Rafidi resigns from the practice of law

By Peter H. Milliken

The former attorney was suspended from law practice for six months in 2007.

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court has accepted the resignation of Joseph F. Rafidi, a former Youngstown lawyer, from the practice of law in Ohio.

The court announced Wednesday that it had accepted Rafidi’s resignation with disciplinary action pending against him.

In the affidavit of resignation from Ohio law practice, which he signed on Feb. 12, Rafidi, 56, of Nashua Drive, Austintown, said he is not licensed to practice law in any jurisdiction outside Ohio.

That affidavit says his resignation from Ohio law practice “is unconditional, final and irrevocable.”

The high court’s disciplinary counsel alleged Rafidi falsely claimed that his law firm paid $8,000 in cash for a 19-foot powerboat when, in fact, Rafidi had accepted the boat from a client as part of a retainer fee for legal services in 2006.

The report noted Rafidi’s no-contest plea in Youngstown Municipal Court to a misdemeanor motor-vehicle title offense in the case. Judge Elizabeth Kobly found him guilty of that offense and fined him $200 last year. Earlier this year, Rafidi made and withdrew a motion to seal that case record.

The disciplinary counsel said Rafidi violated provisions in the lawyers’ code of conduct, which say lawyers shall not engage in fraud, dishonesty, deceit or misrepresentation; and that they shall not engage in conduct that adversely reflects on their fitness to practice law. The disciplinary counsel’s complaint is being dismissed with Rafidi’s resignation.

This isn’t the first time Rafidi has faced disciplinary action concerning his law license.

In July 2007, Ohio’s top court suspended Rafidi from law practice for six months after finding that he inappropriately used a client to gain access to the client’s cousin, who also needed legal help.

The high court said representing both clients simultaneously, despite a potential conflict of interest and without informing either client, was wrong.

“Rafidi committed multiple ethical violations when he failed to disclose conflicts in his representation of two clients, and he took advantage of an incarcerated individual’s vulnerability to further his own monetary self-interest,” the court said in the 2007 suspension case.

Rafidi, who began practicing law in Ohio in 2000, was representing a man in a drug case when he learned that the man’s cousin had been arrested and needed representation, the decision said.

Rafidi’s actions in soliciting one man “were clearly motivated by his financial interest in a client who would generate a fee of $20,000, compared with the $250 that he had received” from the first man, the decision said.

When he was suspended in 2007, Rafidi said: “The buck stops here. I take full responsibility for anything that happened and accept the suspension.”

In addition to having been a lawyer, Rafidi is a former Youngstown school-board member and ran unsuccessfully for city clerk of courts in 1999.

Neither Rafidi, nor his lawyer, John B. Juhasz, could be reached to comment on Rafidi’s resignation.