LOS ANGELES — The State Bar Court of California recently terminated a suspension order against Ingrid Marie Causey, a South Pasadena attorney, after she passed the the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), which was required after her July 2015 suspension.
She was ordered active Dec. 21, 2016 and is currently eligible to practice law in California.
According to the court's Nov. 28 decision, the attorney’s initial 90-day suspension and two-year probation order was a result of her misconduct in several loan modification services matters.
The charges stem from four client matters, the first of which began in June 2013. Causey was hired by a woman for loan modification services for an advanced fee of $3,100. However, the attorney allegedly did not fully perform services for her, and the firm for which Causey worked eventually dropped the client when it learned she had put her home up for sale. After a complaint was made to the California State Bar, Causey refunded the client’s money.
In the second matter, Causey’s firm was hired for an advanced fee of $3,600 to represent a man in a loan modification in Connecticut, a state where the attorney is not licensed to practice. Another full refund was issued to the client after a complaint was filed against Causey.
The second and third matters are similar, with the attorney accepting advanced fees and practicing law in Texas, another state where she is not licensed to practice.
As part of the suspension order, Causey was provided with several conditions and tasks to complete before reinstatement, including taking and passing the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). The attorney did not meet the MPRE requirement in the time frame allowed and was suspended until she could submit proof of passing the exam to the California State Bar.
The Los Angeles County attorney is a graduate of Vassar College and obtained her law degree from the University of Southern California Law School. She was admitted to the California State Bar in 1993 and had no record of discipline prior to the 2015 suspension.