment is the appropriate discipline.”
Both sides appealed.
Supreme Court’s View
Justice Goodwin H. Liu authored Thursday’s opinion calling for Bradshaw’s disbarment, saying:
“Considering the totality of the circumstances, we find Bradshaw culpable of engaging in a scheme to defraud the Gosey Trust by clear and convincing evidence.”
He opined:
“Bradshaw’s attempts at self-enrichment through hiring and paying a company he effectively controlled, coupled with the failure to disclose the arrangement, created a heightened risk that Trust funds would not be spent in good faith or in the best interest of Gosey. Bradshaw exhibited ‘conduct on the part of a member of the bar which cannot be condoned,” whether or not his action caused material damage to Gosey or the Trust.’ ”
As to Bradshaw’s breach of his fiduciary duties, the jurist wrote:
“In finding no culpability for breach of fiduciary duty, the Review Department emphasized that Gosey was not harmed because there is no evidence that the repair work was not done competently at fair market value. But culpability on this count does not turn on actual harm to the client, monetary or otherwise. We have consistently rejected a harm requirement in evaluating culpability for attorney misconduct; instead, we have evaluated the degree of harm as an aggravating factor in the discipline phase.”
He continued:
“Even accepting that Bay Construction’s repairs on Gosey’s home were done competently at fair market value, we do not agree that a trustee, acting as a prudent person in this context, would award over $150,000 of work to a company he controlled without obtaining competitive bids. In addition, the Trust instrument did not exempt Bradshaw from the duty to disclose his financial ties with Bay Construction under rules 1.7 and 1.8.1 of the Rules of Professional Conduct.”
Intentional Misrepresentations
Addressing the misstatements, Liu declared:
“We have no difficulty concluding that clear and convincing evidence shows Bradshaw intentionally misrepresented his relationship with Bay Construction and Gonzalez….This conclusion is…bolstered by the superior court’s findings that Bradshaw lied when he testified that he had no financial interest in Bay Construction and that Gonzalez ran the company, prepared the company’s bids, and made the decision to hire Bradshaw’s son.”
With these findings in mind, the justice wrote:
“Here, the Review Department’s disciplinary recommendation was based on its finding of three instances of grossly negligent misrepresentation. We have found Bradshaw culpable for more severe and extensive misconduct, and thus we consider the appropriate discipline accordingly.”
Noting a prior disciplinary proceeding in which he was subject to a private reproval for failing to inform a client of the full amount of a check he received on her behalf and “repeatedly deflect[ing]” responsibility in the present matter, the court concluded:
“Because the totality of the circumstances shows that Bradshaw has repeatedly failed to uphold the most basic duties of an attorney, we are compelled to find him unfit to serve as a member of the bar or an officer of the court.”
The case is In re Bradshaw, S282314.
Additional disciplinary charges were filed against Bradshaw last year accusing him of inappropriately paying himself $1.3 million in fees from a trust fund set up to benefit a man suffering from mental problems. In September, State Bar Court Judge Phong Wang found him culpable of multiple counts of misconduct and recommended disbarment.
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