On Wednesday, November 30, 2022, the Supreme Court of Ohio suspended Brecksville Attorney Donald Bryan Ferfolia Jr. from the practice of law for one year with the entire suspension stayed with conditions.
The case, titled Disciplinary Counsel v. Ferfolia, was brought by Disciplinary Counsel. Case #2022-0715.
The charges cited Ferfolia’s violation of Professional Conduct Rules 1.3, 1.4(a)(4), 1.16(d), 8.1(b), and 8.4(c), which require:
A lawyer to act with reasonable diligence in representing a client
A lawyer to comply as soon as practicable with reasonable requests for information from a client
A lawyer to promptly deliver client papers and property as part of the termination of representation
A lawyer from failing to disclose a material fact or knowingly failing to disclose a material fact or knowingly failing to respond to a demand for information by a disciplinary authority during an investigation
Prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation
The rules of professional conduct can be found online at this link.
The following are as alleged and summarized from the filing:
This disciplinary matter charges Ferfolia with five ethical violations arising from the representation of a husband and wife seeking long-term-care Medicaid benefits for the husband. The complaint alleged that Ferfolia failed to timely take actions necessary to obtain the desired Medicaid benefits, failed to comply with his clients’ reasonable requests for information, falsely led them to believe that he had filed a claim on their behalf with his professional-liability-insurance carrier, and failed to cooperate in the disciplinary investigation.
According to the filing:
‘On December 10, 2019, ODJFS informed Ferfolia that he needed to submit additional documents in support of Charles’s Medicaid application no later than December 23. . . Ferfolia did not submit the requested documents to ODJFS before the deadline or take any other action to confirm Charles’s Medicaid eligibility, nor did he take any steps to open a qualified-income trust on Charles’s behalf. Over the following months, Ferfolia failed to respond to numerous communications from Rita, Janice, and Megan Marzola, the nursing home’s Medicaid manager, inquiring about the status of Charles’s Medicaid application.’
The filing continues:
‘The parties stipulated that as a result of Ferfolia’s failure to recognize the need for and to timely establish a qualified-income trust for Charles,the Schnurrs had incurred over $87,000 in nursing-home expenses that otherwise would have been covered by Medicaid. After Charles died in January 2021, Rita and Janice used his life-insurance proceeds and government-stimulus funds to pay those expenses in full. Although Rita asked Ferfolia to return the paperwork she had given him during the course of his representation, he waited nearly two years to return those documents to her.’
The filing additionally notes:
‘The parties entered into stipulations of fact, misconduct, and aggravating and mitigating factors. At a hearing conducted by a three-member panel of the Board of Professional Conduct, the parties recommended that we impose a conditionally stayed one-year suspension for Ferfolia’s misconduct. The board issued a report finding that Ferfolia committed the charged misconduct. It also adopted the parties’ stipulated aggravating and mitigating factors and their recommended sanction—with additional conditions on the stay.’
Neither Ferfolia nor the Relator objected to the Board’s Report.
With the foregoing facts and discussion, the Court ruled against Ferfolia for his violations of the above-cited Rules of Professional Conduct.
The dispositive portion of the Slip Opinion reads:
“Accordingly, Donald Bryan Ferfolia Jr. is suspended from the practice of law in Ohio for one year with the suspension stayed in its entirety on the conditions that he commit no further misconduct and that within 30 days, he pay the balance of the judgment entered against him in Schnurr v. Ferfolia, Summit C.P. No. CV-2020-12-3358, and submit to an OLAP evaluation. If Ferfolia violates any condition of the stay, the stay will be lifted and he will serve the entire one-year suspension. If OLAP determines that treatment is necessary, the stay shall also be conditioned on Ferfolia’s entering into an OLAP contract for a duration to be determined by OLAP and his complying with all treatment recommendations. Costs are taxed to Ferfolia.’
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Ferfolia practices in Brecksville, Ohio as a funeral director and board vice president of Ferfolia Funeral Homes, Inc. He graduated from the University of Akron School of Law in 2007. Ferfolia has been licensed in Ohio, license #0082049.
A copy of the original filing can be found here.
