by Richard W. Millar, Jr.

Years ago—it’s hard to believe it has been that long—I wrote a column entitled “LLPOF” which described what one judge had handwritten across a lawyer’s brief. To those of us old enough to remember, the acronym stands for “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” It is safe to say that when a judge writes that across one of your papers, your credibility has taken a hit.

Years later, I wrote another column about a lawyer whose pants caught on fire during final argument, which was deliciously bad timing, because of a faulty electronic cigarette in his front pocket.

I have not researched how many times variants of “Liar, liar” have surfaced in appellate decisions, but a sideways reference recently came out of Ohio.

One Jasen Allan Sarver, now a former lawyer, was the subject of an opinion of the Supreme Court of Ohio reviewing a recommendation of the Board of Professional Conduct that he be disbarred.

In 2018, the court had suspended him for two years “for engaging in a sexual relationship with an indigent client, lying about that relationship to the judge who was presiding over the client’s criminal case, and engaging in illegal activity by advising the client to turn off her phone’s GPS while there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest.”

In 2019, disciplinary counsel charged him with filing a false affidavit of compliance and continuing to practice whilst under suspension as well as other misconduct.

According to the court, Mr. Sarver was pursuing a wrongful death claim on behalf of a decedent’s minor son whose mother had been killed in a collision with a wrong-way driver. He negotiated a settlement with the other driver’s insurance carrier for policy limits of $50,000. He claimed that he was told by a magistrate that he could “streamline” the process by disbursing some of the proceeds to family members so that the son’s distribution would be less than $25,000. The magistrate in question unsurprisingly testified that no such conversation ever took place and Mr. Sarver testified that he “did not believe her testimony was false or incorrect.”

In December 2018, one month after he had been suspended, he filed an affidavit of compliance with the court averring that he had given the requisite notices of his suspension. However, he did not notify his wrongful death client, the insurance carrier, or the probate court and, just two days after his suspension, he wrote a letter to the Ohio Victims of Crime Compensation Program asserting his representation and on the same day forged his client’s signature on a settlement release, falsely notarized it, and sent it to the carrier.

He received the carrier’s settlement check, endorsed his client’s name, deposited it in his trust account, and distributed funds without the probate court’s approval, which might have been hard to obtain since “he began paying personal financial obligations directly from his client trust account with what he calculated to be his earned fee.”

The Supreme Court also noted that Mr. Sarver had pled guilty to three counts of misdemeanor criminal trespassing and a misdemeanor count of obstructing official business. The trespass counts were for the “unauthorized” use of his neighbor’s hot tub to have sex with his client and the obstruction count related to his advice to her to turn off her phone’s GPS.

Tallying falsehoods, the court said that “he lied by omission” by continuing to represent the estate while under suspension, “he expressly lied to this court” in his affidavit of compliance, “then building on his lies, [he] forged his client’s name to the . . . settlement check, then disbursed funds to individuals with absolutely no entitlement” thereto, without the authority of the probate court—all while suspended. “Making things worse, Sarver attempted to justify his actions . . . by falsely accusing a magistrate . . . of advising him to reduce the amount of the estate . . . to avoid certain probate proceedings.”

Then the clincher:
This is a pattern of misconduct continued from Sarver I, in which he lied to the trial court multiple times and likely to numerous other individuals. We can only assume that Sarver’s “pants are charred” from the number of falsehoods he has perpetuated throughout Sarver I and this case.
Looks like Mr. Sarver went down in flames.

Richard W. Millar, Jr. is Of Counsel with the firm of FSG Lawyers PC in Irvine. He can be reached at rmillar@fsglawyers.com.