SAN FRANCISCO (Northern California Record) — Los Angeles attorney Sheen Myong Na faces probation following recommendations in a March 5 State Bar of California decision over nine counts of misconduct in four client matters.
A state bar hearing committee recommended Sheen receive a stayed three-year suspension and be placed on three years probation, according to the 26-page decision issued by the state bar court. Allegations against Sheen include failures to perform legal services with competence, to provide an accounting and to refund $5,300 in unearned fees.
The state bar's decision is pending final action by the California Supreme Court, an appeal before the state bar's review department or expiration of time in which parties can request further review within the state bar court.
Sheen's recommended discipline was among the dispositions filed earlier this month by the state bar court's hearing department for March. Sheen was admitted to the bar in California on Dec. 3, 1982, according to his profile at the state bar website.
In one of the client matters that lead to the state bar's recommendation that Sheen be suspended, a client who hired Sheen in an immigration case October 2015 fired him after the attorney failed to file timely, which could have resulted in cancellation of the client's registration. The client also demanded Sheen refund a little more than $1,800 in fees, which Sheen refused to do and told the client to leave his office.
"An altercation ensued and police responded to the scene," the decision said.
Sheen refunded the fees after the client filed a complaint, according to the decision.
Sheen had two prior disciplines in California, according to the decision. Sheen was privately reproved in 2013 after failure to return unearned fees to one client and failure to perform services with competence for another. In that proceeding, the misconduct occurred between October 2011 and February 2012. Sheen, otherwise, had no prior record of discipline in almost 30 years of legal practice.
In January 2015, Sheen was again publicly reproved after he stipulated to having done little or no work on a client's immigration case between March 2009 and March 2014, and then agreeing with the client to provide legal services in exchange for withdrawing the disciplinary complaint.