Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
In 2023, Molly Jansen O’Brien (formerly Molly Falk Jansen) was suspended for one year and one day for misconduct while representing an incarcerated client in 2021. According to the opinion, O’Brien conferred with her client only once during the representation, and she did not provide him with a written document that described the basis or rate of her fee. During the representation, O’Brien stipulated to a six-month suspension of her law license.
But she did not promptly notify her client or the court presiding over his case that her law license had been suspended until two days before the suspension took effect. In her motion to withdraw from the case, O’Brien did not disclose her upcoming suspension. Instead, she made an inaccurate statement about why she sought to withdraw, according to the disciplinary opinion.
Also during the representation, O’Brien resolved a traffic case that she believed involved her client but that actually concerned an individual with the client’s first and last name. O’Brien never independently verified that the case involved her client and never communicated with him about resolving the matter.
Following a hearing, the hearing board concluded that O’Brien failed to show by clear and convincing evidence that she is rehabilitated from her misconduct and that she is fit to practice law.
The hearing board denied O’Brien’s reinstatement to the practice of law in Colorado. O’Brien may not again petition for reinstatement for at least two years after the date the opinion issued.
People v. Laurel Meyers Byrnes
In March 2023, during a pretrial conference in her client’s domestic relations matter, Laurel Meyers Byrnes represented to the presiding judge that the opposing party was preventing the parties’ child from attending a home visit with the client and was interfering in the court-ordered child and family investigation. The opposing party was not present at the conference and was represented by covering counsel, who was unfamiliar with the details of the case and did not dispute Meyers Byrnes’s statements.
The judge continued the upcoming permanent orders hearing based on Meyers Byrnes’s uncontested representations. But the statements were inaccurate and misleading, according to the disciplinary opinion. In fact, the home visit was scheduled to take place that afternoon following the pretrial conference, and the client had informed Meyers Byrnes that the child was not comfortable staying with them other than for the home visit.
After the home visit that afternoon, the opposing counsel notified Meyers Byrnes that the home visit had been completed. The opposing counsel also filed a forthwith request for a status conference, stating that Meyers Byrnes had provided false or incomplete information to the court at the pretrial conference. In her response to that filing, Meyers Byrnes did not correct her earlier misstatements and accused the court clerks of misunderstanding or misconstruing what she said at the pretrial conference.
The judge issued an order, expressing concerns that Meyers Byrnes had presented false or misleading information and that she had not corrected the record despite having opportunities to do so. The court rescinded the order continuing the permanent orders hearing, and the case proceeded on roughly its original timeline.
The presiding disciplinary judge approved Meyers Byrnes’s stipulation to discipline and suspended her for one year and one day, all to be stayed upon Meyers Byrnes’s successful completion of a two-year period of probation, which carries conditions. Meyers Byrnes’s probation takes effect Dec. 18.