SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA

SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA

THE FLORIDA BAR, Case No.SC02-1750 Lower Tribunal.: 2001-50 875 (17J)

vs. ARTHUR NATHANIEL RAZOR,

_________________________________________ RESPONDENT / APPELLANTS INITIAL BRIEF

_____________________________ Miles J. Gopman, Esq. #226920 Counsel for the Respondent/Appellant 2630 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 104 Hollywood, Florida 33020 954-929-2111

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Statement of the Case.......................................................................... page

1

Facts ....................................................................................................page

37

Summary of Argument........................................................................page

42

Argument ...........................................................................................page

44

Conclusion .........................................................................................page

46

Certificate of Compliance...................................................................page

47

Certificate of Service .........................................................................page

48

STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND FACTS

A. Introduction Because the Respondent has been unable to discover what documents are

before this Honorable Court, and because no Index to the Record on Appeal was prepared, he has created his own Record on Appeal, furnished with this Brief, and comprised of documentary exhibits that have been combined into three separate appendices.

Appendix I encompasses documents that were included in the record before the grievance committee, the Referee, and that were presented at trial in this matter. It also includes court records that the Respondent had asked the grievance committee to review and consider and which he introduced at the trial.

Appendix II consists of the formal filings before the Referee, including the pleadings, Respondent's motions, orders, discovery filings, and correspondence related to the formalities.

Appendix III consists of the Respondent's evidentiary motions and matters of public record in Palm Beach County for which compulsory judicial notice was requested by the Respondent. There is a considerable amount of duplication or overlap in the documents included in these appendices because a number of the documents contained in Appendix I were relied upon as exhibits in support of

several of the Respondent's motions that are contained in Appendix II. In addition, some of the document's contained in Appendix I are also attached as exhibits to various filings that are contained in Appendix III. Also the filings in Appendix III included sone of the same attachments.

Reference to a document contained it these Appendices will be as follows: " ( App__, Ex. ___)". There will also be transcript references. There is a two volume set of transcripts from the Trial on April 2, 2003 whose pagination is continuous. Page references in this set of transcripts will be referred to as follows: "(T.T. ____)". There is a single volume transcript from the sanction hearing on May 1st, 2003. Any page reference to this transcript will be as follows: "(S.T. ____)".

The most significant set of documents to the issues raised in the Respondent's Petition for Review are those contained in Appendix III. Of these, special attention must be given to the Respondent's Motion to Dismiss for Sham, Constitutionally Infirm Proceedings before the Grievance Committee; Respondent's Request for Compulsory Judicial Notice; and Respondent's Motion for Reconsideration and/or to Alter and Amend the Referee's Report, for these demonstrate the utter disregard for any procedural fairness, credible evidence much lees any clear and convincing evidence, documentary proof and the governing legal provisions of the Florida Bar, by the grievance committee and the Referee. And, in large measure, these filings provide the basis for the legal arguments that support the issues raised by the Respondent in his Petition for Review before this Court. In fact, the documents contained in Appendices I and II do little more than describe the

procedural irregularities and improper conduct by the grievance committee; and the Respondent's repeated but wholly unsuccessful efforts to have the Referee take notice of the sharp disparity between the allegations of the formal complaint and the documentary record.

The Respondent actually prevailed upon the claims in his pretrial motions, since not a single factual allegation of the formal complaint was sustained in the Referee's Findings of Fact and Judgment, dated April 9th, 2003; or in his Report dated May 9th, 2003. Not a single act of misconduct described in the Referee's Report be traced to the facts alleged in the formal complaint filed by the Florida Bar.

It should be noted that prior to the issuance of the formal complaint, some exercise of discretion may have taken place, by either the designated reviewer, or by the disciplinary review committee, because the formal complaint allegations related solely to Respondent's former client, Rochelle Stefanovic, and not the non client complaint before the grievance committee, from Kristine Densley. The irony here is that the sanctions are predicated upon the allegations in the Densley complaint but not Stefanovic's.

It is unknown where the Referee derived the information he used to make the finding in his Judgment and subsequent Report, but it certainly was not in reliance upon the evidence at the trial or the documentary record. The Referee never even bothered to review the transcripts from the trial in making his findings (he seemingly was content to rely just upon the arguments of Bar Counsel even when

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