February 2025

SUSPENSION

Fernando Emmanuel Vargas
State Bar # 302550, San Francisco (December 26, 2024)

Vargas was suspended from practicing law for 18 months and placed on probation for three years. He was originally charged with seven counts of professional misconduct; the hearing judge below found him culpable of six of them.

Vargas appealed, and the panel in the present case found him culpable of four counts involving moral turpitude: threatening to file reports with the IRS and a complaint to the State Bar to gain advantage in a civil suit, breaching his fiduciary duty to a former client, as well as falsifying a signature and misrepresenting facts related to legal documents and other acts involving dishonesty in dealings with the client.

In the underlying matter, Vargas became romantically involved with a woman; the two of them agreed to sublease an apartment together in San Francisco, where he lived. Their relationship soon soured, and the woman then stated she would not pay a portion of the rent. Despite their contretemps, Vargas agreed to represent the woman in a landlord/tenant matter related to another residence; they had no formal written fee agreement for the representation. The woman testified that she provided Vargas with a copy of her digital signature, but specified that it only be used "for changes that needed to be done" in her case, and not on a fee agreement.

Their relationship deteriorated further, with Vargas threatening to withdraw from representation, demanding a $1,000 fee to "keep working on the case," and alternately declaring his love and sending legal threats as well as crude sexual email messages to the woman. She eventually retained new counsel; Vargas asserted a lien for attorney fees for the past representation, and ultimately received $4,000 in attorney fees in the matter.

When new counsel requested an original signed retainer agreement, Vargas produced a fabricated and backdated one with the woman's digital signature affixed to it. Vargas then filed a complaint with the State Bar, alleging that new counsel sought an excessive fee, developed a personal relationship with the client, and had interfered is his own attorney/client relationship with her. He also filed a small claims case against the woman for alleged breach of a rental agreement--later promising to dismiss the case if she would spend time with him. In addition, Vargas threatened to report her and her father to the IRS so she would not disappear "with everythign [sic] I have left." The State Bar's Office of Chief Trial Counsel also produced evidence that Vargas had accessed several of the woman's online accounts; he later admitted to doing so.

The woman testified at trial that she had been traumafied by Vargas's behavior, and had changed all her contact information and her residence to avoid any further contact with him.

In aggravation, Vargas committed multiple acts of misconduct that significantly harmed a client, and was given moderated aggravating weight for demonstrating indifference toward rectifying or atoning for the consequences of his wrongdoing.

In mitigation, he was allotted moderate weight for experiencing extreme emotional difficulties from which he failed to show full rehabilitation, as well as some weight for evidence from two character witnesses--only one of whom had full knowledge of the extent of his misconduct.

--Barbara Kate Repa